The first hack everyone should know is that, when you enter a phrase in quotation marks, you will get results that contain the exact phrase. If you want to find a quote and are not sure about a word, you can substitute it with an asterisk. To exclude a word from your search — which is especially helpful when you are searching for something that has several meanings — simply add a hyphen before the word. If you put “OR” between words or phrases in quotes, you will search for all these phrases immediately, and the result will include either the first phrase or the second one.
Sometimes, you need to search for information on a particular website or on similar sites. In the first case, you should type your keyword and use “site:” which is followed by the link (no spaces), and in the case of the latter, you should use your keyword and “related:” immediately followed by an URL. You can also try to look up for certain file types — in this case, use “filetype:” followed by the three letters of its extension.
Include the following symbols to limit your search to specific categories of search items:
# – for hashtags;
@ – for searching tags in social networks, such as profiles;
& – for searching content by keywords which are strongly connected;
$ – for searching prices.
You can use Google search to do calculations or to convert measures or currencies. For example, if you enter something like “645 + 784” in the search bar, you will get a result of the addition. If you type in “40 USD to GBP,” the very first result will be the amount of British pounds that is equal to $40. By typing “define:” before a word you want to look up, you will see its definition on the top of the page.
Did you know that you can play with the Google logo with certain search queries? For example, try to google the phrase “do a barrel roll,” and you’ll watch your screen performing a full spin. Also, if you enter the phrase “Google in 1998,” you’ll have the search engine’s interface go old school. Your browser screen will turn into Atari’s Breakout game if you enter the search phrase “Atari breakout” in the images section.
A major part of users on the Internet have Google at a search tool. Most of them are just ordinary users unaware of the secrets and tricks of the most powerful search engine. First of all, it is important to know “how to google” properly and limit your search by simply typing right in your omnibox. There are also some funny stunts that you can do with your search engine, such as turning it into its older version or an 8-bit game. Google is micro-updated frequently, so that it’s hard to know whether new tricks have been added, and how many such hacks you might have missed.