Google Search Tricks

We are fond of asking Google for everything which we aren't aware of. There are couple of tricks that one can exploit Google effectively. Following listed are some of the tricks/hacks for efficacious use of the great Google.

1. Search by file type: The file type modifier allows you to search for documents fitting a particular file type. Suppose you want to find files about baseball that are in PowerPoint. All you have to do is search: “baseball” filetype:ppt.
2. Not: adding a minus (-) allows you to narrow your search, for example if you wanted to search for New York but not City you’d enter New York -City.
3. Either/or: Google looks for the combination of terms you type in, but you can tell it to look for multiple words, for example Olympic or Gold. The short cut is | so Olympic | Gold works as well 
4. Specific Document Types use the modifier “filetype:” if you’re looking for documents or pictures, for example blogging filetype:pdf delivers pdf documents that include the word blogging. 
5. Quotation marks: I use this trick regularly. If you’re looking for the exact phrase, not the words entered, do your search like this “I did but see her passing by” 
6. Wildcard: Former/Old DOS users will remember doing directory searches using an asterisk (*) as a wildcard, and Google supports wildcard entries as well. Example: blogging *.com.au 
7. Definitions: stuck on a word you don’t understand? in Google, it’s as simple as define:word to deliver you a list of definitions  
8. Similar terms: ~ in front of a word tells Google to look for similar terms to that word, for example ~blog web 2.0 
9. Site Specific Search: another shortcut I use regularly. To search within a specific site, start the query with site:name.com term. Other rules can be used in the search. 
10. Calculator : Who would have thought you could use Google as a calculator. Google supports /*-+ for a result. 
11. Phone Listing: Want to know who your missed call was from? type phonebook:555-555-5555 for the answer. Works primarily in the United States. 
12. Links: want to know who is linking to your blog, or even specific post? enter link:url.com into Google for the answer. 
13. Format specific search: sometimes finding what you want in Google can be difficult, but Google offers a range of format specific search sites. Google News, Blog Search, even Video are a few Google sites you can use to find what you’re looking for. 
14. Area Code Look-up: type in the US area code into Google to find out where the area code is. 
15. Movies: Get the latest movie times at your local cinema by typing movie:movie name zip. 
16. Stock Price: enter a valid stock symbol for the latest reported stock price, for example YHOO.
17. Music: want the details of a song? use music:song name for Music specific search on Google 
18. Metric conversion: convert imperial measurements to metric and back again quickly via the Google search box. For example: 100 lbs in kg 
19. Term location: use inurl:, intitle:, intext:, or inanchor: to tell Google where it should look for the term your looking for. 
20. Cache: Google keeps a comprehensive cache database of many websites, and you can search this database by starting your search with cached: