Cool search tricks

With the help of Gary D. Price, MLIS, of The Resource Shelf, and a handful of articles, I put together a list of Cool Search Engine Tips:

• To cut down on results and search only on the page title, type: intitle:"Online journalism"

• Find out who's linking to your web site or blog, use Google like so: link:jdlasica.com/blog or AlltheWeb like this: link.all:jdlasica.com/blog. (AlltheWeb seems a better choice here.)

• Limit your search to a specific site or server:

site:berkeley.edu "jd lasica". (No space between the colon and the next word.) This limits your search to only Cal sites.

To search for Microsoft on the NY Times' site, type: site:nytimes.com Microsoft

To search your name or a subject limiting the search to only .edu sites, type in this syntax: "jd lasica" site:edu

• To limit your search to a specific file type:

Use filetype: to limit searches to .pdf, .doc, .ppt, .xls files. For example, here's how to look for mentions of the phrase "lawrence lessig" in powerpoint slides: "lawrence lessig" filetype:ppt

Or combine: "california" filetype:xls site:gov intitle:state to get spreadsheets from .gov sites that contain the word California and have the word "state" in the title.

To search servers only in Canada: "jd lasica" site:ca

You could "not" out a few sites by using the minus sign. For example, to remove all blogspot and userland blogs from a search you could do the following:
-site:blogspot.com -site:userland.com, etc.

Remember Google only allows a maximum of 10 terms in a search box. So if you would eliminate 6 sites, you can only have 4 query terms. AlltheWeb.com, by contrast, has no limits.

Caveats: It's important to remember that is good as Google is, it very likely doesn't have everything. That's why it's always a good idea to use more than one engine. Also, site: does not work with Google News.

AltaVista allows truncation searches. Type fudg* brownie recipe and the wild card will retrieve fudge brownies, fudgy brownies and fudge-nut brownie cake.

The wild card will also allow wild card word substitutions, so Nestle * cookies turns up lots of results in AltaVista or Google.

AltaVista also allows proximity searching. Type substitution NEAR chocolate to find the word substitution near chocolate.

Type a url into AlltheWeb and you'll get a list of all web pages and sites that link to it. For example, http://jdlasica.com/blog.

Other Google tricks:

• Googlism will find out what Google.com thinks of you or your friends. For instance: Doc Searls.

• Use Google as a U.S. telephone directory. All you need to know is the person's last name and state. Type phonebook: followed by the last name and two-letter state abbreviation in the Google search field. No space between colon and next word. For instance, phonebook:bread & chocolate va. (The search returns a maximum of about 600 hits, so to find names that are fairly common, you'll have to help it out by providing a city or a first name.)

If you type rphonebook:, you will get only residential listings. If you type bphonebook:, you'll get only business listings. (Don't leave out the colon in "phonebook:".)

• Reverse directory: You can use the phone book as a reverse directory. Type phonebook:(area code) number, and Google will (usually) give you the name of the person or business who has that number.

• Dictionary. After you've done a search, search terms appear near the top of the page of results. Click on an underlined word, and Google will give you its definition. Another click activates a thesaurus.

• Google Alert: Enter your search terms, and the site, which is not affiliated with Google, automatically runs a Google search every day and e-mails the new results to you.

• Google lists more search tricks here.

• You can find more Google tool tricks at Buzztoolbox. [One tool lets you search business names by state, with the city optional.] Among the handy ones is Goofresh, which lets you search for pages that were indexed today, yesterday, in the last seven days or the last 30 days. (Unfortunately, indexing and freshness are only tangentially related, so "fresh" does not mean new.)

Another person who has invented tools for Google and put them online is Kevin Shay. One of his programs lets you search Google for terms that are within one, two or three words of each other.

Also, see 20 great Google tricks.

August 2003:

For all you Googlephiles out there, the search engine company recently added a new operator that it recognizes ~ the tilda character. Basically, you can do searches like: ~master -master and get results like MASTA and mastering. Very nifty.

Microdoc News mentions some advice on using the new feature by Andy Baio at waxy.org.

Writes Andy:

Curious about what synonyms Google is using for its new synonym operator? Try searching for your synonym keyword and then exclude the same keyword from results, like so:

~help -help = guide, manual, faq, support, tutorial, helping, tips, problems
~search -search = finder, listings, searcher, database
~blog -blog = log, weblog, blogger
~rss -rss = xml, rdf
~tivo -tivo = directv, replaytv, replay, pvr, video recorder
~idiot -idiot = stupid

Also, from posters on Andy's site:

~love = romantic, marriage, lovers, compatibility.

~Scottish = Scotland, Celtic, Edinburgh, BBC (?!), Gaelic and Glasgow. No Aberdeen, Dundee, Stirling or Inverness (the other of Scotland 6 cities) and thankfully no kilts haggis or bagpipes