How to Google Effectively

If it were to be said that internet starts with Google, it wouldn't be wrong.


Google is the most used search engine in the world and its website, the most visited.


Google's penetration in everyday life is so gigantic that the word Google has been officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb (to google: using Google search engine to obtain information on the web).

Human beings are fast becoming infovores. Everyday, a significant amount of time is spent googling.

So here comes a set of tricks about How to google effectively.




>> Phrase search (" ")

If you are looking for a certain phrase, type the exact phrase in quotes (" ") in the Google search bar for desired results.

For example: If you search for the term John Kennedy, webpages with term John Fitzgerald Jack Kennedy will also appear among the search results. This can be bypassed by typing "John Kennedy" (query in quotes).



>> Excluding certain terms (-)

Should you wish to exclude a certain word in search results, put a minus sign (-) immediately before the word that you want to exclude.



>> Searching exactly as is (+)

Sometimes Google's algorithms act a little too smart and automatically displays the synonym of the word that you searched for in search results. If you want to bypass that and want the exact same words to appear in the search results, just add a plus sign (+) immediately before the words.



>> Searching within a site

Sometimes, you may have to search for a certain keyword within a website.
In order to do so, just type the keyword followed by site:example.com

For example: searching the word funny clip on YouTube.

Type funny clip site:youtube.com in the search bar.



>> Definition of a word

You can view the definitions of a word by typing define: word.

for example: for viewing the definition of the word technology

Type define:technology



>> Cinema search: movie location, schedule etc.

For searching movies in your locality,

Type movie:your location

For example, type movie:Los Angeles or movie:Paris or movie:Mumbai accordingly.



>> Searching for a certain filetype:

If you want to narrow down your search to a certain filetype, type the keyword followed by filetype:type of the file (such as .pdf, .xls etc.)

For example, searching all the pdf documents containing the word technology
type technology filetype:pdf



>> Searching a Cached page:

Google keeps a cache of all the indexed pages on its servers. It can be used as a free proxy.

If your company has blocked a certain website, you can take a peek by checking out Google's cache of the website.

You can search for cached pages by typing cache:example.com

For example cache:google.com will show the cached pages of Google's website.



>> Similarly Google can perform mathematical calculations (type any expression such as 2*2, 9+6 etc. in search bar), conversions (kilograms to pounds) etc.

If you don't want to remember these commands, you can easily find many such features in the "Advanced Search" option right next to the search bar.

If I have missed anything important, just mention that in the comments.