It's hard to imagine what the internet would be like without the most-used Google search engine. It handles more than three billion searches each day, but do we all know how to use it well? As it turns out Google has some tricks that not everyone knows about.
To make searching for information online a little bit easier you should memorize these simple tricks, such as replacing unknown words in a phrase with an asterisk or using a hyphen to remove words from your search.
Interested? Scroll below for more and tell us if you knew any of these!
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most times, if you just type the word a definition will pop up in the search results automatically. i don't know about the rest of you but, "ain't nobody got time fo dat!"
A [square bracket] is used in text to indicate missing words or as a placeholder for the words that you are to insert. The author is not instructing you to use the square brackets when you do the Google search! "Dear [Madam or Sir], ..."
This one is a bit lame as nobody would leave out the location if they wanted the weather forecast for a specific area.
Again, when doing scholarly searches, this is very useful to weed out the articles that are two "old" to be of use in a research paper.
This format of post was very inconvenient for me and I'm wondering if anyone else had to tap on some posts to see the entire thing?
I am *not* a fan of the trend to use videos for information that is more easily consumed via static text & images.
Load More Replies...if you search 'google' in google, it will fold in on itself and break the internet.
My biggest problem with Google is trying to search for something very specific, and Google (oh so helpfully) adds in a shitton of associated words that I don't want in there. And often just omits the words I actually want it to look for. I then have to go and add little minuses to every word I can think of that Google seems to be adding in order to actually find what I'm looking for... and often times if I add too many of those, Google kinda self-destructs. Even quotation marks don't help. Would love an option to turn associated words off.
I was thinking the same thing. This would have been useful to me in 1999 when I first got my own desktop.
Load More Replies...I didn't think most of these were "hidden." I discovered them all on my own. =/
NOt one single helpful thing. None of these things are necessary, as google does all of that without any of those "tricks"...
These "hints" are widely known among adults, and not that helpful. I'm rather surprised that none of the entries were for https://scholar.google.com. I find this useful, but not the only tool to use. Using Google Scholar weeds out non-scholarly articles. However, it has its limits. I find that for the high school and college level searching using both versions of the search engine yield the best results.
I was really hoping this would teach me how to search for symbols, something which I have wished was possible for as long as search engines have been failing to provide it. As a computer programmer who is frequently looking for common words with specific symbols (e.g "this." or "open()" or "has_child" or "$('#iframe')") I cannot understand why this isn't possible yet.
I'm sorry but this post is useless, unless you are either new to google or a technophobe. (I also wanted to say old people as well but I didn't want to offend anyone)
Actually, it's us old folks who DO know how to do these things. These commands literally pre-date Google.
Load More Replies...I knew all but one of these intuitively already. Not sure who would need this advice.
Those of us with inner ear disorders are made nauseated by this format. It was unreadable, so what's the point?
Stopped using Google when they turned from being very respectful to their users to a KGB-like organisation that thinks it's above all laws and doesn't need to comply to any of them. For the time being I stick to Duck Duck Go.
Thanks for the info, I have just switched to DDG after checking them out, cheers
Load More Replies...bp asks, "what do you think?" i think several of the comments about how obvious all these "secret tips" are all got removed. how mysterious!
This format of post was very inconvenient for me and I'm wondering if anyone else had to tap on some posts to see the entire thing?
I am *not* a fan of the trend to use videos for information that is more easily consumed via static text & images.
Load More Replies...if you search 'google' in google, it will fold in on itself and break the internet.
My biggest problem with Google is trying to search for something very specific, and Google (oh so helpfully) adds in a shitton of associated words that I don't want in there. And often just omits the words I actually want it to look for. I then have to go and add little minuses to every word I can think of that Google seems to be adding in order to actually find what I'm looking for... and often times if I add too many of those, Google kinda self-destructs. Even quotation marks don't help. Would love an option to turn associated words off.
I was thinking the same thing. This would have been useful to me in 1999 when I first got my own desktop.
Load More Replies...I didn't think most of these were "hidden." I discovered them all on my own. =/
NOt one single helpful thing. None of these things are necessary, as google does all of that without any of those "tricks"...
These "hints" are widely known among adults, and not that helpful. I'm rather surprised that none of the entries were for https://scholar.google.com. I find this useful, but not the only tool to use. Using Google Scholar weeds out non-scholarly articles. However, it has its limits. I find that for the high school and college level searching using both versions of the search engine yield the best results.
I was really hoping this would teach me how to search for symbols, something which I have wished was possible for as long as search engines have been failing to provide it. As a computer programmer who is frequently looking for common words with specific symbols (e.g "this." or "open()" or "has_child" or "$('#iframe')") I cannot understand why this isn't possible yet.
I'm sorry but this post is useless, unless you are either new to google or a technophobe. (I also wanted to say old people as well but I didn't want to offend anyone)
Actually, it's us old folks who DO know how to do these things. These commands literally pre-date Google.
Load More Replies...I knew all but one of these intuitively already. Not sure who would need this advice.
Those of us with inner ear disorders are made nauseated by this format. It was unreadable, so what's the point?
Stopped using Google when they turned from being very respectful to their users to a KGB-like organisation that thinks it's above all laws and doesn't need to comply to any of them. For the time being I stick to Duck Duck Go.
Thanks for the info, I have just switched to DDG after checking them out, cheers
Load More Replies...bp asks, "what do you think?" i think several of the comments about how obvious all these "secret tips" are all got removed. how mysterious!