You Won’t Believe the Hidden Gems You Can Find Using Google’s Advanced Search – Here’s How!

Google is undoubtedly the go-to search engine for billions of users. But, did you know that there are many hidden gems that Google offers, which most of us are unaware of? Yes, you heard that right – the advanced search feature of Google allows you to refine your search results and dig deep into the pool of information. Here’s how you can use Google’s advanced search tips to find hidden gems:

Have you ever come across an image or a photograph, and you wanted to look up its source, or find more information about its subject? Google has a reverse image search feature that can help you with that. Click on the camera icon on the right side of the search bar, and upload the image you want to search. You can either paste the image URL, upload the image from your folder, or drag and drop it on the Google search bar. Google then scours the web for all instances of that image, and shows you the webpages, and information related to it.

Are you looking for a specific type of file, such as a PDF, a PowerPoint presentation, or an Excel spreadsheet? Google’s advanced search allows you to filter your search results by file type. You can enter the specific keyword or phrase you are looking for, followed by the file type, such as “sales report filetype:pdf”. This way, Google will display only results that are in that particular file type, saving you time and effort.

What if you want to search for information on a specific website, or a domain extension, such as “.org”, “.edu”, or “.gov”? Google allows you to use the site-specific search feature. All you have to do is type in the keyword or phrase you want to search, followed by “site:”, and then the website or domain extension you want to search within. For example, if you want to search for information about eco-friendly products on the USDA website, you can enter “eco-friendly products site:usda.gov” in the search bar.

Are you looking for information that falls within a specific numeric range, such as a price range, a date range, or a numerical value range? Google’s advanced search allows you to filter your search results by numerals. You can use the format “keyword or phrase, followed by two dots (..), then the lowest number in the range, followed by two dots, and then the highest number in the range”. For example, if you want to search for laptops that fall within a price range of $500-$1000, you can enter “laptops $500..$1000” in the search bar.

What if you want to search for a keyword or a phrase, but you are not sure about its exact spelling, or variations of it? Google’s wildcard search feature can help you with that. You can use the asterisk (*) symbol as a wildcard character that can replace any word and any number of characters in a keyword or a phrase. For example, if you want to search for “best * book”, Google will show results with all possible options, such as “best selling book”, “best fiction book”, “best children’s book”, and so on.

In conclusion, Google’s advanced search feature not only saves time, but also brings up hidden gems that you may not have found otherwise. So, go ahead and try out these advanced search tips to get the most out of Google’s search engine. Happy searching!

If you do a lot of Googling, you might find yourself running up against some limitations of the search engine. As all-powerful as it might be, sometimes it doesn’t do quite what you’re hoping for. Fortunately, you can use these advanced search features to be a little more direct with Google.

In addition to the normal google.com search interface, Google also offers a slightly-hidden advanced search tool. Here, you can enter a wide variety of hyper-specific search terms or limit searches by attributes not available through the regular search interface. This makes running a Boolean-style search a little easier and also gives you a more direct interface if you forget your Google search bar hacks.

But what is it good for? Here are a few potential use cases to give you an idea of how powerful Google’s advanced search can be.

While you can accomplish almost all of these searches through the search bar and attendant options, using the advanced search make it’s a little easier when your Google-fu has gotten rusty.

Find Academic Results Quickly

It’s amazing that virtually all the world’s knowledge is accessible through a single website. However, it can also be frustrating when you have to look through all the world’s knowledge to find what you’re looking for. To slim down your results, you can use Google’s advanced search to roll your own version of Google Scholar.

As an example, I’m going to search for academic articles about Klein bottles, my favorite non-orientable surface.

First, I’ll type in my search term. I’ve used the field for “this exact word or phrase” to filter out results that only include one of the two words.

Let’s limit results to English, since I’m monolingual.

I only want academic articles, so I’ll limit my domain to “.edu”.

Limiting our search to page titles will keep our pool small, including only results for academic papers that actually have the words “Klein bottle” in the title.

Lastly, let’s limit our search to PDFs, since most publicly-accessible academic research is published via PDF.

Finally, I’ll click “Advanced Search” to submit my search. The search returns a number of excellent resources I can explore.

Search for Images by Size, Content, and Usage Rights

In addition to the Google advanced search that crawls the text-based Internet, Google provides the same set of advanced search tools for image-specific searches. They’ve also added a few useful image-specific parameters which we’ll explore below.

As an example, let’s say I’m looking for images to illustrate a blog post. For my hypothetical post, I’m trying to find a photo of a computer or tablet that isn’t a Mac.

I know that I want a full-color image, so I’ll select that.

I also need something that’s reasonably large, so I’ll set the size to at least 640×480.

Using a JPG will make my life a little easier, so I’ll filter for that, too.

I don’t want just any JPG though, I want a photo specifically.

I also need content that I’m legally permitted to use.

Once I have all my parameters set up, I’ll click Advanced Search to submit my search.

As you can see, it’s not perfect, but this is the fault of people keywording their images rather than Google itself. You can see a result that is obviously a Mac in the first line.

Fortunately, my limited search has given me the perfect image within the first few results.

Search for Video Tutorials

While I know a good deal about computers, Adobe’s video post-production software After Effects has always given me a hard time. Unfortunately, YouTube’s native search isn’t too helpful for finding the type of tutorial video that I want. To get around this, I’ll use Google’s advanced video search tool.

I’m looking for an After Effects tutorial that will teach me how to key in a background against a green screen. I don’t want to see any reviews, and I want to search for the many words people use for “how to” online. As you can see, I’ve put “how to” in quotes to treat that phrase as a single search term.

While most popular YouTube videos are in English, I’ll specify anyway.

I don’t want something too short or too long, so I’ll select a medium length.

Since I have the newest version of After Effects, I don’t want a video that’s too old.

Most of the results will be from YouTube anyway, but lets limit our search to avoid any outliers.

Now that I’ve entered all my parameters, I’ll click Advanced Search to submit my query.

And I’ve come up with a great list of videos that will (hopefully) help me get my green screen working right.

Conclusion

Whether you’re looking for text, images, or video, Google’s advanced search tools can help you find what you’re looking for more quickly.

Alexander Fox is a tech and science writer based in Philadelphia, PA with one cat, three Macs and more USB cables than he could ever use.

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