Google is much more than just a tool for finding sites, and most people barely scratch the surface of its capabilities. If you know what you're doing, Google can help you accomplish everything from looking up phone numbers to tracking down images.
USE QUOTATION MARKS Search for Tiger Woods, and Google will give you about 450,000 results. Search for "Tiger Woods” in quotation marks, you'll get 342,000 results. That's still too many, but at least none will relate to animals or forests. When you know the exact name or phrase you're looking for, quotation marks can only help.
LEARN THE THREE FUNDAMENTALS Remember these three things. 1) Use a plus sign (e.g., Godfather +mafia) in your search request when an everyday word is crucial to the search. 2) Use a minus sign if you want to exclude certain terms from a search. A search for bass -fish will steer you away from the water and toward the world of music. 3) Be sure to leave a space before those plus or minus signs, but not after them.
SEARCH BY CATEGORY Many don't realize that in addition to its search box, Google has its own simple Web directory. Click the Directory tab on Google's home page to bring it up, and then start drilling down through the categories that interest you. It's basic but useful when you're just starting your research.
SEARCH RELATED SITES You’ve finally found the exact kind of site you were looking for? Congratulations, but don't stop now. Use the "related" command, coupled with the URL, to find more sites like it (related:www.tigerwoods.com returns 23 excellent sites about golf).
SEARCH FROM THE INSIDE OUT If you’ve found a site you need, chances are that some of the sites that link to it will also be useful. Enter link:www.tigerwoods.com, for example, and you’ll get back 954 sites. You can also use this technique to find out who is linking to your own personal site.
SEARCH WITHIN A PARTICULAR SITE For fine-tuned research, you can limit your research to a single Web site. Want all the information about Tiger Woods featured at the site of his alma mater, Stanford? Enter tiger woods site:www.Stanford.edu.
SEARCH MORE NARROWLY Enter allinurl:tigerwoods. Instead of getting thousands of pages that mention Tiger Woods somewhere in them, you get only those that have Tiger in their actual web addresses.
GOOGLE PEOPLE If you need information on a business contact (or last night’s date), put the name in quotation marks and follow it with as many specifics as you can: hometown, college, profession, etc. Keep at it and eventually you’ll get some details about your specific person.
SEARCH FOR IMAGES Want to find photos of Tiger Woods but don’t want to sift through thousands of sites to find the ones with images? Click the Images tab on Google’s home page and type in “Tiger Woods” (with the quotes) to get hundreds of shots (pun intended).
USE GOOGLE FOR SECURITY Do a quick security check on your online identity. Search for your own name, of course, but also search for various permutations of your address. Try Googling your credit card and banking numbers, and your phone numbers. If any of these things are popping up in odd places, take action!
USE GOOGLE AS A PHONE BOOK AND ATLAS Enter a person’s first and last name and his or her city and state to get the address and phone number of anyone listed in the phone book. You can also enter a phone number (with first and last name) to generate an address and a map. Enter a street address, city and state to get a map of an area. Or enter the name of a business and its ZIP code to get its phone number, address and Web site, as well as a neighborhood map.
VISIT THE GOOGLE PREFERENCES PAGE www.google.com/preferences
PRACTICE YOUR LANGUAGE SKILLS ON GOOGLE Go to www.google.com/language_tools and you’ll find a menu of 73 languages into which you can translate the Google interface. Note that among your language choices are “Elmer Fudd” and “Klingon.” Have fun!