Chris Butler's Work in Progress

Fine Tune Your Google Searches

June 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Chris

By now, most people probably use Google for the majority of their online searches. According to Google's Zeitgeist, the top ten most popular search queries for 2007 were (1) iphone, (2) webkinz, (3) tmz, (4) transformers, (5) youtube, (6) club penguin, (7) myspace, (8) heroes, (9) facebook, and last but not least, (10) anna nicole smith. As you can see, entertainment and consumer technology rule this list. Of course, those aren't the only things on our minds; Google infers that, too, from tracking its who? what? and how? searches.

But, did you know that Google can also answer basic day-to-day questions, ranging from calculations to tracking shipments? Here's a list of many of the reference functions that Google provides right from its search bar.

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Weather
Pretty obvious- type in your location and Google will return an up-to-date forecast.

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Stock Ticker
If you know the shortened initials for the publicly traded company you want to check, you can simply enter it into the Google Search bar. I checked on Bank of America (BAC) below:

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Global Time
Want to know what time it is in Malaysia? Just query "time Malaysia":

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Google Calculator
Rather than using your operating system's calculator tool, you can enter any operation into the Google search field and get results. I added up the monthly post totals since I started my blog at Newfangled:

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Google Flight Tracking
If you know the airline and flight number of any flight you'd like to check on, enter it into the search bar to get it's current status:

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Google Definitions
Rather than going to dictionary.com, you can simply query "define blog" to find out what the definition of "blog" is:

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Track Shipments
If you know the tracking number for a package you're expecting, you can track it by entering the number in to the Google search bar:

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Google Conversions
You can also convert measurements using Google's search tool. This works for all kinds of conversions (cups to teaspoons, inches to yards, etc.):

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Area Code Lookup
If you've ever wondered where that mysterious caller is located, you can simply enter the three digits of their area code into the Google search field:

*You can also enter a full phone number (i.e. <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=800-330-4435&btnG=Search" target="_blank">800-330-4435</a>) and find results for that lookup.

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Google Books
I search for books and/or authors often using Google. You can just enter the name of the author and see what books are listed:

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You can try out any of these features by visiting Google's search features page.

Tags: google search technology

Comments

Dave	June 23, 2008 12:55 PM My favorite: http://www.google.com/search?q=answer+to+life%2C+the+universe%2C+and+everything
Chris	June 23, 2008 12:56 PM Classic!