As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, we could provide you with hundreds of Google tips instead of just five, so here are five more to get the most out of Google, the most popular site on the Internet (Source: alexa.com).
Get More Relevant Search Results
When you search for multiple words, oftentimes Google will show you results with only some of the words in them, leading to pages of irrelevant results. With the “allintext” command, you can ensure Google will show you only results that have every single word somewhere in the page. They may not be in the same order you typed them in, but they will all be there. (If you want to search for an exact phrase, just surround your whole search phrase with quotes.)
Example: allintext:underwater bowling memphis
Without the allintext function, you might get mostly results for bowling alleys that do not have the word underwater anywhere to be found on the web page you land on, or you might get web pages that mention “underwater” and Memphis but don’t say anything about bowling, but allintext will have all three words somewhere on the page.
Find Related Sites
For every great website out there, there are usually multiple similar ones with their own flavor. If you come across a website you love, Google can show you others you might like as well. For example, if you discover goodreads.com, which is a social network for readers and a cataloguing system for their books, you can then use Google to discover other sites like it that you might end up liking even better. Just type in “related:” and then the web site domain.
Example: related:goodreads.com
Example: related:netflix.com
Example: related:memphis.edu
Quick Latitude and Longitude Lookup
Do you ever come across a set of coordinates that you want to see on a map? Just type them as is into Google, and a small map will come up. Clicking on the map will take you to Google Maps where you can interact more. You can also do the reverse – if you want to know the coordinates of a location just type the location name plus “coordinates.”
Example: 35.119842, -89.990274
Example: Chicago Union Station coordinates
Translate Multiple Languages Both Ways
You may know of the very helpful Google Translate site, but if you’re in a hurry, you can just use the regular Google search bar. Just do “translate [word or phrase here] to [language here]”
Example: translate how are you to japanese
Example: translate maru to english
Search within a Single Website
You can narrow Google down to get search results from only one website. This is helpful when a site doesn’t have a very good search feature or allows you to search for only specific things like products, not the text of the web site. For example, using this feature to search public pages and posts on Facebook will bring back much broader results than using the search bar on the actual Facebook website.
Example: memphis site:facebook.com
Example: chocolate cake site:instagram.com
Example: dogs of amazon site:amazon.com
We hope these additional Google tricks will enhance your Internet experience. The more you use them, the more interesting and helpful Google will become for you.