Search
If you search for more than one word at the time in Google it defaults to Boolean search. So, will the engine search for both keywords or for either keyword? The answer is called a Boolean default; search engines can default to AND (it will search for both keywords). Of course, even if a search engine defaults to searching for both keywords (AND) you can usually give it a special command to instruct it to search for either keyword (OR). But Google has to know what to do if you don’t give it instructions. Here are some samples and explanation for some of most useful commands in Google, starting with basic ones.
| Sample Google Searches | Explanation |
| “Alexander Bell” | Placing double quotes around a set of words you are telling Google to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change |
| Alexander * | The *, or wildcard, is a little-known feature that can be very powerful |
| define: facebook | The definition of one word |
| Bicycle Honda “Green Bay” | Google will search for all of them, and double quotes means search for exact math within double quotes. |
| Bicycle Honda OR Motorcycle OR “Green Bay” | If you want to specify that either word is acceptable, you put an OR between each item |
| Bicycle (Motorcycle OR “Green Valley”) | This query searches for the word ” Bicycle” or phrase “Green Valley” along with the word ” Motorcycle.” |
| Bicycle Motorcycle -“Green Valley” | This will search for pages that contain both the words ” Bicycle ” and ” Motorcycle,” but not the phrase “Green Valley.” |
| intitle: “george bush” | Restricts your search to the titles of web pages. |
| inurl: help | Restricts your search to the URLs of web pages. |
| intext: “yahoo.com” | Searches only body text (i.e., ignores link text, URLs, and titles). |
| inanchor: “tom peters” | For example, the link anchor in the HTML code <a href=”http://www.oreilly.com>O’Reilly and Associates</a> |
| site: loc.gov | Allows you to narrow your search by either a site or a top-level domain. |
| link: www.google.com | You’ll be returned a list of pages that link to Google |
| cache: www.yahoo.com | Finds a copy of the page that Google indexed even if that page is no longer
available at its original URL |
| “George Bush” daterange: 2452389-2452389 | Limits your search to a particular date or range of dates that a page was
indexed |
| homeschooling filetype:pdf | Searches the suffixes or filename extensions. Google indexes several different Microsoft formats, including: PowerPoint (PPT), Excel (XLS), and Word (DOC). |
| Related: www.yahoo.com | Finds pages that are related to the specified page |
| info: www.oreilly.com | Provides a page of links to more information about a specified URL |
| phonebook: (510) 111-1212 | Looks up phone numbers |
| Google (site:edu | site:com) | If you want results from .edu and .com domains only |
| Google safe=off | This removes search results mostly of a sexually explicit nature. |
| phonebook | Searches the entire Google phonebook |
| rphonebook | Searches residential listings only |
| bphonebook | Searches business listings only |
| phonebook: coffee -starbucks new york ny | Perhaps you want to find coffee shops that aren’t Starbucks |
| stocks: symbol | Where symbol represents the stock you’re looking for |
| Newburgh /groups | Works like the Google Groups trigger above. |
| author: info@bedrock.gov | Specifies the author of a newsgroup post. This can be a full or partial name, even an email address. |
Google Everyday Essentials
| weather San Francisco, CA | To see the weather for many U.S. and worldwide cities, type “weather” followed by the city and state, U.S. zip code, or city and country. |
| time London | To see the time in many cities around the world, type in “time” and the name of the city. |
| san francisco 49ers | To see scores and schedules for sports teams type the team name or league name into the search box |
| Bon Jovi | To listen to music, search for artists, albums, songs or lyrics. |
| sunrise New Orleans | To see the precise times of sunrises and sunsets for many U.S. and worldwide cities, type “sunrise” or “sunset” followed by the city name. |
| 5*9+(sqrt 10)^3= | To use Google’s built-in calculator function |
| earthquake | To see information about recent earthquakes in a specific area type “earthquake” followed by the city and state or U.S. zip code |
| 10.5 cm in inches | You can use Google to convert between many different units of measurement of height, weight, and volume among many others |
| population FL | To see trends for population and unemployment rates of U.S. states and counties, type “population” or “unemployment rate” followed by a state or county |
| ~fast food | If you want to search not only for your search term but also for its synonyms, place the tilde sign (~) immediately in front of your search term. |
| Define philosophy | To see a definition for a word or phrase, simply type the word “define” then a space, then the word(s) you want defined |
| Italian food 02138 | If you’re looking for a store, restaurant, or other local business in zipcode |
| movies 94705 | To find reviews and showtimes for movies playing near you, type “movies” |
| poison control | You can quickly find the U.S. poison control hotline |
| suicide prevention | You can quickly find the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline |
| 150 GBP in USD | Simply enter the conversion you’d like done into the Google search box |
| Seattle map | Type in the name or U.S. zip code of a location and the word “map” |
| peanut butter +and jelly | If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can make sure we pay attention to it by putting a “+” sign in front of it. |
| 1Z9999W99999999999 | You can track packages by typing the tracking number for your UPS, Fedex or USPS package directly into the search box |
| Patent 5123123 | To search for U.S. patents, enter the word “patent” followed |
| 650 | To see the geographical location for any U.S. telephone area code |