Google Search Tricks
Make your google search to have more accurate hits
Best place to hide a dead body is the second page of Google.
Searching google is hard, and we seldom want to go to the 2nd or 3rd page of Google search results. In this blog, we will see some options that will allow us to limit the number of unnecessary hits on our search.
Exclude terms
If we wish to remove some search terms which generally associated with search results we use - , before the term. The below query will give all links except the Wikipedia one.
Rohit Sharma -wikipedia
Exact Match
If we wish to search for the exact words, we need to put them in quotes. This is useful if we wish to find exact matching query results.
"a aa aaa"
Search in a URL
If we wish to search content on a specific website we can this option with the below syntax.
site:medium.com amit singh ratore
The above query will result in all mention of the name on medium.com
Similar URL
If we wish to find websites that are similar to one of the other websites we use this option with the below syntax.
related:dev.to
Cited articles
If we want to see other websites that cited a New York Times article, we would use this option. The syntax is below:
linked:nytimes.com
Limit search in a time range
If we wish to search certain content which was published before some year or after some year we can use the below option.
after:2020
before:2020
Or only for 2020 we can use ..2020
Logical operation
We can club search terms like logical operators.
(Term A | Term B) Term C Or (Term A or Term B) & Term C
The above pattern will give results where Term A & Term C are there or Term B & Term C are together.
Search Term placeholder
Asterisk will act as a placeholder in a search Google search, it will be automatically filled by the search engine later.
come *abc* get me
Search words at a specific distance
If we wish to search for terms that are certain words apart we can use the below option.
program AROUND(3) code
The above query will result in hits where word code and program have 3 words in between them.
Specific File Type
If we wish to find content from certain file types we can use the below option.
filetype:pdf
Search cached version of a website
At times we wish to see the cached version of a site. We can do so using the below option.
cache:wesite
Search in a specific label
If we wish to search terms in the website URL or article title or in the page content we can do so using one of the below options.
allintitle
allinurl
allintext
Search social media
We can directly get metadata info on social media handles or hastags.
#hashtag
@username/handle
Search a range of numbers
Using this option we can search a range. Like if we want to get all Australian Open winners in the years 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, we cab search like below.
AO Winners 2015..2019
Search utility
ip
weather
flights
Word search
definition
etymology
pronunciation
word
Complementary utility
calculator
Translator
Timer/Stopwatch
Google Scholar
Search scholarly/academic content.
All the above can also be persisted or made default using settings selection. Settings like safe search, sorting the results by date, etc.
Google has a page https://www.google.com/advanced_search where you can select your search preferences.
Happy Googling!!
