Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks

When it comes to the Google search box, you
already know the tricks: finding exact phrases
matches using quotes like "so say we all" or
searching a single site using site:lifehacker.com
gmail. But there are many more oblique, clever,
and lesser-known search recipes and
operators that work from that unassuming
little input box. Dozens of Google search guides
detail the tips you already know, but today
we're skipping the obvious and highlighting our
favorite obscure Google web search tricks.
10. Get the local time anywhere
What time is it in Bangkok right now? Ask
Google. Enter simply what time is it to get the
local time in big cities around the world, or add
the locale at the end of your query, like what
time is it hong kong to get the local time there.
9. Track flight status
Enter the airline and flight number into the
Google search box and get back the arrival and
departure times right inside Google's search
results.
8. Convert currency, metrics, bytes, and
more
Google's powerful built-in converter calculator
can help you out whether you're cooking dinner,
traveling abroad, or building a PC. Find out how
many teaspoons are in a quarter cup ( quarter
cup in teaspoons) or how many seconds there
are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many
euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro).
For the geekier set, bits in kilobytes (155473
bytes in kilobytes) and numbers in hex or binary
(19 in binary) are also pretty useful.
7. Compare items with "better than" and
find similar items with "reminds me of"
Reader Adam taps the wisdom of the crowds by
searching for like items using key phrases. He
writes in:
Simply search for, in quotes: "better than
_keyword_"
Some example results:
Results 1 - 100 of about 550 English pages
for " better than WinAmp".
Results 1 - 57 of 57 English pages for "
better than mIRC".
Results 1 - 100 of about 17,500 English
pages for " better than Digg". (Wow. Poor
Digg.)
The results will almost always lead you to
discovering alternatives to whatever it is
you're searching for. Using the same
concept, you can use this trick to discover
new music or movies. For example, "
reminds me of _someband_" or "sounds like
_someband_" will pull up artists people
have thought sounded similar to the one
you typed in. This is also a great way to
find good, no-name musicians you'd
probably never know of otherwise.
Examples:
Results 1 - 88 of 88 English pages for "
reminds me of Metallica".
Results 1 - 36 of 36 English pages for "
similar to Garden State".
Results 1 - 66 of 66 English pages for "
sounds like The Shins".
Just get creative and you'll, without a
doubt, find cool new stuff you probably
never knew existed.
6. Use Google as a free proxy
What, your company blocks that hip new web
site just because it drops the F bomb
occasionally? Use Google's cache to take a peek
even when the originating site's being blocked,
with cache:example.com.
5. Remove affiliate links from product
searches
When you're sick of seeing duplicate product
search results from the likes of eBay, Bizrate,
Pricerunner, and Shopping.com, clear 'em out by
stacking up the -site:ebay.com -
site:bizrate.com -site:shopping.com operator.
Alternately, check out Give Me Back My Google
(original post), a service that does all that
known reseller cleaning up for you when you
search for products. Compare this GMBMG
search for a Cruzer 1GB flash drive to the
regular Google results.
4. Find related terms and documents
Ok, this one's direct from any straight-up
advanced search operator cheat sheet, but it's
still one of the lesser-used tricks in the book.
Adding a tilde (~) to a search term will return
related terms. For example, Googling ~nutrition
returns results with the words nutrition, food,
and health in them.
3. Find music and comic books
Using a combination of advanced search
operators that specify music files available in
an Apache directory listing, you can turn Google
into your personal Napster. Go ahead, try this
search for Nirvana tracks: -inurl:(htm|html|
php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified"
+"parent directory" +description +size
+(wma|mp3) "Nirvana"
. (Sub out Nirvana for the band you're
interested in; use this one in conjunction with
number 7 to find new music, too.) The same
type of search recipe can find comic books as
well.
2. ID people, objects, and foreign
language words and phrases with Google
Image Search
Google Image search results show you instead
of tell you about a word. Don't know what
jicama looks like? Not sure if the person named
"Priti" who you're emailing with is a woman or
a man? Spanish rusty and you forgot what
"corazon" is? Pop your term into Google Image
Search (or type image jicama into the regular
search box) to see what your term's about.
1. Make Google recognize faces
If you're doing an image search for Paris Hilton
and don't want any of the French city, a special
URL parameter in Google's Image search will do
the trick. Add &imgtype=face to the end of
your image search to just get images of faces,
without any inanimate objects. Try it out with
a search for rose (which returns many photos
of flowers) versus rose with the face
parameter.