In addition to searching the web, you can use Google to find specific information that is available offline or on specialized sites.

1. Tools

Google Toolbar

Browser Buttons

Translation & Language Tools

2. Shortcuts

Driving Directions (Street Maps)	Phonebook	Definitions	Google Calculator
More Shortcuts

3. Special Searches

News Search

Sets

4. Other Features

More Relevant Results	Highlighting Terms	Preferences	Advertising
Advanced Search and Search Operators	Links

tags (keywords): favorite

Enter a query even if Google’s home page isn’t in your browser.

Toolbar - toolbar.google.com/ (Internet Explorer)

Firefox Toolbar - toolbar.google.com/firefox/ (Firefox)

Googlebar - googlebar.mozdev.org/ (Mozilla and Netscape)

Safari web browser (Macintosh OS X)

My favorite Toolbar features include

Browser Buttons - www.google.com/options/buttons.html

I often search using Google browser buttons when I don’t have access to a Google Toolbar or Deskbar.

Copyright © 2003 Google Inc. Used with permission.

tags (keywords): favorite, toolbar

Google provides shortcuts for finding commonly sought utilities and information, which you may have previously found offline or on specialized sites.

• Want Driving Directions?

  Enter a U.S. street address, including zip code or city/state.

  

  Clicking on a map-provider link takes you to a map showing the location result and links to driving directions.

  

• Need a US Phone Number or Address?

  Just enter a company or person’s name and a city, state, or zip code in the standard web search box.

  On the results page, phonebook listings are next to a telephone icon.

  

  Google’s phonebook feature recognizes the following input formats.

  To find a US residence, enter …	Examples
  First name (or first initial), last name, city (state is optional)	[ Monty Python Oakland ]
  First name (or first initial), last name, state	[ Monty Python CA ]
  First name (or first initial), last name, area code	[ M Python 510 ]
  First name (or first initial), last name, zip code	[ Monty Python 94601 ]
  Phone number, including area code	[ 510-555-1212 ]
  Last name, city, state	[ Python Oakland CA ]
  Last name, zip code	[ Python 94601 ]

  To seek a US business, enter …	Examples
  Business name, city, state	[ Trek Waterloo WI ]
  Business name, zip code	[ Ben & Jerry’s 05403 ]
  Phone number including area code	[ (650) 930-3500 ]

  Google lists up to three results that match your phonebook query.

  To see other listings, click on the “Local results for …” link.

  

• Need a Definition?

  If Google finds any dictionary definitions for your search terms, in the statistics bar,

  • it shows those words as underlined links
  • includes a definition link.

  What do co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and CEO Eric Schmidt mean when they say they run Google as a triumvirate?

  

  Google displays one Glossary definition above your search results when you put one of the following in front of a word phrase or acronym:

  • define
  • what is
  • or what are

  

  When your query includes the “define:” operator (ending with a colon character), Google displays all the definitions it finds on the web.

  

• The Google Calculator isn’t Mathematica, Maple, or Matlab

  Google’s calculator can

  • add up a list of numbers
  • convert from miles to kilometers
  • evaluate some other sorts of mathematical expressions.

  

  Calculate a tip for a meal that costs $93.45.

  Calculate the cosine of 2π.

  Convert from one set of units to another.

  Many commonly used physical constants are built into Google’s calculator.
• More Shortcuts

  The results of the following shortcuts appear to the right of a tag or specialized icon and above your search results.

  	Examples
  Area Code Map	[ 212 ]
  Package Tracking	[ 999444666222 ]
  Flight Tracking Information	[ united 42 ]
  Travel Conditions	[ ewr airpor ]
  Stock Quotes	[ goog ]
  Vehicle Information	[ JH4NA1157MT001832 ]
  Patent Search	[ patent 5122313 ]
  FAA Airplane Registration Numbers	[ n199ua ]
  UPC Codes	[ 036000250015 ]
  FCC Equipment IDs	[ fcc B4Z-34009-PIR ]

For even more shortcuts, visit Google Guide’s cheat sheet or the Google Guide coffee page.

tags (keywords): calculator, dictionary, driving directions, favorite, phone number

I set up Google Alerts to send me email when news articles of interest to me appear on the web.

I’ve also set up Google Alert, a third-party service available at www.googlealert.com.

Google Alert is more flexible and returns more results than Google’s News Alerts.

tags (keywords): alerts, favorite, news

Google returns pages that match variants of your search terms.

The query above finds pages that contain words that are similar to some or all of your search terms, e.g.,

• “child,” “children,” or “children’s”
• “bicycle,” “bicycles,” “bicycle’s,” “bicycling,” or “bicyclists”
• “helmet” or “helmets”

Google calls this feature word variations or automatic stemming.

• Want only Exact Matches?

  Disable automatic stemming by preceding each term that you want to be matched exactly with the + operator.

• Searching for a Phrase or a Proper Name?

  If you want to search for pages that contain a phrase or proper name and not variations, enclose your search terms in quotes (” ”).

• One Word, Two Words, or Hyphenated?

  When Google encounters a hyphen (–) in a query term, e.g., [ e-mail ], it searches for:

  • the term with the hyphen, e.g., e-mail
  • the term without the hyphen, e.g., email
  • the term with the hyphen replaced by a space, e.g., e mail
  • [ e-mail ] matches “e-mail,” “e mail,” and “email”
  • [ e mail ] matches “e-mail” and “e mail”

  If you aren’t sure whether a word is hyphenated, search for it with a hyphen.

tags (keywords): favorite, hyphen, narrowing search, phrase, word variations

You can fine-tune your search query and increase the accuracy of its results by using special characters and operators, such as +, –, ~, .., OR, and quotation marks.

Force Google to include a term by preceding the term with a “+” sign.

The + operator is typically used in front of stop words that Google would otherwise ignore or when you want Google to return only those pages that match your search terms exactly.

Precede each term you do not want to appear in any result with a “–” sign.

Find synonyms by preceding the term with a “~”, which is known as the tilde or synonym operator.

Note: Currently the synonym operator is only supported on Google Web and Directory search.

Specify synonyms or alternative forms with an uppercase OR or | (vertical bar).

Use quotes (“ ”) to group compound words and phrases together.

Specify that results contain numbers in a range by specifying two numbers, separated by two periods, with no spaces.

This table summarizes how to use basic search operators.

You may include any of these operators multiple times in a query.

tags (keywords): favorite, fine tune, special characters, synonyms

How can you search for a term that might include one or more diacritics, marks, such as the umlaut (ö) in Gödel or the acute accent of resumé?

Note: For queries with diacritics, results vary depending on the language to which you are confining your search.

Note: On the English-language version of Google, a term with an accent doesn’t match a term without an accent and vice versa.

[ “école française” ] matches “école française” but not “ecole francaise”
[ “ecole francaise” ] matches “ecole francaise”  but not “école française”

Search for pages with these different spellings.

[ “école française” ]
[ “ecole francaise” ]

Or combine these queries into a single one.

[ “école française” OR “ecole Francaise” ]

If your keyboard doesn’t have a particular character, check out the Google Ultimate Interface, which provides over two dozen diacritical markings.

tags (keywords): accent marks, favorite

By default, Google returns just 10 results for a search.

You can increase the number of results displayed per page to 20, 30, 50, or 100.

The more results displayed per page:

• the more likely you are to find what you want on the first page of results
• the more slowly the page loads

tags (keywords): favorite, preferences

Web pages are available in languages other than English.

When Google finds a page in a language different from your language of choice, a translation link lets you get the gist of the page.

Want to translate some text or a web page? Try the Translate feature available from the Language Tools link on Google’s home page.

If you want to translate some text or a page into a language other than those Google Language Translation Tool offers, check out Fagan Finder’s Translation Wizard.

From the Preferences page, specify your global preferences, including

• Interface Language: the language in which Google will display tips, messages, and buttons for you
• Search Language: the language of the pages Google should search for you

You can restrict your searches to those pages written in the languages of your choice by setting the search language.

By default, Google Web search includes all pages on the Web.

If you want to restrict results to a single language for a few queries, consider using the Language Tools menu option in the Google Toolbar, the section Language of the Advanced Search page, or Language Tools.

tags (keywords): favorite, languages, translation

I look at the cached version of a page, when Google returns

• a link to a page that appears to have little to do with my query
• or if I can’t find the information I’m seeking on the current version of the page.

Click on the Cached link to view Google’s cached version of the page with the query terms highlighted.

Note: Internet Explorer users may view results or a page with any word(s) highlighted, not just search terms, by using the highlight feature of the Google Toolbar, which I mentioned earlier.

tags (keywords): cached version, favorite

Google showcases some prototypes and products in development on the Google Labs, the web site of Google’s research group.

My favorite prototype is Google Sets. To use it:

1. Enter a few items from a set of things.

2. Google Sets will try to predict other items in the set.

I’ve used Google sets to find

• potential co-authors
• things to eat for breakfast

tags (keywords): google labs, new features

I never would have imagined that I would be listing Google advertising among my favorite features.

Google’s approach to ads is similar to its approach to search results: the ads must deliver useful links, or the ads are removed.

• Ads must be relevant to your search.
• Ads must not distract (no pop-up or flashy ads).
• Sponsored links are clearly identified and kept separate from search results.

Some websites display ads provided by Google that are related to the content of the page.

tags (keywords): ads, favorite

Like a race car, there are special features if you want more control over your searches.

When you don’t find what you’re seeking, consider specifying more precisely what you want by using Google’s Advanced Search Form, which

• is easy to use
• allows you to select or exclude pages with more precision than by only specifying search terms and basic operators (+, -. OR, ~, ..) in Google’s standard search box.

You can specify most of the Advanced Search page options in a regular search box query by using advanced operators, i.e., query words that have special meaning to Google.

Want to see examples of advanced operators?

• Fill in the Advanced Search form.
• Now, look at the search box on the results page.
• Your query may now include special notation or special operators of the form operator:value.

Note: The colon following the operator name is mandatory.

• [ head OR hair lice site:edu ]
• [ link:www.pampmothersclub.org ]
• [ allintitle: child safety ]
• [ swimming lessons –adult ]
• [ wills estate planning filetype:pdf ]

Advanced operators allow more flexibility than the basic operators and the Advanced Search form.

Find a page by its title.

Find pages whose titles contain the word “security,” with the word “e-mail” on the text of the page not on microsoft.com.

Find crime reports in California.

Find pdf documents with information about financial planning for a child’s college education.

Search non-commercial organizations, educational, and government sites.

Find every page on a site that is included in Google’s index.

Learn about techniques used by hackers to exploit targets and find sensitive data and how to defend your own websites in Johnny Long’s Google Hacking Mini-Guide.

The Google Guide Advanced Operator Quick Reference (www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html) provides a nice two-page summary of the search operators grouped by type.

There is a list of search operators in the page Alphabetical List of Search Operators.

For tips on using one or more search operators in a query, see the page section “Using More than One Search Operator”.

tags (keywords): advanced search, favorite, operators, special characters

Click on any of the following links for more on these topics.

• Selecting Search Terms
• How Google Interprets a Query
• Refining a Query
• What Appears on the Results Page
• Getting to the Last Result
• When Google added features (Feature History)
• How Google Works

For more features and services as well as how Google works, read Google Guide (www.googleguide.com) or How to Do Everything with Google.

tags (keywords): books, favorite, google guide