Google Tips And Tricks

SEO Description : Search engine optimization, the use of various techniques to improve a web site's ranking in the search engines and thus attract more visitors.

About Google : Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD  students at Stanford University in California.

While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships between websites.They called this new technology PageRank, where a website's relevance was determined by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages, that linked back to the original site.

A small search engine called "RankDex" from IDD Information Services designed by Robin Li was, since 1996, already exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking.The technology in RankDex would be patented and used later when Li founded Baidu in China.

Page and Brin originally nicknamed their new search engine "BackRub", because the system checked backlinks to estimate the importance of a site.

Eventually, they changed the name to Google, originating from a misspelling of the word "googol", the number one followed by one hundred zeros, which was meant to signify the amount of information the search engine was to handle. Originally, Google ran under the Stanford University website, with the domain google.stanford.edu.

The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997, and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in a friend's (Susan Wojcicki) garage in Menlo Park, California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow Ph.D. student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee.

Tips and Tricks about Google (Top 12)

I have been quite fascinated by Google ever since they started out as a search engine. Over the time Google has become an indispensable tool for any serious geek. I will describe a few techniques that I use. They have been collected from various help pages, chat rooms and books. If you find any error please point it out.

1.)  Common queries:

So how will you effectively use Google. Take this example. A friend of mine was asking me over yahoo messenger what is a blog. I told him to search on Google and find out. He tried this.

blog

Alas the answer was there but lost in thousands of links. He alerted me that he can't find an answer. I told " Ok , Let me see What is wrong? ". I tried this

What is blog

The answer was right there.

While formulating search queries you must be specific as far as possible. A query like Linux vpn howto can yield a different result than vpn howto. Google seems to be intelligent enough to understand some human thought chain. So while making queries be a bit descriptive and formulate a properly worded query. Google ignores some of the common words such as 'the' 'and' 'a' etc while performing a search.

2.)  How to formulate a good search string :

Google uses AND logic for the queries by default. If you search linux vpn howto google searches for pages containing linux AND vpn AND howto. You can put OR logic in the search box like this

linux OR vpn OR howto

You can exclude some terms using "-"

linux vpn -installation

Try ( linux vpn - installation ) and see how it is different from the above query. You can group a set of terms by enclosing them in brackets. It is also possible to combine AND and OR operators.

It may be noted that Google is not case sensitive regarding search strings. Linux, LINUX and linux produces the same results. However the operators such as AND and OR are case sensitive.

3.)  Searching for a file :

Suppose you want to search for pdf documents only. You can do this by attaching a filetype modifier to your query. A typical query can look like this

vpn filetype:pdf

Google can recognize most common filetyes.

4.)  Searching only at a site :

This is similar to file type modifier. Try this VPN site:ibm.com

Then try vpn site:edu filetype:pdf You can get some interesting result by trying this query

linux site:microsoft.com

5.)  Searching in URLs and Page titles :

You can search in urls using inurl modifier. Try inurl:smb.conf

Similarly you can use intitle modifier.

6.)  Searching in Google cache :

If you are looking for some old web site you can directly search in Google cache.

Try cache:slashdot.org and see the cached pages.

7.)  Looking for definitions :

This can be handy if your school going kid pesters you for his home work.

Try

define:watt

It bring out definitions from around the web.

8.)  Looking at Google advanced search :

I think it is one link that most people try to ignore. It is designed for commoners. Almost all the options I mentioned above are available through advanced search.

The preferences page is also worth a visit. It uses cookies to set preferences such as number of search results to be displayed, language preferences etc.

9.)  Finding the price of some geek gadget :

Google has a companion site called froogle.com. Its interface is exactly similar. But it returns prices across various stores in the US. This feature can be very useful if you plan to buy some strange hardware. Let us hope that froogle.co.in will appear soon.

10.)  Google Calculator :

In the google search :

Type in an equation: (100+4567*10-200=)

What is the square root of 267? (sqrt(267))

11.)  Google labs :

Google is very innovative and always tries to introduce new features. You can see some of the upcoming features at labs.google.com . Also Google conducts a puzzle champion ships annually.

12.)  Google Sets :

Google sets is an interesting feature currently available at http://labs.google.com/sets.

Have a look at the page. You will see a number of text boxes. Enter some words which belongs to a set of items and search. Google will complete the set.

I typed in the names of following linux distributions " Mandrake" "Suse" " "debian" and hit larger set button. Google provided a huge list of linux distributions.