Google search is the most used search engine in most parts of the world, and what was once a simple search engine that could bring you a list of the websites you’re looking for, is now a far more advanced page, capable of its own computations, contextual searching and more. Here are ten Google Search tips and tricks that once mastered, will help you reach your search results faster than anyone else.
Use search filter tabs
Search filters are your best friends when you’re looking for a particular kind of result. For instance, if you are looking for cafes, malls or parks near you, you can simply switch to the ‘Map’ tab to see more relevant results and less clutter. You can also use the Image, News and other tabs to get results that are articles, images, etc.
Google allows you to search for elements only belonging to one particular website. To do this, you can simply add ‘site:xyz.com’ (where ‘xyz’ could be any website you want) to your search to get results from the particular website. For instance, you can search for William Dafoe
When you use Google to search for multiple words, the results can often include them in any order and not just the particular order that you searched for. While this may be useful in some cases, sometimes you may want precise results, for instance when you’re searching for song lyrics. This is when you can use quotation marks to search for exact results.
Asterisk wildcard
There may be instances when you want to search for something precise but you may not have the right words. This is when you can simply add an asterisk in place of the words you can’t recollect and Google will fill in the blanks for you. For instance, if you’re looking for the anime Attack on Titan, but can’t remember if the exact name is Attack on Titan or Attack of Titan, you can simply search for Attack * Titan, and Google will help you out.
Google keeps track of the time, not just in your city but every city in every timezone. So if you want to know what time it is in a particular city abroad, anywhere in the world, all you need to do is Google “time (name of the city)” and you will get the local time for that region.
You can also get timings for sunrise or sunset in any city by simply searching for “sunrise (name of the city)” or “sunset (name of the city)” to get quick results.
Google also lets you set a timer or stopwatch right from a new tab on your phone or computer. Simply search for something like “timer 7 minutes” to start a timer. In the adjacent tab in the Timer Box, you can even find the Stopwatch function.
Using Google to get to the images you want is great, but you can also take Google’s help to get from an image to its original source or find the same image in a higher resolution, or similar images. To this, first, go to the dedicated Google Images homepage. You can do this by visiting the Google page and clicking on the “Images” button on the top right.
Once on the Google Images page, find the camera-shaped icon in the search bar. It will usually be the second icon from the right inside the pill-shaped search bar. Click on the button to upload an image from your phone or computer and Google will reverse search for the same.
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