Tip of the Week: Google Like a Pro

ByMike Moffit

While there are plenty of viable search engines out there like Yahoo, Dogpile, and even Microsoft’s new Bing, we all know, love, and constantly use Google. There’s more to Google than simple search of the whole Internet. Here are a few ways to Google like a pro.

Exact phrase search is possible by wrapping your search terms in quotations marks. For example, “small dog electronics” vs. small dog electronics will bring up slightly different results, particularly if you use the Google News or Images service.

You can exclude words from a search by using a hyphen (-). Form your search for Lance Armstrong articles that don’t talk about doping by typing “Lance Armstrong” -doping.

You can get the definition of a word by typing define:obscure.

To show search results within a certain numerical range, you want to type your search terms followed by the range. For example, Michael Jackson 1970…1980.

For web sites with less-than-stellar search engines, why bother when you can use Google to search any page. For example, “small dog electronics” site:timesargus.com will give news in the Barre/Montpelier Times Argus newspaper.

If you read something fascinating and wonder who else links to the page you’re on, type link:twitter.com/hellosmalldog

Finally, you can do unit conversion right in Google. For example, 23 miles to km, 56 USD to Yen, 1 yard to meters.

I’m sure there is a ton of other stuff Google can do, but I’ll leave you with these Googling tips to find them for yourselves!

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