Search Tips Brought to you by evolvingnewsroom.co.nz

When you enter keywords into Google, it searches web pages from across the world wide web. That’s great if you want a wide search that catches any page or document that contains those words“Flight of the Conchords”

But what if you want specific information and you’re in a hurry?

There are ways to make Google searches more specific.... and faster

Let’s say you’re researching the Flight of the Conchords and you want to find a story that ran in the NZ Herald. You can search the nzherald.co.nz website from the Google search boxsite:

Use this syntax to ask Google to search only nzherald.co.nz for “flight of the conchords” site: www.nzherald.co.nz “flight of the conchords”

Compare the results of these two searches. The search on the right immediately gives you results from nzherald.co.nz – and hopefully just what you were looking forsite: www.nzherald.co.nz “flight of the conchords”“flight of the conchords”

If you wanted to know about a music download, you might search the Conchords’ MySpace page site: www.myspace.com“flightof the conchords”

You can also search particular kinds of sites such as university websites (perhaps if you wanted to know whether there was any academic research into the Flight of the Conchords)site: .ac.nz

site: .govt.nzOr government websites site: .govt.nz “flight of the conchords”

You can quickly find websites that link to the one you’re interested inlink:

In our example, the link search might help find fan clubs of the Flight of the Conchordslink: www.flightoftheconchords.com

You can find what information Google has about a particular website using an info searchinfo: www.flightoftheconchords.com

And a related search will list websites similar to the one you namerelated: www.flightoftheconchords.com

What if you’re stuck for the first line of a book or a phrase you only half-remember?

You can find websites that refer specifically to a bookbook

Imagine you want to know the opening line of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudicebook “pride and prejudice”

Which of these two searches will be most helpful in finding the novel’s opening line?“pride and prejudice” book “pride and prejudice”

Forgotten how a phrase goes? Try using an asterisk in the spot where the missing word goeshow now * cow

If you’re researching breast cancer and don’t want any dubious search results, try this...safesearch:

safesearch: “breast cancer”

Auto? Automobile? Car? Runabout? Classic? If you’re not sure what to call what you’re looking for...

...try putting a tilde (~) in front of your keyword. Google will look for ‘auto’ and for synonyms of ‘auto’~auto

Imagine you want to upgrade your phone but you have a limited budget

Try typing the phone you want into the Google search box alongside a number range#...#

iphone $400...$600

Google is also a calculator

Use these symbols for common equations+ - * /

25 + 258

Here are some more PercentageRaise to a powerOld measure innewEquation% of^old in new5*9+(sqrt 10)^3 25 % of 97810 ^245 Celsius in Fahrenheit5*9+(sqrt 10)^3=

25 % of 978

45 Celsius in Fahrenheit

5*9+(sqrt 10)^3=

Voila. A handful of search tips to help you work smarter and faster

You can find many more Google search tips on these websiteshttp://www.adelaider.com/google/http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html

The EndBrought to you by evolvingnewsroom.co.nz