I don’t know about you, but the site that I use most frequently is Google. I have it set as my home page now, since I bring it up so much.
There are some time-saving tips for use with Google, in case you’re like me (always searching for something in a hurry.) Check out the Google Guide. Here are some of the more-useful search tips (excerpted right from the guide):
salsa –dance
the word salsa but NOT the word dance (that’s a minus sign before the ‘dance.’)
castle ~glossary
glossaries about castles, as well as dictionaries, lists of terms, terminology
define:imbroglio
definitions of the word imbroglio (or whatever word you’re looking up) from the Web
site:
Search only one website or domain.
Halloween site:www.census.gov
(Search for information on Halloween gathered by the US Census Bureau.)
link:
Find linked pages, i.e., show pages that point to the URL.
link:warriorlibrarian.com
(Find pages that link to Warrior Librarian‘s website.)
phonebook:
Show all phonebook listings.
phonebook: Disney CA
(Search for Disney’s phone numbers in California – CA.)
info:
(or id:)
Find info about a page.
info:www.theonion.com
(Find information about The Onion website.)
related:
List web pages that are similar or related to the URL.
related:www.healthfinder.gov
(Find websites related to the Healthfinder website.)
intitle:
The terms must appear in the title of the page.
movies comedy intitle:top ten
(Search for pages with the words movie and comedy that include top ten in the title of the page.)
It can be really frustrating to Google something specific and have thousands of unrelated hits come up. These are tools to narrow down what we’re looking for and get our information quicker—and get back to writing.
Thanks. There’s no telling how many helpful and time saving services the I-net has for us, but we don’t know about.
I use Google a lot too, but I’ve just been typing keywords into the search bar, and then weeding through all the garbage. Thanks for these time-saving tips. (If only I had more time to read the Google Guide!)
As your readers have come to expect—and always receive–relevant, useful and timely information. Thanks, Elizabeth for doing the legwork on this. I particularly like the function, Related. That one’s a keeper.
Best Regards, Galen
GalenKindley.com
Excellent and helpful post. I use Google a lot, but was unaware of some of these – thanks!
The Old Silly From Free Spirit blog
Glad y’all found it helpful.
I know it’s good for me to have narrow down my search results. Otherwise, I get way too distracted and go off on an unrelated tangent. Then, 45 minutes later….
Elizabeth
I didn’t know these options. Good information.
These are all new to me. Thanks!
JaneKennedySutton