How to: Google Like a Pro. Part I

How to: Google Like a Pro. Part I

There are quite a lot of indispensable IT skills required at the modern workplace: these days, an employee should have considerable knowledge of office suites, get on with complex office equipment, and surf the Web like a boss. 'Like a boss' can be a bit of an exaggeration, since most of the time working as a manager in an IT company involves a great deal of Web serfing, rather than surfing. Still, you can't do without googling hundreds of things every day, and the more professionally you fare the better. Here's a couple of tips on how to google like a Real Pro.

1. Don't forget that 'Advanced Search' option

When did you last use the 'Advanced Search' option? Like... never? I'm not surprised, really. Most of us don't even know about Advanced Search. And those who have heard something of it somewhere do not even realize that this option can dramatically facilitate searching for information. I'm not joking, the page is teeming with extremely useful search tools. Take your time and have a look at what Google has in store there.

The Advanced Search in Google

2. The '-' character

Imagine you want to search for cat photos and enter 'pussy' in the search box. Whoa, that's not exactly what you were looking for! So, what should we do to finally enjoy our favorite cat pictures instead of... instead of this?

That's an easy one! If you don't want any words or character combinations come up in your search results, enter the '-' character followed with the undesirable characters in the search box. After that, these words will be removed from you search results.

3. The synonym search

So, here's the deal: you're in the midst of an extremely emotional Internet argument and you want to call somebody an idiot; but you have already called them an idiot about fifty-seven times and you can think of no other synonyms for the word.

The Synonym Search in Google

Open Google and enter '~idiot' in search box. If you don't want the original term to come up in the search results, just complement the search query with the '-idiot' parameter we have talked about above.

4. Single-site search

Back to those cat pictures. Let us imagine that you want to search for some term on a specific website, sparing lots time and nerve cells. What should you do to make Google search through a single website?

The Single-Site Search in Google

Enter your search terms complemented with 'site:' followed by the site URL afterwards. You have no idea how helpful it can come in.

5. Definition search

Unfortunately, we are not the only ones to use the synonym search feature. Someone has called us an imbecile. Well, we may suspect it doesn't actually mean 'an extremely intelligent and attractive person', but we don't know for sure.

The Definition Search in Google

Google provides us with a way out. You can enter 'define:' and the word you're seeking the definition of and enjoy the selected definition by Google. There's a small snag, however: the feature works only for English words. It means that if someone has called you 'imbécile' in French you have all the chances to never find out what the word means.