10 Unique Google Search Tricks That Most People Don’t Know About
10 Unique Google Search Tricks That Most People Don’t Know About

Find information on anything within seconds – This is one reason why Google is the most widely used search engine. From complicated physics theories to making the best salads, Google can find it all. The search engine is useful for not just regular users but for businesses as well. 

While people search for anything they want to know more about, businesses can leverage Google search in their search engine optimization efforts. How? They can see what their rivals are up to by doing a few searches in Google. With that said, sometimes the user will have to surf through a huge heap of information to find exactly what they need. 

But they don’t have to, thanks to a few search tricks that will help you find the necessary information in just a few clicks. 

1. When you are confused about the search term

There will be instances when you may not correctly remember the object you want to search about. For example, when you want some info on a popular actor, and you are confused about his last name – is it Will Smith or Will Ferrell? When you are in such a situation, you can use either ‘or’ in the search terms or use the symbol ‘|’. 

So just type in ‘Will Smith or Ferrell’ in the search bar or ‘Will Smith|Ferrell’. You can then choose the one you were looking for from the results.

2. Using synonyms

To find websites on a particular subject, just add ‘~’ symbol to the search. 

Example: ‘healthy ~food’ in the Google search bar displays results about the health aspect in food i.e. you will get links that details dining options, cooking recipes, healthy eating tips etc.

3. Using asterisk (*)

This is when you forget part of a keyword, and you can’t seem to remember it no matter how hard you try. Try using asterisk symbol (*) to replace the part of the phrase you can’t remember. 

Example: If you want to find that new TV series ‘Orange is the new black’ you heard from a friend, but can remember only till ‘Orange is’, type it like below in the search bar:

Orange is *

The result will have exactly what you are looking for.

4. Find something within a website

If you want to find that great article you read in a website to reread it or share the link, the fastest way to access that article is by searching within the site from the Google search page itself. If the article is about docker from the website ‘www.verbat.com’, you don’t necessarily have to visit verbat.com and find the article. Just type the following in the search bar (the website address followed by the keyword):

verbat.com docker

5. When you don’t remember a full phrase

When you don’t remember a full search phrase but know the first and last words in the phrase, this trick can be of help. For example, consider this to be what you are searching for – A poem by Robert Frost called Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Suppose you remember only these parts of the phrase namely ‘Stopping by’ and ‘evening’. 

Find the poem by typing the following in the search bar.

Stopping BY(4) evening

You will now get the poem. Here you only remember till ‘by’. So use uppercase for ‘by’ in the search bar. The number inside the parenthesis is an approximate number of words between ‘by’ and ‘evening’ given by you. 

6. Using a time frame in search queries

To search for something that occurred in a specific time period, you can include a time frame in the search query itself. For example, if you want to know about the US presidents of the 20th century, just type US Presidents 1900…2000

Use 3 dots between the years to indicate the time frame.

7. Searching for a URL

If you are looking for articles with the keyword in their titles, you can narrow the search by adding ‘intitle:’ to the query. 

For example, intitle:software

There should be no space between the words. To find words from a URL, use ‘inurl:’ instead of ‘intitle:’

8. Finding similar websites

If you liked a particular website, and want to check other websites similar to this one, you can add ‘related:’ in the search query.

Suppose if you like adidas.com, and want to find websites similar to adidas.com, just type the following as the search query.

related:adidas.com

9. Finding something with the typed phrase present in the exact order it was typed

Suppose you are searching for the phrase ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’. If you just plainly type the phrase and search, you will get results where these words appear in different orders. 

If you type the phrase inside double quotes, you will get results where the phrase appears exactly in the same order you typed.

For example, type “Elementary my dear Watson” to get results where the phrase will be present in the same order.

10. Removing unimportant words from the results

If you want to remove certain words from a query, add a minus symbol before each word. Suppose if you want to search for English comics but do not want to buy them.

Your search query would be:

English comics –buy

This will remove results with the word buy in it.