Google Search Tips & Tricks

Muhammad Yasir Bhutta

(yasribhutta@gmail.com)
Nowadays, Internet is used widely to gather information. Internet has billions of web pages and
Google has seen a new landmark of 1 Trillion unique URLs(Web Addresses). According to private
research, internet has at least 27 billion web pages and could have as many as 58 billion web pages.
Internet has approximately 240 million sites, an increase of around 1.5 million sites per month as
shown by NETCRAFT. So, to get required information from World Wide Web, we need a program
that makes searches for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords
were found that is called as search engine. Google, a search engine that was launched in 1998 is the
most used search engine on the web with a 53.6% market share, ahead of Yahoo! (19.9%) and Live
Search (12.9%).Google indexes billions of Web pages, so that users can search for the information
they desire, through the use of keywords and operators. When we enter query in Google search
engine, results are generated by searching over 8 billons web pages.
These are some important keys that will be very beneficial to refine our search queries and helpful to
get required results.

1. Query Refinement
1.1. Synonymous
If you want to search for your search term as well as for its synonyms, place the tilde sign (~)
immediately in front of your search term.
Example
➢ ~Home
1.1.Plus (+) Operator
Google ignores common words and characters such as: Where, the, How, Digits, letters that
slow down your search without improving the results. To search for common words put “+”
sign in front of it.
Example
➢ peanut butter +and jelly (In this way the word “and” will not be neglected as in
example)
1.1. Phrase
To search complete phrase, you should surround it by quotes
Example
➢ "there’s no smoke without fire"
1.1. Related Search
To search for web pages that have similar content to a given site, type "related:" followed by
the website address into the Google search box.
Example
➢ related:www.cnn.com
1.1. “I’m feeling lucky”
Click on "I'm feeling lucky" button on Google search engine home page, if you're searching
for the web site of a company or the official site of a product. "I'm feeling lucky" sends you
to the first search result.
Example
➢ HEC
➢ toyota pakistan
1.1. Top Results from Wikipedia
Wikipedia is free encyclopedia that has more than 2.9 millions articles. Add "wiki" or
"wikipedia" to your Google search query to find the top results from Wikipedia.
 Example
➢ wikipedia agriculture
➢ wikipedia world wide web

1.1. OR Operator
Google's main search invisibly combines search terms with the Boolean construct "AND".
When you enter smoke fire – it looks for smoke AND fire. To make Google search for
smoke or fire, just type smoke OR fire .Instead of OR you can type the | symbol, like this:
smoke | fire
1. Reference Tools
1.1. Calculator
To use Google's built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation you'd like done
into the search box and press enter key.
Example
➢ 36*56-2/6+23+(4-1+2)
1.1. Unit Conversion
You can use Google to convert between many different units of measurement of height,
weight, and volume among many others. Just enter your desired conversion into the search
box
Examples
➢ 2.5 litre in ml
➢ 10.5 cm in inches
➢ 98 f to c (for 98 oF to oC conversion)
➢ 2476 in roman numerals
➢ 100 US dollars in Pakistani rupees
1. Important keywords
1.1. filetype
In normal search, Google returned URLs of web pages of different file types. To retrieved
search material of specific file type, we can use file type keyword.
Example:
➢ history of Google filetype:pdf (this will search only acrobat (pdf) files)
➢ pakistan filetype:ppt ( results will be Power Point presentation)
➢ project management filetype:doc (results will be documents in MS Word format)
1.1. site
If you want to perform a search query on specific site then site keyword is very useful to get
your query results from specific site.
Example:
➢ admission site:uaf.edu.pk
1.1. time
To find out current local time in any city or country of the world; we can use time keyword
followed by a state or country.
Example
➢ time Faisalabad
➢ time London
➢ time new york
1.1. Weather
To get weather forecasting
 Weather Multan
 Weather okara, Punjab
1.1. Population
To see trends for population and unemployment rates of U.S. states and others counties,
type "population" or "unemployment rate" followed by a state or county.
Example:
➢ population Lahore
➢ unemployment rate USA
➢ population China
1.1. Define
For looking definition of any keyword or phrase, you can use define keyword.
Example:
➢ define:foreign policy
➢ define:world wide web
1.1. Map
Looking for a map? Just type map followed by a state or country.
Example:
➢ map Lahore
➢ map Pakistan
1.1. Image
Google finds images just as easily and lists them at the top, when you add image to the end
of your search.
Example:
➢ karachi image
➢ school image
➢ red rose image
1.1. Intitle
Google has some very powerful, hidden search parameters, too. For example "intitle" only
searches page titles.
Example:
➢ intitle:herbs
1.1. Inurl
To perform search of query in only web address of a pages; you can use inurl
Example:
➢ inurl:herbs
1.1. Find Web Cam
Google provides an amazing features to find live webcams by using google searching
engine.To
find live webcams just type following query in search box
➢ inurl:view/view.shtml
1.1. Info
info:<site name> returns information about the specified page
Example:
➢ info:hec.gov.pk

1.1. Movie
movie :<name of film> to look for movie reviews.
1.2. Director
Try typing director :< name of film> into the main search box to get information about
film director
1.3. Cast
cast :<name of film> to look for movie cast.