Google Tools: Ten Tips to improve your searching

Original by Peter Grad, Knight-Ridder Newspapers (http://tinyurl.com/9tlzg)
Summarized/modified by Charlie Smyth and Tom Ahasic, Crop Sciences/UIUC, 1/13/06

1.) Use the tilde “~” to retrieve sources based on matches as well as synonyms
            Eg. ~crop science versus crop science

2.) Use the hyphen/dash “-“ to exclude certain words
            Eg. field crops versus field crops -corn –soy

3.) Use the “*” to fill in for unknown words
            Eg. Look up Lies, damn lies, and * versus Lies, damn lies

4.)  Take advantage of the Google Cache to look at websites that no longer are active/exist: use the blue Cached from the line at the bottom of each hit.

5.) Phone number look up: type “phonebook: name city state”. Note that you need the colon after the word phonebook. Also, you can go to Whitepages.com for the same service.

6.) Reverse phone number lookup – just type in the number area code first, no spaces/dashes

7.)  Look up definitions and synonyms: “Define: word”

8.) Limit search to specific domains: eg “smyth site:uiuc.edu” versus “smyth site:cropsci.uiuc.edu”

9.) Use the Google toolbar (IE and Firefox versions) – download from options found in number 10 below. In fact, for the most common, http://pack.google.com/ which also includes Google Desktop and Google Earth, two additional tools

10.)  Images, other tools and services: http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ - you can search for just images, catalogs and such by going to Google and selecting “more”:

            Eg. Calculator does simple math and converts units (default is metric unless “to units” is added): 80 feet * 100 feet to acres

            Images – search for pictures by topic or theme

            Lab – see what other things are under development