Google doesn't need introductions. It is the most visited page in the world. Literally. Every month more than 92.5 billion people visit it. The second most popular search engine in the world, Baidu, has 5.6 billion monthly visits. To get an idea, Google has 92% of the search engine market . And only on smartphones, the figure rises to 95%. Come on, if you are going to search the internet, it is very likely that you will do it on Google. So why not offer you a selection of Google tricks to better search what you need in your day to day?
It's not that you don't know how to search the internet. Doing so is nowadays as easy as opening the web browser and typing in the search bar. What's more, thanks to virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa or the Google Assistant, you can search Google by asking your assistant directly. And what about the widgets, which Google integrates on the screen of your smartphone.
But there is a problem with Google. Such is the number of indexed pages that it is easy to find a lot of noise and few relevant links, at least for you. Or put another way, that maybe you are looking for something in particular but the results have to do with a similar topic but not the one you want.
A simple example. If you search for “dog” in Google, you will see results related to these animals. But there are many things you could want about a dog. Do you want to know what they can eat and what not? Are you interested in finding out where to buy a dog? Or are you just looking for funny dog videos?
Google tricks you should memorize
There are a number of Google tricks that we should all keep in mind before searching the internet. They are very easy to memorize and, in return, you will find everything you are looking for in a more concrete way and according to the context of what you are looking for.
It's basically about filtering the Google results and showing only the ones you need to see. For example, if you add quotation marks to a word or phrase , you will narrow the search to that word or phrase enclosed in quotes.
If you add hyphens before the words , you exclude them from the search. That is, you can search for dogs -food and thus exclude everything that has to do with food and dogs. If you use a vertical bar to separate search terms, websites will be searched with one or all of the terms. For example, dogs | cats to find anything with one or the other. And if you put two points between two numbers , the results will be displayed within those ranges.
Google examples:
Add quotes: “Tallest building” Use hyphens: speed jaguar -car Add vertical bar: marathon | career Place a colon between two numbers: camera $ 50 .. $ 100 But there are many more Google tricks for searching the internet. For example, to search only on a website, try the example iPhone site: hypertextual.com and you will only search within that website. If you search on social networks, indicate the social network with an at sign. For example, @twitter dogs.
Another possibility is to ask questions to get quick answers . If you are looking for Barcelona weather you will get the Barcelona weather forecast. If you search for define cockatoo, you will get a definition of this peculiar animal. If you indicate a mathematical operation, Google will solve it for you. Also converts units if you write something like 3 dollars to euros.
And what about the searches for sports or film or music professionals. You will get results, events and other data of interest with related information so that you know everything you are looking for.
Common mistakes to avoid when searching the internet
According to Daniel Russell, senior scientific researcher at Google, the users of this search engine make some frequent mistakes when searching for something on the internet. Luckily, we can avoid them and thus improve our searches with simple Google tricks.
First error: perform only one search . You have to be very lucky so that in the first search you find exactly what you were looking for. Normally, it is recommended to do two or more searches using similar words or changing them. This way you will refine your aim better and obtain more elaborate results.
Another big mistake is treating fonts equally. Or put another way, it is convenient to check the credibility of the sources . Depending on what you are looking for, there are more serious sources and others less reliable to obtain specific data or information. Google indexes all types of content, and the problem is that not everything has the same reliability or credibility . To help us in this work, Google is going to implement an option to learn more about the source used, its reputation, related sources …
What do you want to search for exactly? When searching the internet, you need to choose the right words to get the right results. Sometimes we think that the first thing that goes through our mind works. But it is convenient to think for a moment and ask yourself with what words would you explain to a stranger what you want to find. You can try different combinations of words and carry out searches in different tabs . So then we will compare the results in search of the most appropriate one.
Another of Google's tricks to search the internet like a professional is based on the fact that Google is no longer just a search engine with words. Today you can search from an image or carry out specialized searches such as videos, products for sale, addresses and geographic locations on a map and much more. Even find your lost iPhone. It is not the same to search for a restaurant, for which it is better to use Google Maps , than to search for the definition of a word or to learn how to change a window blind. In this case, in YouTube you will find the solution.
Last Google recommendation : use the suggested words even if you don't know them . That is, if you do a search and Google suggests adding a word to the search, take advantage of it. Maybe the search will be more accurate on the second or third try thanks to that suggestion.
Searching the internet is not an exact science. Usually it takes us a few seconds, but if you want to find the perfect result, you may have to perfect your technique and use some of the Google tricks that we have seen above. And it is that although in Google there is practically everything, it will be of little use if you cannot find it .
