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This post is by a guest blogger.

Ashish writes about security and technology at Technospot.net

Quick Tips on how to Search Using Google

One of the major complaints people have is “I can’t find this on google.” Which is surprising, because it’s the best search engine. It all comes down to knowing how to search. Here are some quick tips to help you become better at searching.

Use Quotes Around Phrases

If you want to look for a particular sentence or phrase, put it in “quotes“ so the search engine can understand you are looking for exactly that particular line. A good example is searching for an error message. Google will exactly find web pages with the error phrase. It works with names as well.

Example: “ashish mohta”

Exclude Unwanted Results

If you are getting too many results for a term you are not interested in you can exclude words by adding “-”(minus sign) before that word.

Example: bill gates vs bill gates -microsoft

Search Within a Site

Sometimes a site has a Google search engine on their home page, but not always. You can search within a specific site from anywhere using the “site:” keyword.

Example: site:engtech.wordpress.com harold vs harold

Use the Google Toolbar

There’s no need to set a home page or even visit Google’s website. With the toolbar you always have the ability to search Google from any web page. You can download it here.

Filter Search Results

If you see lot of porn material in your search, what you can do is click on Advanced Search and set “Safe Search option On “ or “Use Strict Filtering”.

Cached Result

If some page is taking too much time to load or does not exist anymore you can read Google’s copy of it. At the end of every search result there is one more link called “Cached Result”. If you click on it will show you Google’s copy of the page. However, it might not be the most updated version.

Quick Definitions

Did you know google can be used as a dictionary? Even I was surprised. Use the define: keyword at the front of your search.

Example: define: blogging

Example: define: cat

Find Keyword in Title or URL

Sometimes when we search for certain words, it is hard to find good results because the words are so common. You can choose a word to show up in the url or title by using inurl: or intitle:

Example: kathy sierra vs intitle:kathy sierra vs inurl:kathy sierra

Quick Calculator

Google can do math.

Example: 2 + 2, 5+2*2

Hidden Gems

Google has some more hidden gems like converting money, searching about movies (movie:) and questions and answers. You can read more about them here.

Reprinted with permission. You can read more from Ashish at Technospot.net

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