The best single site for Google tips and tricks might be GoogleGuide.com (with all kinds of cheat sheets).
Google tricks are also found on YouTube. Other sites that inform you about Google are SearchEngineShowdown.com, SearchEngineWatch.com, as well as the Google site itself. Google “Google tricks” for many sites with Google tricks and tips.
For a list of many other useful and interesting search engines,
or this PDF
The Google information below is organized as follows:
•
Some of the most popular Google tricks
•Google advanced search operators
•Search tips and tools
•Google tricks for various categories of users and uses (education, reference, business and work, travel and transportation)
•Google Docs and Spreadsheets
•Phone and Mobile Apps
•Firefox Add-ons
•7 Google Tricks Worth Knowing
•Use Google as a calculator
•Security Webcam searching
Some of the most popular Google tricks |||||||||||||||||||||||
•get a map and directions by just typing in an address, preferably with city or zip code
•get local time anywhere in the world—enter: what time is it in Bagdad, or simply combine the word time with name of city, or go to gchart.com and click on the map
•get local weather by combining weather with city or zip code
•get residential phonebooks by entering rphonebook: with name of person
•get all phonebooks listings by entering phonebook: with a name
•track air flights—enter the airline and flight number
•book flights—enter two city names
•get movie reviews, trailers and showtimes by combining movie with title of movie or city name
•convert currencies, cooking measurements, metrics, bytes, units of time, weights, volumes, lengths
•get stock quotes for the day—enter stock and stock symbol or name of company; or enter quote and name of company
•get definition of a word by entering define: followed by word. Also obtainable by ~glossary followed by a word, which pulls up a definition from a glossary or dictionary
•discover new information by adding these phrases (in quotes): “better than” “reminds me of” “is the best” “is dangerous” “is harmful” “is healthy” “is nutritious” “superior to”
•pull up sites (home page only) that are blocked by your server or are currently unavailable—click cache from results listing or enter: cache:sitename.com
•eliminate affiliate-link duplicate product sites by entering site: preceded by a minus sign—enter: -site:ebaycom –site:shopping.com –site:bizrate.com. This is also done by Givemebackmy Google.com site
•find sites with information with synonyms, related terms and documents by placing a tilde before the term, e.g.: ~nutrition
•get pictures—enter: image followed by word. A widget for Google image searching is available in Yahoo! Widgets widgets.yahoo.com. When doing a picture search, get people images and eliminate objects by adding &imgtype=face
•do calculations, both basic and advanced math: type in calculation. See GoogleGuide.com for cheat sheet googleguide.com/help/calculator.html. Google calculator widgets at widgets.yahoo.com/widgets/google-calculator
•scores and schedules of favorite teams—enter: [team name]
•security webcam search explained below or go to johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/01/09/security-webcam-hunting.html
•Find MP3 music files or comic books: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "name of musical group or comic book"
•search within a single website with site:sitename.com [topic]
Google advanced search operators ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
•the "+" operator makes sure your results include common words, letters or numbers that Google's search technology generally ignores. Google ignores common words that appear frequently such as "of," "the," "is," "who," "where," and "how." To include a word or character that Google typically ignores, use a plus sign ("+") before it, such as: godfather +ii (for the film "Godfather II" or "Godfather, Part II") +who tommy (for the rock opera "Tommy" as performed "The Who")
•the minus sign operator excludes all results that include this search term. Sometimes a word has more than one meaning depending on the context. The minus sign ("-") before a word can omit pages with an undesired word from your results list. For example: [roosevelt -theodore]; dolphins –football, python –monty
•quotation mark phrase search ( only returns results that include this exact phrase, as in “On the Road” (for the novel by Jack Kerouac)
•the OR operator returns results that include either of your search terms, as in [nixon OR watergate];
•link:URL = lists other pages that link to the URL.
•related:URL = lists other pages that are related to the URL.
•site:domain.com “search term” = restricts search results to the given domain.
•allinurl:WORDS = shows only pages with all search terms in the url.
•inurl:WORD = like allinurl: but filters the URL based on the first term only.
•allintitle:WORD = shows only results with terms in title.
•intitle:WORD = similar to allintitle, but only for the next word.
•cache:URL = will show the Google cached version of the URL.
•info:URL = will show a page containing links to related searches, backlinks, and pages containing the url. This is the same as typing the url into the search box.
•filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will restrict searches to that filetype
•-filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will remove that file type from the search.
•site:www.somesite.net “+www.somesite.net” = shows you how many pages of your site are indexed by google
•allintext: = searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title
•allinlinks: = searches only within links, not text or title
•WordA OR WordB = search for either the word A or B
•“Word” OR “Phrase” = search exact word or phrase
•WordA -WordB = find word A but filter results that include word B
•WordA +WordB = results much contain both Word A and Word B
•~WORD = looks up the word and its synonyms (e.g., ~elderly)
•~WORD -WORD = looks up only the synonyms to the word
Search Tips and Tools
for faster, more efficient searches ||||||||||||||||||||
•Desktop: Keep your desktop organized with this customizable feature.
•Google Alerts: Stay on top of your appointments, workouts, goals, and social life with this alerts tool.
•Use Google Reader: Google Reader will save you a lot of time searching for blogs and checking your favorite sites everyday. It compiles your most-read and starred items in one simple interface.
•Mobile: Google Mobile will keep you connected to your Google accounts anywhere.
•Track packages: Here you’ll learn how to track your packages with Google Maps.
•Convert temperatures: Type "[temperature][C/F] to [F/C]" to get the correct temperature.
•Find phone numbers: This tutorial will show you how to quickly find a phone number using Google search.
•Calculator: Use the search bar as a calculator.
•Movies: Type in movies or the name of the film plus your zip code to get showtimes.
•Google Homepage: Shave seconds or even minutes off your day by making Google your default home page. You’ll connect to Gmail, perform searches and more with just a click or two instead of having to type everything out.
•Search Features: Customize your search so that it’s easier to find sport scores, local information, and more.
•Dictionary Definitions: Learn how to quickly look up words directly from Google.
•site: If you only want results for a particular web page, type in site: before the name.
•link: This is an especially good tool for bloggers who want to track back links to their site. Type link: and link back to whatever site you put in next.
•Keyboard Shortcuts: This Firefox app will let you move around Google’s search results with your arrow keys.
•Blog Search: When you only want to find posts and images from blogs, use this search.
•Product Search: Get shopping and product information here.
•Toolbar: Add a Google Toolbar to Firefox to quickly access your favorite button and share your top sites.
•Browser Buttons: Install Browser Buttons to connect to Google Search even faster.
•Default Search Engine: Save time by eliminating useless searches and lame search engines by making Google your default.
•Google Shortcuts from GreaseMonkey: Use scripts to customize and speed up searches. Google search: GreaseMonkey Google
•Google Analytics Shortcut: This shortcut costs $10 but hacks Google Analytics for you.
Google tricks for various categories of users and uses |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Education -----------------------------------------------
Teachers and students can benefit from these time-saving tools and hacks for research, project collaboration and more.
•Geo Education--Forget field trips to the museum or planetarium. Use Geo Education to quickly zap your kids into outer space or around the world with this set of tools.
•iGoogle--Set up your own homepage for your classroom, or if you’re a student, customize your iGoogle page to include helpful study resources, news updates and more.
•Custom Search Engine--Save time during your searches by limiting the kinds of sites, the display, open in separate browser window, and more for your search.
•Google Notebook/Google Docs--Use this simple, remote access text document for taking notes, recording class information and more.
•Google Groups--Set up a study group or help your students organize their own group projects with this feature.
•Page Creator--Use Page Creator to set up an attractive, easy-to-access web page for students, parents and more.
•News: Quickly pull news stories off the Internet with this feature.
•Book Search--Using Book Search, you can quickly find full text books, excerpts, nonfiction texts and more.
•Google Scholar—Find scholarly and peer-reviewed journal articles for quality, authoritative information for lectures, research projects and papers.
•News Archive Search—Within Google News, allows you to find primary documents going back several centuries
•Patent Search: Use Patent Search to search over 7 million patents, images and more.
•GCharts—create charts (bar, line, pie, etc. charts)
•Site: .gov OR .edu—combine this search command with a topic to filter out less reliable .com, .net, and .org sites
•Zotero: free downloadable add-on from Firefox, Zotero is a powerful, easy-to-use research tool that helps you gather, organize, analyze, and cite your sources and then share the results of your research. Makes accessing Google Books and Google Scholar easier. You can
automatically capture bibliographic information from Google Scholar (and hundreds of other sites and databases) organize and store the information in Zotero's iTunes-like interface and then drag and drop formatted citations directly into any text document, everything from
email to MS Word to Blog posts to Google Docs.
Reference ----------------------------------------------------------
Learn how to quickly access directories, get vehicle information and more using these shortcuts.
•FCC Equipment IDs: Look up equipment ID numbers using this method.
•Vehicle Information: Find information about any vehicle by typing in the VIN number.
•UPC Codes: Track UPC codes here.
•Directory: Directory connects you to references for time, world records, libraries, maps, museums and more.
•Video: Find videos faster with this feature.
•Stock Quotes shortcut: type in quote and stock symbol of company
•Images: Conduct a faster image search here.
Business and Work ----------------------------------------------
When you want to save time on meetings, organize your files and cut down on wasted time during the week, use these tools.
•Google Pack: Use Google Pack as a free solution to a desktop organizer, notifier, 3d model maker and more.
•Archive your e-mails: Use this simple system to keep your e-mails safe and organized without having to waste time with hard files.
•E-mail encryption: Google helps you send encrypted messages to your business associates with this system.
•Google Video: Avoid lengthy meetings by hosting web conferences with Google Video–a safe, private feature.
•Google Checkout: Cut out the middle man when you use this online shopping app for your site.
•Finance: Use Google Finance to quickly catch up on the stock market and all other finance news that will affect your business in the blink of an eye.
•Knol: Knol is a Google app that lets business professionals and other experts share their knowledge online and network with other members.
•Calendar: Keep all of your to-do lists and appointments straight in one spot with Google Calendar.
•SketchUp: Architects, web designers and other professionals can use this tool to create 3D models online.
•Sites: Use this feature to give you a head start on creating a website for your business, which can save you time with marketing, networking, selling products and more.
Travel and Transportation ----------------------------
Travelers and those who want to learn more about their city can use these Google tips and tools.
•Google Earth: Ditch the compass and use this app to find your away around a new city. You can even track your flight status.
•GOOG 411: Look up phone numbers of local businesses, restaurants and more by dialing 800-GOOG-411.
•Google Maps: Find addresses, get recommendations for local hotspots, and explore a new city or state.
•Translate: If you’re traveling internationally, use this tool to translate menus, conversations and more.
•Mobile Maps: Using Mobile Maps, you can view maps, get directions and find local information easier and faster.
•Currency Converter: Check currency rates and conversions with this mobile-friendly tool.
•Area Code Map: Get areas codes with this shortcut.
•FAA Airplane Registration Numbers: Get an airplane’s history and description by searching its FAA airplane registration number.
•Flight Status/Flight Tracker: Subscribe to this shortcut to get flight tracking information.
•Gchart: Find out what time it is anywhere in the world using Gchart.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets ||||||||||||||||||||||||
These shortcuts will save you time when you use Google Docs.
•Undo: Ctrl Z will undo any edits or changes you’ve made to the document.
•Go the top or title: Move up to the top of your document by typing Ctrl Home.
•Change alignment: Change your page’s alignment by typing Ctrl L, Ctrl E, or Ctrl J, for left, center and full justify, respectively.
•Add a comment: Press Ctrl M to add comments to your document.
•Select entire column: spreadsheets: Type Ctrl spacebar to select the whole column in your spreadsheet.
•Select entire row: Hit Shift Spacebar to select an entire spreadsheet row.
iPhone and Mobile Apps |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turn to this list of tricks and tools for saving time and making your iPhone, BlackBerry or cell phone more efficient.
•New Gmail for the iPhone: This new display for the iPhone makes it easier for you to check Gmail on your mobile.
•Tips for Google Mobile Search: Make the most out of your Google-powered search with these mobile-friendly tips.
•Voice Search: Search by speaking into your phone with this time saver.
•My Location: Find local businesses near your location with this tool that uses your iPhone as a navigator.
•Use the apps tab: iPhone users can hit the Apps tab at the bottom of their screen to quickly shop Google services.
•Google Talk for BlackBerry: This app is available to Black Berry users. Features include fast messaging, emoticons, customizable status messages, and more.
•Google SMS for Search: Read this guide to help you use Google SMS for your mobile searches.
•Android: Check out this free mobile platform to fuel multitasking and make your apps run better.
•Google SMS: Use this text messaging service for a quick and easy way to connect.
•Calendar Alerts with SMS: Use your SMS to get Google calendar alerts, even if you’re away from your desk.
Firefox Add-ons ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Firefox users can download these applications for even more time-saving tricks for Google.
•Locator: Find highlighted addresses on a Google map with this button.
•GBookmarks: Access your bookmarks from any computer with this tool.
•Back to Google 1.2: Immediately return to your last Google results page by clicking this button.
•Send to Google Docs: This tool supports PDF, Microsoft Office and Open Office via Google Docs.
•Google Results Walker: Quickly navigate Google results with this add-on.
•Gooblebar Lite 4.6.8: This Google toolbar supports 12 search types.
•Google Calendar Quick Add: Add an event to your Google Calendar even faster with this shortcut.
•Color Results: Find your search terms in a Web page or document when you install this add-on.
•Bookmarks Button: Manage Google Bookmarks from your Firefox toolbar with this tool.
•Search Videos: This one-click button lets you highlight search criteria and search videos faster.
•Zotero: a powerful, easy-to-use research tool that helps you gather, organize, analyze, and cite sources and then share the results of your research.
7 Clever Google tricks worth knowing |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source: marcandangel.com/2007/07/25/7-clever-google-tricks-worth-knowing
1. Find the Face Behind the Result – This is a neat trick you can use on a Google Image search to filter the search results so that they include only images of people. How is this useful? Well, it could come in handy if you are looking for images of the prominent people behind popular products, companies, or geographic locations. You can perform this search by appending the code &imgtype=face to the end of the URL address after you perform a standard Google Image search.
Examples (notice the differences in each URL):
Image Search for Google vs. Faces Behind Google Image Search
Image Search for Digg vs. Faces Behind Digg Image Search
Image Search for California vs. Faces Behind California Image Search
2. Google + Social Media Sites = Quality Free Stuff – If you are on the hunt for free desktop wallpaper, stock images, Wordpress templates or the like, using Google to search your favorite social media sites is your best bet. The word “free” in any standard search query immediately attracts spam. Why wade through potential spam in standard search results when numerous social media sites have an active community of users who have already ranked and reviewed the specific free items that interest you. All you have to do is direct Google to search through each of these individual social media sites, and bingo… you find quality content ranked by hundreds of other people.
Examples:
site:digg.com free “desktop wallpaper”
site:reddit.com free “wordpress templates”
site:del.icio.us free “stock images”
site:netscape.com free “ringtones”
site:stumbleupon.com free icons
3. Find Free Anonymous Web Proxies – A free anonymous web proxy site allows any web browser to access other third-party websites by channeling the browser’s connection through the proxy. The web proxy basically acts as a middleman between your web browser and the third-party website you are visiting. Why would you want to do this? There are two common reasons:
You’re connecting to a public network at a coffee shop or internet café and you want privacy while you browse the web. You don’t want the admin to know every site you visit.
You want to bypass a web content filter or perhaps a server-side ban on your IP address. Content filtering is common practice on college campus networks. This trick will usually bypass those restrictions.
There are subscription services and applications available such as TOR and paid VPN servers that do the same thing. However, this trick is free and easy to access from anywhere via Google. All you have to do is look through the search results returned by the queries below, find a proxy that works, and enter in the URL of the site you want to browse anonymously.
Examples:
inurl:”nph-proxy.cgi” “start using cgiproxy”
inurl:”nph-proxy.cgi” “Start browsing through this CGI-based proxy”
4. Google for Music, Videos, and Ebooks - Google can be used to conduct a search for almost any file type, including Mp3s, PDFs, and videos. Open Web directories on unsecured Web servers are one of the easiest places to quickly find an endless quantity of freely downloadable files.
Find Music: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wma|mp3) “Counting Crows”
Find Videos: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(mpg|wmv) “chapelle”
Find Ebooks: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(pdf|doc) “george orwell 1984″
5. Browse Open Webcams Worldwide – Take a randomized streaming video tour of the world by searching Google for live open access video webcams. This may not be the most productive Google trick ever, but it sure is fun! (Note: you may be prompted to install an ActiveX control or the Java runtime environment which allows your browser to view certain video stream formats.)
Examples:
Axis Webcams: inurl:/view.shtml or inurl:view/index.shtml
Cannon Webcams: sample/LvAppl/
MOBOTIX Webcams: control/userimage.html
FlexWatch Webcams: /app/idxas.html
JVC Webcams: intitle: intitle:”V.Networks [Motion Picture(Java)]”
6. Judge a Site by its Image -- Find out what a site is all about by looking at a random selection of the images hosted on its web pages. Even if you are somewhat familiar with the target site’s content, this can be an entertaining little exercise. You will almost surely find something you didn’t expect to see. All you have to do is use Google’s site: operator to target a domain in an image search.
Examples:
Digg in Images
Wired in Images
Reddit in Images
7. Results Based on Third-Party Opinion -- Sometimes you can get a better idea of the content located within a website by reading how other websites refer to that site’s content. The allinanchor: Google search operator can save you large quantities of time when a normal textual based search query fails to fetch the information you desire. It conducts a search based on keywords used strictly in the anchor text, or linking text, of third party sites that link to the web pages returned by the search query. In other words, this operator filters your search results in a way such that Google ignores the title and content of the returned web pages, but instead bases the search relevance on the keywords that other sites use to reference the results. It can add a whole new dimension of variety to your search results.
Examples (notice the added variety between search results):
allinanchor:”google hacks” vs. basic search for Google hacks
allinanchor:”wordpress exploits” vs. basic search for Wordpress exploits
Use Google as a calculator,
both basic and advanced math |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Most common uses of calculator:
+ or plus addition 12 + 34 or three plus four
– or minus subtraction 3.4 - 5.6 or five minus two
* or times multiplication 56 * 7 or six times nine
/ or divided by division 7 / 8 or ten divided by two
% of or percent of percentage of 45% of 39
Google Calculator Tips and Tricks
Google Calculator has been around now for the last three and a half years, so a post on this Google service isn’t exactly groundbreaking. However, I came across this article on lifehack.org while I was doing a little research for work yesterday afternoon. It reminded me of some cool conversion and calculation tricks I had messed around with in the past. At that moment I was just looking for a quick currency conversion, and the easiest way to accomplish this nowadays is Google’s Calculator shortcut. Satisfied with the quick conversion, I finished my research and then decided to kill a little time by messing around with Google Calculator.
Here are a bunch of fun problems that can be quickly solved by utilizing some cool Google calculation tricks:
Conversions:
oWhat is the speed of light in miles per hour?
oHow many Mexican Pesos are in 300 U.S. dollars?
oHow many megabytes in a terabyte?
oWhat is the mass of planet Earth in pounds?
oWhat is the mass of the Sun in pounds?
oWhat is 75 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius?
oWhat is 12,345 converted to in binary?
oWhat is the roman numeral representation of 1,197?
oHow many minutes are in a decade?
oHow many ounces are in 5 gallons?
Calculations
oWhat is 6 to the power of 25?
oWhat is the square root of 123,456,789?
oWhat is 1 and 1?
Security Webcam searching ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source: johnbokma.com/mexit/2005/01/09/security-webcam-hunting.html
With a few very simple search actions in Google you can find many online surveillance cameras around the world that can be viewed without access restrictions using your web browser.
The software of several security cams uses a certain pattern in the address (URL). Using the Google search operator inurl: you can search for those patterns.
URL Patterns used by webcam software
•inurl:ViewerFrame?Mode=
•inurl:ViewerFrame?Mode=Refresh
•inurl:axis-cgi/jpg
•inurl:axis-cgi/mjpg (motion-JPEG)
•inurl:view/indexFrame.shtml
•inurl:view/index.shtml
•inurl:view/view.shtml
•liveapplet
The second pattern only gives links to software that uses the Refresh method. The Motion method uses motion-JPEG which doesn't work with some browsers. You can also try to just replace Motion with Refresh (note the capital R). Also, with the results of the first two, if they have a cam, you can change the language to English by changing the value of Language to zero. If there is no Language in the URL, just add &Language=0 to it, so it looks like: http://example.invalid/ViewerFrame?Mode=Refresh&Language=0. Some language codes are:
•0 - English
•5 - Italian
•7 - French
•9 - German
•11 - Spanish
Another way to find cameras is by searching for (a part of) the title of the web page that shows the cam feed using the operator intitle: or allintitle:.
Title patterns used by webcam software
•intitle:"live view" intitle:axis
•intitle:liveapplet
•allintitle:"Network Camera NetworkCamera"
•intitle:axis intitle:"video server"
Note that if the title contains a space you have to put the text between "" after the intitle: operator.
You can combine both search operators, for example: intitle:"Network Camera" inurl:ViewerFrame. It is also possible to limit your search to certain countries, e.g. intitle:"live view" intitle:axis site:nl.
Finally, you can record a webcam using Bulent's screen recorder, see Capturing MSN Messenger webcam for more information.
Happy security cam hunting!
More Webcam tricks by searching Google with “Webcam tricks” or “Webcam searching”
By the way, you can add any Webcam to your iGoogle homepage.
