Google Search Basic Tips and Tricks

A Search Engine is an program designed to search for information on the World Wide Web that lets users to specify search words or queries and then it retrieves documents or pages on the web that matches to the words entered. The search results are usually presented in a list with the most appropriate result coming on the top. And over a time these search engines build a database of searchable terms that can be matched to websites.

Among all the Search Engines on the web, Google Search is by far the most popular and powerful search engine which has the ability to accept pre-defined commands as input and with its many special features it helps users find exactly what they’re looking for. Using Google, you can search the world’s information which includes webpages, documents, images, music, videos and more. Below discussed are some of the Google search basics you should know that can help you start off on the right track.

Simple is good when it comes to searching on Google and a search query need not necessarily be phrased as a question since stop words such as “what”, “a”, “is”, “the”, “for” etc., would be ignored by Google search. Also generally punctuations and other special characters including @#$%^&*()=+[] are ignored by Google search. All you have type in the search box is the specific keyword making sure your spelling is correct and Google will provide you with results that are most relevant to your search.

Boolean Query Usage in Google Search

Although generally the search queries are case insensitive, there are some exceptions as part of which you can use OR, AND operators (note that you have to type them in ALL CAPS).

For example, when you type a search query of the form,

• x AND y it will show results of pages containing both x and y
• x OR y will give you results containing either one of x, y

Google search can be used in tracking information of a package or item. Just put in the UPC code or barcode in double quotes and hit enter to get the information about that item. Also using “double quotes” around words comes very handy when searching for a particular phrase. When you put double quotes around a set of words in Google search, it will search pages matching for that exact words in that exact order you have typed.

Google Currency Converter and Calculator

Google search is a powerful currency converter, unit converter and calculator. For example, typing
1 dollar in Indian money (or)
10 usd in inr (or)
1 meter in centimeter or any other calculation you’d like to be done into the search box will give you the exact answer.

Search Weather and Time

Using Google search you can check the weather and time for many cities around the world. All you have to do is to type in “time” (or “weather”) followed by the name of the city.
For example,
typing weather kakinada in Google search will show the weather for Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, India (my hometown) along with the status of wind and humidity in the region.

Google Dictionary Feature

Google search is my first choice when it comes to finding a definition for a word or phrase. Type define(space)the word or phrase to be defined to get definition of that word or phrase as given in different websites. Alternatively, to get the direct definition I’ll just type “define:” (without quotes) followed by the word or phrase.

Importance of + and – in Google Search

When you attach a + immediately before a word, it searches for that specific word or item. Generally if you type the Google in the search box, it ignores ‘the’ as it is a stop word and searches only for the object word i.e., Google. So, if you want to search for web pages containing ‘the Google’, you have to type +the Google

Likewise, attaching a – immediately before a word works quite opposite to +. It says Google to exclude those terms from the search results. For example, typing -the Hindu in Google search gives results of web pages and documents not containing word ‘the’ before Hindu.

Spot web cameras using Google Search

We can even spot web cameras using Google Search tricks. This Google trick works on all those web cameras without password security. Google Search any of these to peep the live web cameras.

inurl:/view/index.shtml

inurl:view/shtml

inurl:”viewerframe?mode=refresh”

SNC-RZ30 HOME

inurl:live view/-AXIS

inurl:”viewerframe?mode=motion”

intitle:Snc-rz30

intitle:liveapplet

inurl:home/

inurl:lvappl

For spotting the web camera on a particular IP, type in that IP address in place of inurl
and search.