Getting what you want from Google

There is so much information available on the web these days that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find what you want.
Thankfully, we have search engines like Google to sift through the dross and help us to find what we are looking for.
Unfortunately, there is still so much info that even with these search engines, it is often a painstakingly slow process to find exactly what you are after.

I currently use Google as my primary search engine mainly because it presently tops the charts as far as indexing is concerned.

Now, do you just plug in a keyword or two and hope for the best? That may be the quickest way to search, but with more than 3 billion pages in Google’s index, it is still a struggle to pare results to a manageable number.

Here are a few tips that I have found on my travels whilst browsing the internet.
There is not one person to thank here as these tips come from many sources.

Page translation
Just because someone speaks another language, it does not mean they do not have something useful or interesting to say.

I use the Google translation tools,
Code:
http://www.google.com/language_tools
Which are similar to the ones found at:
Code:
http://babelfish.altavista.com
And
Code:
http://world.altavista.com

When translating, be specific and creative because these tools are not really the most accurate things on the planet.

Useful Key words
These are some of the more popular keywords for you to use within your search string, just replace the x with your own text:

1. “xxxx” = will look for the exact phrase. For example, “George Bush” will avoid any reference to foliage. (Google is not case sensitive)
2. -x = will search for something excluding a certain term For example, if you were looking for a Hilton hotel and not the Paris Hilton, you’d type Hilton-Paris as your search criteria.
3. filetype:xxx = searches for a particular file extension (exe, mp3, etc)
4. -filetype:xxx = excludes a particular file extension
5. allinurl:x = term in the url
6. allintext:x = terms in the text of the page
7. allintitle:x = terms in the html title of that page
8. allinanchor:x = terms in the links
9. “OR” = Self-explanatory, one or the other… (i.e.: binder OR joiner)
10. ~X = Synonyms/similar terms (in case you can’t think of any yourself)

Numbers in a range
Lets say you’re looking for an mp3 player but only want to spend up to £150. Why swim through all the others? MP3 player £0..£150
The 2 periods will set a numeric range to search between and will also work with dates, weights, etc.

Calculations
For example, to find out how many times the number 8 goes into the number 720, just type 720/8 in the search box and press the Enter key to get the results. You can use the standard + and – keys to add or subtract. Use the / key to divide and the * to multiply.

Measurements
For example, type “100 meters in feet” (without the quotes) and press the
Enter key for the results.

Denied / common words & omitted results
Ever type in a search and see something like this:
“The following words are very common and were not included in your search:”
What if those common words were important to the search criteria?
You can force Google to search through even the common terms by putting a + in front of the denied word.

Or ever see this?
“In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the X already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.” The answer is YES. yes yes yes. Did I mention yes? I meant to.

Preferences
It amazes me when I use other peoples PCs that they do not have their Google search preferences saved. When you use Google as much as I do, who can afford to not have preferences? They are located on the right of the search box, and have several options, though I only find three applicable for myself…
A. Open results in new browser.
B. Display 10-100 results per page.
C. Do not filter.

Wildcard searches. *
Great when applied to a previously mentioned method and handy if you only know part of a program name. I.e. *rar as in Winrar.

If you’ve read this far into this tutorial without saying, “Great, another guy that copied a few Google help pages and thinks its useful info” then I will show you why (besides accuracy, speed, and consistency finding info on anything) it’s nice to know how a search engine works. You combine it with your knowledge of other protocols.

Example:
Do you want free music, free games, free software or free movies? God bless FTP! Try this search:
Code:
intitle:”Index of music” “rolling stones” mp3

Now, what did that search turn up? Let us see if we can better it:
Now search for:
Code:
intitle:”Index of music” ” rolling stones ” *

Notice any difference? A bit better yes?
Now search for:
Code:
intitle:”index of *” ” rolling stones ” mp3

Bang on, a hell of a lot better.

Substitute rolling stones with your favourite band. No? Try the song name, or another file format. Play with it. Assuming someone made an FTP and uploaded it, you will find it. Play around with different search strings and try things like inurl:ftp. I find that * works better for me than trying to guess other peoples spellings mistakes.
The same method here applies for e-books, games, movies or anything that may be on an FTP site.

Intitle: at the beginning of a query word or phrase (intitle:”Three Blind Mice”) restricts your search results to just the titles of Web pages.

Intext: does the opposite of intitle:, searching only the body text, ignoring titles, links, and so forth. Intext: is perfect when what you’re searching for might commonly appear in URLs.

Try using site: (which restricts results to top-level domains) with intitle: to find certain types of pages. For example, get scholarly pages about Mark Twain by searching for intitle:”Mark Twain”site:edu. Experiment with mixing various elements; you’ll develop several strategies for finding the stuff you want more effectively. The site: command is very helpful as an alternative to the mediocre search engines built into many sites.

Now what if you want a song, but cannot remember the name of the artist or for that matter, the song. Here is a foolproof way to find songs you do not know the name for, but you know some of the lyrics:
Code:
“Lyrics” XXXXXXXX (Replace XXX with lyrics you know for sure, make sure you punctuate it properly)
The first search return should be the name of the song; if it isn’t, try other lyrics that you know, or keep refining the lyrics you have already entered.

Alternatively, if you know the artist or song you also use this string by pasting it into your browser replacing “XXX” with the artist/album/song name:
Code:
google.com/ie?q=parent-directory+%22XXX%22+mp3+OR+wma+OR+m3u+OR+ogg+OR+mp 3s+OR+mp3z&num=100

Now for something eBook Lovers should find interesting:-

Find Apache’s (default) Index page by pasting this code into Google:
Code:
+(“index of”) +(“/ebooks”|”/book”) +(chm|pdf|zip|rar) +apache

Find a particular e-Book file by replacing XXX with the title or author.
Code:
allinurl: +(rar|chm|zip|pdf|tgz) XXX

Or the age old way:
Codes:
“parent directory ” /appz/ -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
“parent directory ” Gamez -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
“parent directory ” DVDRip -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
“parent directory ” Xvid -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums
“parent directory ” MP3 -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

You only need change the word after the parent directory (in bold font)…

Hope these will help you find what you want from Google!