Hidden Features of Google Search

Google is used by billions of people every day to find a variety of information on the Internet. However, how many of us really use all the Google features to the full? It is easy to learn little things to help you find the desirable results faster and more precisely.

Quotations Marks, Minus and OR

Google is extremely good at finding the information you need, but with more specific search phrases you can get much better results. Using operators such as quotations marks - "like that" - or enclosing search phrases or using a minus, which will, exclude the keyword from your search, for example (bread recipe - flour). By using 'OR', you will prompt Google to give you a choice, e.g. Football Cup 2012 or 2014.

Filter keyword searches on a single site

Google gives you the choice to restrict your search to a single site. For example, if you are looking for Editorial Guidelines on the EzineArticles site, simply type 'editorial guidelines site:EzineArticles.com'.

Searching for a definition

From the time to time, we all struggle with the meaning of words and need to find an exact definition. In this case, using the operator 'define' comes in handy. Using 'Define:word' gives you the dictionary definition of the desired word with its synonyms.

Find similar sites

Sometimes you may want to look for a similar site to one you already use, in this scenario the operator 'related' comes in handy. For example, 'related:bbc.com' gives you some of the sites for rivals of the BBC or their sister sites.

Search for Apps

Google search is built to simplify the ability to find the right application for your Smartphone. By clicking on more>Apps at the top of result page, you will get a list of available applications. This function is particularly handy for Android users.

Google Trends

Find out what others are searching for in your country. Simply type 'Google.com/trends' in your browser to find the latest trends in music, TV or movies.

Google's best doodles

By skipping any search criteria and clicking on 'I'm feeling lucky' Google will take you to its selection of doodles graphically divided with logos corresponding to important dates.

Essential info on your fingertip

With simple prompts such as 'weather', you will get the current seven-day forecast for your location. By adding the name of any city or town you want, you can get a forecast for a different location. If you ever need to know the time somewhere else on the globe, just type 'time New York' for example, to see the time at that location. For many people knowing the times of sunrise and sunset is very important, to know when sun is coming up in London, type 'sunrise London'. To check stock information promptly; use 'GOOG' to find out latest Google stock status.

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Search with Google Desktop

In this era of Internet, most people are frequent users of computers. Many of us use computers through out the day, accumulating morasses of information in various formats, which include email, digital photo, word document, spreadsheet, presentation file, ebook, article, other downloaded files, music, visited web pages, and many others. We stuff them in multiple folders in our PC. Before we know it, our hard drives become a storeroom of misplaced items. As a result, finding a needed file of information some times become a daunting task!

The search function integrated to Microsoft Windows is not a big help either. It requires you to know, albeit vaguely, where the file could possibly be located. If your data storage is significant and you made a search on your whole hard disk, it might take ages to get search results and, then again, there is no guarantee that you will find the right file. Frustrating? Thanks to new Google Desktop Search this is about to change!

What is Google Desktop Search?

Google Desktop Search is a free downloadable small program, which will quickly and easily find your files no matter where in your hard disk they are stored. The great thing about this program is by making your computer searchable, this program frees you from having to manually organize and sort your files, emails, and downloads. You no more have to mull over where in your PC the information you are looking for is residing in your email, files or web pages that you browsed recently.

At present Google Desktop Search works only with the full text in Outlook and Outlook Express email, text, HTML, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, AOL chat, and Web pages viewed through Internet Explorer. Other files like PDF will be probably added in future version.

How it works?

Google Desktop Search is fairly easy to download and set up. The address for downloading the program is http://desktop.google.com. Once you installed the program, it begins initial indexing process of your hard disks. This may take several hours for an average size disk. The one-time indexing process only works when the computer has been idle for more than thirty seconds. Indexing for Google Desktop Search is an ongoing process, new files and emails get updated automatically. The search index created by the program resides on your own computer.

On your system tray you will see a swirled icon in Google colors, by clicking on it you will open the regular Google search page with the addition of Desktop along side with other search areas. Once the indexing is done, files are searched in under a second and the results are impressively precise. The top bar shows quantities of files found under the four categories, which include emails, files, chat and Web history. The results are shown in much the same way as regular Google interface. You can choose to see relevant results from all or any of the categories. You can also sort results by relevance or by date. By clicking on any result you open the file in respective application software.

The email query results are the best! No longer have you had to remember in which folder you stored the email written to John in reference to Peter. By searching for Peter or John, you will find all relevant emails and related correspondence. You can read and answer to any of the discovered email from the thread. This really saves time when you need to follow up to a large numbers of emails each day.

There are two more text buttons next to the search field. One is Desktop Preferences and other is Remove Items. Desktop preferences allow you to choose the types of files you would like the program to include in its index out of available ones. You can also point out not to index specific folders from your hard disk. If you share your PC with others, it's a good idea to eliminate your private folders from the Desktop index. You can also specify not to index certain websites from your cached web history as well. The Remove items button allow you to eliminate selected results from the index.

The advance search option allows you to search by phrase by putting the phrase within quotation marks, to eliminate a word from search by putting a minus sign in front of the word, to search by file type, and to search within a web URL. A neat feature is to integrate your desktop search with your web search. This is very handy if you have already done an extensive search for some information and after a few days doing search for similar information once again. Privacy question

By default, Google Desktop Search collects a limited amount of non-personal information from your computer and sends it to Google. This includes summary information, such as the number of searches you do and the time it takes for you to see your results, etc. You can opt out of sending this information during the installation process or from the Desktop preferences later. According to Google Privacy Policy no personally identifying information, such as your name or address, will be sent to Google without your explicit prior permission.

What is missing?

I bemoan not having PDF files in the search process as yet. I have dozens of e-books and PDF whitepapers residing in my PC, and I really would prefer to have them indexed. That way, I'd have been able to read materials, when I needed them most.

The other thing I want to see is clustered result of my query, which shows organized search results into meaningful hierarchical folders similar to the way Vivisimo search engine works. This clustering is particularly helpful for desktop search, as this allows us to see other relevant documents connected to the searched word.

Conclusion

Due to Google's immense popularity as a search engine, it's logical that most users will prefer Google's desktop search program as oppose to other similar programs, such as Copernic and Hotbot. Finally you can search your very own computer with similar ease and preciseness as you have been searching the Internet for quite some time.