A couple of years ago I did some extensive research for a workshop I presented called Search Strategies. I came across that material as I was purging and organizing some of my files. As I read through the material from my “old workshop” I realized there were some neat shortcuts and Google tips I have not used in a while. My inquisitive mind (and procrastination when it comes to cleaning files) often leads me from one thing to another so of course, I also took time to see if there were some new tips and strategies that had cropped up in recent years. Below, you will find some of the interesting tips and strategies I rediscovered from the past and some new tips I discovered this evening. I’m sure you will recognize several of them. Feel free to share additional Google tips using the comment link at the bottom of the post.

1. The (-) and (+) Operators
   Use the (-) or (+) operators to inform the Google search engine as to whether to include or exclude a word when performing a search.  For example, if you search for King Henry I your results would point you to information about all the King Henry’s not just King Henry I.  The query King Henry +I will give you the results you desire (since “I” is one of the common words filtered from a regular search).  Likewise, if you perform a search using the (-) symbol you will be able to search pages that do not include a particular term.  The query -red ants will give you results about ants other than red ants.
2. Phrase Searching
   Put quotes around phrases if you want to search for words that appear together.  For example, the query “Middle School” will look for webpages that show the words Middle School next to each other.
3. The ~ Operator
   The tilde (~) operator takes the word immediately following it and searches both for that specific word and for the word’s synonyms. It also searches for the term with alternative endings. Remember you should not have a space between the “~” and the query word. For example, ~fast matches “fast,” “faster,” “fastest,” as well as “quick” and “speedy.”
4. The .. Operator
   The .. operator specifies that results should contain numbers in a range. Remember you should not have a space between the “..” and the two numbers. For example, the search query troll doll $10..$50 will look for trolls that cost between $10.00 and $50.00.
5. The * Operator
   The * Operator serves as a placeholder for a word or more than one word. For example, “You * my life“ tells Google to find pages containing a phrase that starts with “You” followed by one or more words, followed by “my life.”
6. Identify Local Time for Any City in the World
   To learn what time it is in a particular city type the word “time” followed by the name of the city. For example, the query time Paris will give you the current time in Paris, France and Paris, Maine and Paris, Illinois.
   
7. Define a Word
   Define any word by simply typing the word “define” followed by the word you need defined. For example, define catapult will provide a definition for the word “catapult.”  You can also use the phrases “what is” or “what are” followed by a word or phrase.
8. Money Conversion
   How strong is the dollar? Use the query convert dollar to yen (or choose a different currency) to find out. By the way, Google cannot guarantee the accuracy of the exchange rates used by the calculator, but you will get a good general idea regarding conversion rate when you you use this feature.
9. Time Conversion
   How many hours are there in a fortnight? Use the query hours per fortnight to find out.
10. Weather
    What is the weather like in Madrid? Use the query weather Madrid to find out. You can also type “weather” followed by the city and state, U.S. zip code, or city and country. You will learn the current weather and will also be able to see the weather forecast (see screenshot below):
    
11. Searching within a Specific Website
    You can search for a text in a specific website. To search my blog for a past column I wrote for speech teachers I would use the following query “speech teacher” site:http://farroutlinks.net/blog. Notice there are no spaces before or after the colon.
12. Searching Based on File Type
    You can search for matching keywords inside a file type. If I wanted to find .pdf files with the word “paraprofession” in them my query would be paraprofessional filetype:pdf. My returns would only show .pdf files with the word paraprofessional. Notice there are no spaces before or after the colon.
13. Google Calculator
    The Google search query form also features numerous calculation capabilities. The features are too numerous to detail in this post, but you can access a marvelous Google Calculator Cheat Sheet posted by Nancy Blachman for full details.
14. Booking Flights
    Learn how much it would cost to fly from one city to another using a query that includes city to city.  For example, if I wanted to book a flight from Rochester to San Francisco my query would be Rochester to San Francisco (see sample below)
    
15. Travel Conditions
    Learn about delays and weather conditions at a US airport. For example, if I wanted to know about delays at the Rochester, NY airport my query would be ROC airport (use the 3-digit code for an airport unless there is more than one major airport in the city. If your city has more than one major airport, include the airport name as well as the city in your query.)
16. Linked Pages
    Learn what pages are linking to a particular site. For example, if you I want to know what sites are linking to this blog my query would be link:http://farroutlinks.net/blog. Notice there are no spaces before or after the colon.
17. Intitle
    When you type “intitle:” at the beginning of a query word or phrase  you only see search results that show that criteria in the titles of Web page returns.  For example, if you type intitle:Red Riding Hood all search results will feature “Red Riding Hood” in the title bar of each page return.
18. Intext
    When you type “intext:” a search is only performed on the body text of webpages, ignoring titles, links, etc. This is a good search to perform if your search criteria might commonly occur in a URL address.  For example,  intext:php will help you find the term .php in text instead of returning a myriad of sites that include .php in their web address.
19. Phone Numbers
    Look up phone numbers using the term phonebook:  or phone: followed by the name of the person you are trying to locate.  You can also use the term rphonebook: to look for residential phone numbers.  Your query would look like phonebook:Robert Farr or rphonebook:Robert Farr or phone:Robert Farr.  Notice there are no spaces before or after the colon.  You can also use the query phone followed by a phone number to learn who the phone number belongs to.  For example phone:607-652-1200 will tell you the name of the person or organization that uses that phone number.  The phone function appears to only work for phone numbers listed in phone books.
20. Movie Reviews and Showtimes
    I found this tip very handy!  Look for movie reviews and showtimes for movies in your area using the query movie: followed by the name of your city and state.  Your query would look like movie: Oneonta, NY
21. Local Food and Restaurants
    I can’t believe I have not used this search before!  To look for local restaurants simply query the type of food you desire, followed by a comma, followed by your city and state.  A sample query  for pizza in my area would look like pizza, Oneonta, NY.  Search results feature restaurant names, phone numbers, websites, addresses and a mapquest.  A sample screenshot follows:
    
22. Track Packages
    Waiting for a package from USPS, UPS, or FedEx?  Simply type your tracking number in the Google Search box to link to information about your delivery. Query results will look similar to the screenshot shown below:
    
23. Stocks
    Look for stock quotes using stocks: followed by the ticker symbol. For example, if you wanted to know how your IBM stock was doing you could type stock:IBM or stocks:IBM to see a trend chart and brief synopses of how the stock did during the last day of trading. Notice, this function will not work if you include spaces before or after the colon. A sample screenshot follows:
24. Specific Searches
    Google has anumber of specific searches that make it easy to search within blogs, news, books, and much more.  Check out some of the following searches:
    • Blog Search
    • Book Search
    • Catalogs
    • Code Search
    • Directory
    • Finance
    • Images
    • Local/Maps
    • News
    • Patent Search
    • Product Search
    • Video

You can find even more searches and features  when you visit the Google Products Page. I also suggest that you use Google’s Advanced search feature if you can’t remember some of the shortcuts included in this post.  Another excellent site is Soople, a visual interface that makes many of the “specialized” features of Google more user-friendly (especially the calculator features).

Many times people ask me, “how do you find the resources that you find?” One of my favorite search strategies includes the use of various meta-search search engines. While there is no question that Google has cornered the search engine market, when you perform a search on Google you are only getting results from Google. When you perform a search using a meta-search search engine your results will often reflect Google results, as well as results from other search engines. Today, I am sharing Zuula, a new meta-search search engine I recently discovered and Clusty, a metasearch engine I have used for a while. Clusty recently added a few new options that I think you will find very interesting. So let’s get started…

Zuula makes it simple to get results from all the top search engines. Currently, Zuula offers Web, Image, Video, News, Blog, and Job searches. “Zuula provides the results from your favorite search engine unaltered, so you can check those first and then get results from other search engines simply by clicking on their tabs. If you want to switch back and forth between search engines, Zuula remembers where you were. And Zuula keeps sponsored links (which are paid advertisements) clearly separated from the regular search results.”

I found Zuula customizable and easy to use. I especially liked the fact that you set preferences for each search type and can also use preferences to select which search engines to use in a search. The search engine tabs can also be rearranged right from the search results page by dragging and dropping them. In addition, you can set the search tool to filter out (most) adult content. That feature would be even better if the adult content filter could set a password so your students would not be able to reset the preferences back to “do not filter out adult search results.”

Clusty is another metasearch engine that I recently re-discovered. “Clusty queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking.” Clusty currently offers Web, News, Images, Wikipedia, Blogs, Jobs, Shopping, Gov, Labs, and Customize. You can use the customize feature to add up to four additional categories. You can also set preferences to filter adult content. By the way, Clusty does not incorporate search results from Google. Clusty retrieves results from Ask, Open Directory, Gigablast and others. To see which search engines returned results for your query, click on the “Details” link at the top of the search results list.

What makes Clusty unique, however, is what happens after you search. Instead of delivering millions of search results in one long list, Clusty groups similar results together into clusters (thus, the name). I like the clustered results, as they help students see search results by topic so they can zero in on exactly what they are looking for or discover unexpected relationships between items. Clusters help students find results they might otherwise have missed or that were buried deep in the ranked list. You can easily enlarge the font size of Clusty results, making it an excellent search tool for students who are visually challenged. The larger font size also projects well on your interactive whiteboard.

Clusty also makes it easy to create a Clusty Cloud based on a topic of the user’s choice. Look below to see a sample Clusty Cloud I created using the criteria “6 + 1 Writing Traits.” Click on the various cloud words to view annotated search results.

I also used another free Clusty feature to create a Clusty Search box for my site…

	web farroutlinks.net/blog

SortFix is a fairly new, innovative search tool that incorporates an intuitive, graphical interface that is fun to use. Users type in their search criteria; then, SortFix scans and examines the results, to reveal significant keywords and terms that will help you to define a search and narrow the results. SortFix looks like a promising search tool that can be used to help students develop better search strategies. The sorting strategy incorporated in this search tool has the added benefit of helping students with word associations and may expose them to new vocabulary words along the way. Watch the video embedded below to gain a greater understanding of how this nifty little search tool works.