10 Advanced Google Tricks Worth Knowing

When it comes to researching and finding things on the web, Google is your best friend. You can find just about anything on Google with a little time and effort. Some things might take longer than others to find, but nothing is impossible with Google.

What makes Google so useful is the many tricks that can be used with it. There are really a lot of tricks (or “hacks” as some like to call them) out there that many people do not even know about. Since we can’t cover all of those here, we’ll just cover the ones that are undoubtedly worth knowing and are sure to come in handy for you at one time or another.

Get the Current Time

If you want to know the current time in another location this trick will come in handy. Just enter “current time zip code (or city, state)” or “what time is it in zip code (or city, state)” – no quotations needed.

Get Measurements

This is especially helpful when following recipes or converting measurements, but can be used for all kinds of things like finding out how many USD are in a Euro, how many MB (megabytes) are in a GB (gigabyte) and much more. Enter “1st measurement” in “2nd measurement” – no quotations needed.

Compare Items

If you ever need to find something that is better, similar, sounds like or reminds you of something, this trick is just for you. There are quite a few different key phrases you can use for this one. All of these are great if you’re looking for better alternatives or looking for something that you can’t remember the name of or word for.

• “better than keyword”
• “reminds me of keyword”
• “similar to keyword”
• “sounds like keyword”

View Blocked Sites

Google is great as a free web proxy if your job or school has blocked certain domains from use. This is because Google creates a cache for just about every web page that it has indexed. You can access the cache for a web page in 2 different ways.

1. Enter “cache:website.com” into Google – no quotes needed. The website.com part of course represents the web page that you want to access.
2. Search for the site on Google and then click on the “Cached” link next to the result.

Search by Image

This is more of a new feature than it trick, but it’s probably something that you weren’t aware of. You can now search Google by image instead of text. You’ll have to be on the Google Images search page first. Then click on the little camera icon at the end of the search box.

Then you can enter an image URL or upload an image. Google will then show you information about that image along with pages that include the image and other very similar images.

Track Packages

This one is very easy and convenient. Just type (or paste) in the tracking number for your package (any carrier) and you’ll be given a link to the corresponding carrier; you can then click through to see delivery information pertaining to your package.

View Any Website’s Images

If you want to see all the images on a website, just enter “site:website.com” into the Google Images search page. There are no quotations needed and of course website.com represents the website you’re searching for. You can then further filter those images by type; just select an option from the sidebar (face, photo, clip art, or line drawing).

Include and Exclude Specific Words

If you’re searching for something specific, you may want to include or exclude specific words in your search results. This is done by adding a + (plus) or – (minus) sign in from of the word(s) that you want definitely want or don’t want.

For example, if you’re searching for sports games for your iPhone, but you don’t want soccer or golf games to be included in your results just enter “iphone games +sport -soccer -golf” – no quotations needed. You can have as many inclusion and/or exclusions as needed.

If you’re looking for a specific term, then you will want to include quotes. So if you’re want your search to include the specific phrase “iphone sport games” then you’d enter it just like that with quotations. Your search results will all have that phrase somewhere on the page.

Find Calculations

Google makes an excellent calculator and is very handy when you need a quick calculation done. You can perform both simple and more advanced math functions. There is even a Google Calculator Guide that will show you all of Google’s built-in calculator functions; it’s worth bookmarking.

Of course, if you’re looking for even more advanced calculations, I highly suggest WolframAlpha.

Search Within Ranges

If you’re looking for information within a certain range of dates or time periods, you can easily do this by using two periods (..) within your search. For example, you might be looking for major disasters between 2000 and 2010, so you would enter “major disasters 2000..2010” – no quotations needed.

What is your favorite Google search tricks?

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This post by Lior Levin was sent to us this week. Lior is a marketing advisor to one of the best live chat services on the web. Lior also consults to a 2 years old personalized oncology innovative startup.