Many of you who use Google as your preferred search engine might find the following operators useful, efficient and most of all “time-saving”.
You do not need special training to search for the contact number of a leading local bank or the website of a supermarket in town on Google. It’s as simple as just typing in the name of the bank or supermarket and hitting the search button, which will return your required information instantly.
What if you are looking for a particular product of which the name is only half known or not so popular?
On such instances it is not so easy as just typing those words (only if you remember). It may take you hours to find the exact piece of information you are after. Time is precious and you cannot afford to spend hours searching for something which you require immediately.
This is when using search operators comes handy, it is efficient and will save you time, effort and resources. If you find this information useful please email or share this with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon or Reddit. You can also use the print option to get a printout for yourself.
| This Search | Finds Pages Containing… | |||
| biking Sri Lanka | the words biking and Sri Lanka | |||
| recycle steel OR iron | information on recycling steel or recycling iron | |||
| “I have a dream“ | the exact phrase I have a dream | |||
| salsa –dance | the word salsa but NOT the word dance | |||
| Louis +I France | information about Louis the First (I), weeding out other kings of France | |||
| castle ~glossary | glossaries about castles, as well as dictonaries, lists of terms, terminology, etc. | |||
| fortune-telling | all forms of the term, whether spelled as a single word, a phrase, or hyphenated | |||
| define:imbroglio | definitions of the word imbroglio from the Web | |||
Google also serves as a Calculator
| Calculator | ||||
| Operators | Meaning | Type Into Search Box (& Results) | ||
| + – * / | basic arithmetic | 12 + 34 – 56 * 7 / 8 | ||
| % of | percentage of | 45% of 39 | ||
| ^ or ** | raise to a power | 2^5 or 2**5 | ||
| old units in new units | convert units | 300 Euros in USD, 130 lbs in kg, or 31 in hex | ||
| city1 city2 | Book flights. | sfo bos (Book flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Boston (BOS).) |
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| site: | Search only one website or domain. | Halloween site:www.census.gov (Search for information on Halloween gathered by the US Census Bureau.) |
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| [#]..[#] | Search within a range of numbers. | Dave Barry pirate 2002..2006 (Search for Dave Barry articles mentioning pirates written in these years.) |
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| filetype: (or ext:) |
Find documents of the specified type. | Form 1098-T IRS filetype:pdf (Find the US tax form 1098-T in PDF format.) |
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| 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.) |
More of these type of search operators can be found at http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html