Google Tricks and Shortcuts

Question 1

define a word

Answer 1

define:search

Question 2

search for related words

Answer 2

~search

Question 3

exclude certain words

Answer 3

Add a dash (-) before a word or site to exclude all results that include that word. This is especially useful for words with multiple meanings, like Jaguar the car brand and jaguar the animal.
jaguar speed -car
pandas -site:wikipedia.org

Question 4

Search within a site or domain

Answer 4

site:
Get results only from certain sites or domains. For example, you can find all mentions of “olympics” on the NBC website, or any .gov websites.

olympics site:nbc.com

olympics site:.gov

Question 5

Search for pages that link to a URL

Answer 5

link:
Find pages that link to a certain page. For example, you can find all the pages that link to google.com.

link:google.com

Question 6

Search for pages that are similar to a URL

Answer 6

related:
Find sites that are similar to a URL you already know. If you search for related sites to the Time.com, you’ll find other news publication sites you may be interested in.

related:time.com

Question 7

Fill in the blank

Answer 7

*
Add an asterisk within a search as a placeholder for any unknown or wildcard terms. Use with quotation marks to find variations of that exact phrase or to remember words in the middle of a phrase.

“a * saved is a * earned”

Question 8

Search for either word

Answer 8

OR
If you want to search for pages that may have just one of several words, include OR (capitalized) between the words. Without the OR, your results would typically show only pages that match both terms.

world cup location 2014 OR 2018

Question 9

Search for a number range

Answer 9

..
Separate numbers by two periods without spaces (..) to see results that contain numbers in a given range of things like dates, prices, and measurements.

camera $50..$100

Question 10

Find information about a site

Answer 10

info:
Get information about a URL, including the cached version of the page, similar pages, and pages that link to the site.

info:google.com

Question 11

See a cached version of a site

Answer 11

cache:
See what a page looks like the last time Google crawled the site.

cache:washington.edu

Question 12

Search by filetype

Answer 12

affordable health care act filetype:ppt

Question 13

Find recipes for specific ingredients

Answer 13

yep

Question 14

Search the web in all pages

Answer 14

When you’re searching, click “More search tools” on the left panel of your results page, then select “Translated foreign pages.” The feature will choose the best language in which to search and deliver results translated back in English.

Question 15

Check the weather

Answer 15

by zip code

Question 16

get sports scores and schedules

Answer 16

yep

Question 17

Track your packages

Answer 17

Track your UPS, FedEx, or USPS packages by typing the tracking number directly into the search box. The results will show you the status of your shipment.

Question 18

locate earthquake activity

Answer 18

Type earthquake in the search box and your results will feature U.S. Geological Survey info showing the time, place and magnitude of recent earthquakes.

Question 19

get movie times

Answer 19

yep

Question 20

read public domain books

Answer 20

Read the complete texts of public domain works like Moby Dick for free by selecting “books” in the left panel of your search results.

Question 21

check flight schedules

Answer 21

To see flight schedules to or from a particular destination, type flights from or flights to followed by the city or airport of interest. You can also add another location with to or from and view the schedule for a specific route.*Flight schedule data is provided by OAG and QuickTrip by Innovata.

Question 22

research health conditions

Answer 22

To see information about a common disease or symptom, enter it into the search box and we’ll return the beginning of an expert summary. You can click through to read the entire article.