List of Common Google Commands and Everyday Google Essentials

Search

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