Marketing Answers Blog

While most of us use Google Search every day, few of us ever become power searchers either. If you aren’t aware of all the little tricks of the trade when it comes to using this search engine, please read on because with a few high-test commands in your tool belt, you can considerably increase the potency of your search capability. Take a look at the following list of must-know commands to make sure you know how to Google Search effectively:

Specific Phrase– put your search string in double quotes to get results only containing the exact words together in the order you typed them:

“Blue Lake Blues”

One or The Other – when searching for either of several words use the ORoperator (or “|”)

Dog | fleas | itch

Definitions – to find a definition for a word, simply use the defineoperator:

Define:blossom

Calculator– since your browser is normally more easily accessible than your calculator, use it for simple calculations instead (+-*/)

2+6-9

Not– exclude terms or phrases with the “-“ symbol. The following will exclude ‘dog’ from the search:

–dog fleas itch

Site Specific– here’s an indispensible operator that allows you to focus on a particular page or site. The following will search hubspot.com for the term “marketing”:         

Site:hubspot.com marketing

Backlinks – use the linkoperator to determine some of the links pointing back to a particular site. The following will return some of the backlinks to hubspot.com:

Link:hubspot.com

Location of Term– you can search for a term within certain locations using the following:

Inurl – returns results for the term found in URLs

Intitle – same as above for title

Intext – and text

Inanchor – and in anchor text

Reference Tools

Weather– find the weather in a particular city by entering:

Weather San Diego

Time– find the time in many cities around the world:

Time London

Unit Conversion – convert many units of measurements by entering your desired conversion:

2lbs to kilos

Sport scores – see scores and schedules for a particular sports team, enter the city and team name:

San diego chargers

 There are a number of other reference tools that you can look into, but I consider the list above a comprehensive summary of what a power-searcher would need in order to be successful. Let me know if I missed any important ones.