Search Engine Tips:
|
Though Google is the world's most popular search engine, most of its users don't make the most of its many special commands. The following are some guidelines for searching on Google and other search engines.
|
BASIC SEARCHES
|
Searching: thomas clark
finds pages containing both the terms "thomas" and "clark" |
Searching: "thomas clark"
finds-pages containing the exact phrase "thomas clark" |
|
Searching: thomas OR clark
finds pages containing either "thomas″; "clark" or both |
Searching: thomas -clark
finds pages containing "thomas" but not containing "clark"
|
|
Searching: "thomas clark" OR "tom clark" -economist
finds pages containing either name but not the word "economist″ |
FIND A DEFINITION
|
Searching: define:calabash
finds definitions from various sources for the word "calabash″
|
|
In Google, you can also get to a definition (from www.answers.com) of a search term by clicking the link in the right of the top blue strip on the results page.
Top of page
|
FIND A FLEXIBLE PHRASE
Use an asterisk as a substitute for any word in a phrase.
|
Searching: "tom * clark"
finds "tom frederick clark" as well as just "tom clark" |
Searching: ″* clark″
finds anyone listed on the web with the last name of ″clark″ |
SEARCH FOR A PAGE THAT NO LONGER EXISTS
Let's say you visit www.roughguides.com, a page you looked at the other day so you know it exists, but, to your horror, it doesn't seem to be there. Fear not, Google probably has a copy.
|
Searching: cache:www.roughguides.com
finds Google's "cached" (saved) snapshot of the page, if it has one. (You can reach the same page by searching for www.roughguides.com and then clicking the "cache" link underneath the relevant result.) |
Top of page
SEARCH WITHIN A SPECIFIC SITE
Use the site: command to search within a specific website. This usually gives more, better and more clearly presented results than the site's internal search would (if it has one at all).
|
Searching: site:www.guardian.co.uk "thomas clark" OR "tom clark"
finds pages containing either version of Thomas Clark's name within the web site of The Guardian newspaper. |
SEARCH TITLES
intitle: and allintitle: let you specify that one or all of your search terms should appear in the title of a webpage (the text that appears on the top bar of your browser window when viewing a page). This can be useful if you're getting lots of results that mention your terms but don't specifically focus on them. For example:
|
Searching: train bristol intitle:timetable
finds pages with "timetable" in their titles, and "train" and "bristol" anywhere in the page |
Top of page
SEARCH SPECIFIC FILE TYPES
The command filetype: lets you specify that your search terms should appear in a specific file, such as pdf, doc, or ppt format. For example:
|
Searching: filetype:pdf climate change statistics
finds pdf documents (likely to be more "serious" reports than webpages) containing the terms "climate", "change" and "statistics" |
SEARCH AUDIO OR MP3 FILES
|
Searching: ″mp3:Over the rainbow″
finds pages that deal with mp3 versions of Over the Rainbow |
Top of page
FIND LINKING PAGES
Links are usually one-way: you can see links from a page, but not links to a page. In Google, though, you can find out. For example:
|
Searching: link:www.roughguides.com/music/index.html
finds pages which have a link to the Rough Guides' music homepage |
CALCULATIONS & CONVERSIONS
OK, so it's not exactly searching, but most search engines can act as a calculator. It can cope with standard mathematical functions - such as * (multiply), / (divide), + (add), - (subtract) and ^ (raise to the power) - as well as hundreds of units of measurement, from Fahrenheit to hectares. For example:
|
Searching: 3465*34223
gives you the answer 118,582,695 |
Searching: (24-9)% of (36114 - 3)
gives you the answer 251,941.95 |
|
Searching: 51 Fahrenheit in Celsius
gives you the answer, 10.55 degrees Celsius
|
Searching: 5 gallons in teaspoons
gives you the answer "5 US gallons = 3840 US teaspoons" |
Top of page
MORE INFORMATION
M. Byrne, Rev'd May 2007