Google Secrets You Must Know

Google is clearly the best general-purpose search engine on the Web, But most people don’t use it to its best advantage. Do you just plug in a keyword or two and hope for the best? That may be the quickest way to search, but with more than 4 billion pages in Google’s index, it’s still a struggle to pare results to a manageable number.

But Google is an remarkably powerful tool that can ease and enhance your Internet exploration. Google’s search options go beyond simple keywords, the Web, and even its own programmers. Let’s look at some of Google’s lesser-known options.

Syntax Search Tricks :

Using a special syntax is a way to tell Google that you want to restrict your searches to certain elements or characteristics of Web pages. Google has a fairly complete list of its syntax elements at:
www.google.com/help/operators.html

Here are some advanced operators that can help narrow down your search results.

1. Intitle: At the beginning of a query word or phrase (intitle:”TeChPatel.com – About Us”) restricts your search results to just the titles of Web pages.

2. Intext: Does the opposite of intitle:, searching only the body text, ignoring titles, links, and so forth. Intext: is perfect when what you’re searching for might commonly appear in URLs. If you’re looking for the term HTML, for example, and you don’t want to get results such as:
www.OurNifty.com/index.htm

you can enter intext:htm

3. Link: lets you see which pages are linking to your Web page or to another page you’re interested in. For example, try typing in

link:http://www.TechPatel.com

4. Try using site: (which restricts results to top-level domains) with intitle: to find certain types of pages. For example, get Tech Update pages searching for intitle:”TechPatel.com”site:edu. Experiment with mixing various elements; you’ll develop several strategies for finding the stuff you want more effectively. The site: command is very helpful as an alternative to the mediocre search engines built into many sites.

Google has a number of services that can help you accomplish tasks you may never have thought to use Google for. For example, the calculator feature

(www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator)

lets you do both math and a variety of conversions from the search box.

Let Google help you figure out whether you’ve got the right spelling—and the right word—for your search. Enter a misspelled word or phrase into the query box (try “farie tales”) and Google may suggest a proper spelling. This doesn’t always succeed; it works best when the word you’re searching for can be found in a dictionary. Once you search for a properly spelled word, look at the results page, which repeats your query. (If you’re searching for “fairy tales,” underneath the search window will appear a statement such as Searched the web for “fairy tales”) You’ll discover that you can click on each word in your search phrase and get a definition from a dictionary.

Suppose you want to contact someone and don’t have his phone number handy. Google can help you with that, too. Just enter a name, city, and state. (The city is optional, but you must enter a state.) If a phone number matches the listing, you’ll see it at the top of the search results along with a map link to the address. If you’d rather restrict your results, use rphonebook: for residential listings or bphonebook: for business listings.

Extended Googling:

Google Alert:

www.googlealert.com
Monitors your search terms and e-mails you information about new additions to Google’s Web index. (Google Alert is not affiliated with Google; it uses Google’s Web services API to perform its searches.) If you’re more interested in news stories than general Web content, check out the beta version of

Google News Alerts:

www.google.com/newsalerts
This service (which is affiliated with Google) will monitor up to 50 news queries per e-mail address and send you information about news stories that match your query. (Hint: Use the intitle: and source: syntax elements with Google News to limit the number of alerts you get.)

labs.google.com
A place for experimental Google ideas and features. Great area for developers.

In 2002, Google released the Google API (application programming interface), a way for programmers to access Google’s search engine results without violating the Google Terms of Service. A lot of people have created useful (and occasionally not-so-useful but interesting) applications not available from Google itself, such as Google Alert. For many applications, you’ll need an API key, which is available free from:

www.google.com/apis

Thanks to it, Google goes far beyond a regular search engine. Give the try to these tricks. You’ll be amazed at how many different ways Google can improve your Internet searching.