Google Searches
Basic Google Operators
| + | forces words to be included in search results. Useful with stop words that otherwise will be discarded |
| – | prevents a search term to show in results, for example searching for doughnut –cream can help you to avoid creamy doughnuts |
| OR | returns documents with one of the given terms, like doughnut OR donut. You can also use | instead of OR: doughnut | donut |
| “ ” | using quotes forces google to search for the exact phrase (including stop words), try “doughnut at midnight” and doughnut at midnight (actually, using quotes is similar, but not equals, to doughnut–at–midnight … it would be interesting to know what is the exact difference in SERP) |
| ~ | allow to search also for synonyms of the given word. searching for doughnut ~tips finds also pages with the word help or guide etc. |
| * | means every word. try “doughnuts with *” |
| .. | Used to search in a range of numbers, “2..20 doughnuts” will find pages containing “I eat 3 doughnuts a day” and “I’ll never eat more than 15 doughnuts in a month” |
Basic operators can be combined to create advanced queries, for example “I eat 1..100 doughnut OR doughnuts OR donut OR donuts each *”
Advanced Google Operators
| daterange: | Returns documents modified in the given time interval. Dates should be entered in julian format (so geeky, but a bit unusable). Using doughnuts daterange:2454091–2454101 you can find who talked about doughnuts in the last ten days of 2006 🙂 |
| filetype: | Returns links to documents with the given file type. For example searching for doughnuts filetype:java will find portable and object–oriented doughnuts. Currently officially supported file types are pdf, ps, wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku, lwp, mw, xls, ppt, doc, wks, wps, wdb, wri, rtf, swf, ans, txt, but other are supported as well, like xml, cpp, java etc. |
| site: | restricts the results to the given domain. site:mapelli.info will find all indexed page on www.mapelli.info, while site:mapelli.info doughnuts will find all doughnuts–related pages on www.mapelli.info . |
| cache: | shows the cached version of given webpage. Other words in the query will be highlighted in the returned page, try cache:www.mapelli.info doughnuts |
| link: | lists webpages that link to the given webpage. link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut will list webpages with links pointing to wikipedia’s voice for Doughnut |
| related: | returns pages that google somehow thiks are related to the given page. Not always accurate. |
| info: | returns some informations about the given web page. Typically website and description. |
| define: | returns the definition of a given word. Try define:doughnuts (in case you are an alien and you don’t know what a Doughnut is) |
| phonebook: | search in residential phone book. sample: phonebook:smith Los Angeles |
| stoks: | returns stock info: try stocks:goog |
| weather: | weather informations for the given city. weather:los angeles |
| movie: | returns all movies related to the search term given. Sample: movie:doughnuts You can also find movies by locations: movie:nyc , movie 10015 |
| flights | you can search for flights inside USA using the airport code (does not work for every airport). sample: jfk lax |
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – oriented Operators
allintitle: Search for documents with the given words in their title. allintitle:doughnuts chocolate will find all the documents with title containing ‘doughnuts’ and ‘chocolate’. This operator cannot be combined with others.
intitle: Search for documents with the first word after the intitle operator in their title. intitle:doughnuts chocolate will find all the documents with title containing ‘doughnuts’ and talking about chocolate. Note that the word ‘chocolate’ is not necessarily in the title.
allintext: Search for documents with the given words in their text. allintext:doughnuts chocolate will find all the documents with text containing ‘doughnuts’ and ‘chocolate’.This operator cannot be combined with others.
intext: Search for documents with the first word after the intext operator in their text. intext:doughnuts chocolate will find all the documents with text containing ‘doughnuts’ and talking about chocolate. Note that the word ‘chocolate’ is not necessarily in the text
allinurl: Search for documents with the given words in their url. allinurl:doughnuts chocolate will find all the documents with url containing ‘doughnuts’ and ‘chocolate’. This operator cannot be combined with others.
inurl: Search for documents with the first word after the inurl operator in their url. inurl:doughnuts chocolate will find all the documents with url containing ‘doughnuts’ and talking about chocolate. Note that the word ‘chocolate’ is not necessarily in the text
allinanchor: Search for documents with the given words in an anchor. allinurl:doughnuts chocolate will find all the documents with anchor text containing ‘doughnuts’ and ‘chocolate’. This operator cannot be combined with others.
inanchor: Search for documents with the first word after the operator in an anchor. inanchor:doughnuts chocolate will find all the documents with anchor containing ‘doughnuts’ and talking about chocolate. Note that the word ‘chocolate’ is not necessarily in an anchor.
Google Calculator Guide
| + – * / % ^ | you can use Google as a calculator, using standard symbols, for example
3+2–1 returns 4 6*8 returns 48 3^2 returns 9 (3 raised to power 2) 5%2 returns 1 (the remainder after division) |
| sqrt, nth root ofx | sqrt(49) returns 7, if you need non–square roots you can use for example 3th root of 27. |
| sin, cos, arctan, tan… | google calculator supports various trigonometic functions, expecting a radians value, that can be expressed also using the pi constant: sin(pi/2), tan (2/3*pi) |
| ln | returns natural (base e) logarithm: ln(e^5) |
| log | returns base 10 logarithm: log(100) |
| ! | returns n factorial: 3! |
Conversions
Google supports a lot of conversion tools, here is a small guide:
| in degrees / in radians | you can convert radians to degrees: pi/2 in degrees or convert degrees into radians: 90 degrees in radians |
| in hex / in binary / in octal / in decimal | you can convert to each of the given bases: 16 in hex , 16 in octal, 16 in binary, 0×11 in decimal
you can also use 2007 in roman numerals (in case you’re building a temple and you need to know how to write the year on it) |
| distance conversions | you can use 100miles in km , 1m in mm, but also 200000 km in light–second etc. |
| speed, time, temperature | just some samples: |
| currency | 3 € in $ or 3 euros in dollars |
| cooking | 3 teaspoons in oz |
Things to Note
-
- Google is not case sensitive: searching for doughnut is the same as DoughNuT
- Search operators are case sensitive: searching for doughnuts OR donuts uses OR as the google operator, while doughnuts or donuts does not.
- Google default is to search for pages that include all of your search terms. Also the order of your search term is somehow relevant.
- Google excludes common words (also called stop words) like “I” , “the” etc.
- Some operators can be combined, while others must be used alone.
Reference: http://www.mapelli.info/ultimate–google–search–tips–guide
Module 6 – Google Docs
Google Docs is a Web-based document management application for creating and editing private and public, word processing and spreadsheet documents. These documents can be stored both online on the Google cloud and/or on the user’s computer. Access to these files is available from any computer with an Internet connection and a fully-featured Web browser. The documents may be viewed by other google groups and members with the document owner’s permission.
Google Docs is designed for both individual and real-time collaborative projects. Document security is maintained through storage online and storage on users’ computers, although some authors have security concerns that documents stored online may be viewed, copied or stolen by others. Furthermore, all documents created are compatible with most presentation and word processing applications and can be printed or published as a Web page. Spreadsheets can be created and edited in various fonts and file formats.
Google regularly releases new features for Google Docs, and maintains an online help group to answer user questions and fix problems.
Reference: http://www.techopedia.com/definition/13626/google-docs
Google Docs enables user to perform the following:
- Create and share documents on the web and access them from any computer or smart phone. The familiar desktop feel makes collaborative editing easy.
- Share and collaborate instantly
- Invite anyone to edit and collaborate on your spreadsheet.
- Store files online
- Publish to the world, just a few people or no one –– it’s up to you. You can also un–publish at any time.
Word Processing Documents
Online, free word processing with Google documents
Create and share documents on the web and access them from any computer or smart phone. The familiar desktop feel makes collaborative editing easy.
- Faster, real–time collaboration
- Edit documents with others and see changes as they type.
- Import from the desktop
- Easily move documents between desktop applications and Google Docs.
- Online word processing
- Margins, indentations, tables, footnotes, comments and much more.
Spreadsheets
Online, free spreadsheets from Google
Create and share spreadsheets online. Google spreadsheets makes it easy to track budgets, run financial calculations, track data and more.
- Share and collaborate instantly
- Invite anyone to edit and collaborate on your spreadsheet.
- Use advanced features
- Complex formulas, conditional formatting, automatic translation and much more.
- Store files online
- Publish to the world, just a few people or no one –– it’s up to you. You can also un–publish at any time.
Presentations
Free, embeddable presentations from Google
Create and share presentations on the web. Add text, images, video and more directly to your presentation slides.
- Familiar desktop feel makes editing easy
- Just click the toolbar buttons to bold, underline, indent, change font, etc.
- Share and collaborate with your team
- Invite anyone to either edit or view your presentation.
- Easily upload your existing presentations
- Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including PPT.
Forms
Easy to create, HTML forms from Google
Collect information by creating a form in Google Docs. All the great features you expect from a form creation tool with none of the upgrade costs. It’s free.
- Create professional looking forms
- Choose from over 60 themes and 7 question types.
- See entries in spreadsheet form
- Automatically add responses to a spreadsheet that are connected to your survey.
- Easily view the collected information
- Automatically generate sophisticated charts and graphs.
Reference: http://edutraining.googleapps.com/Training–Home/module–4–docs
Google Sites
Google Sites is the easiest way to make information accessible to people who need quick, up-to-date access. People can work together on a Site to add file attachments, information from other Google applications (like Google Docs, Google Calendar, YouTube and Picasa), and new free-form content. Creating a site together is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who has access, whether it’s just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish Sites to the world. The Google Sites web application is accessible from any internet connected computer.
| Company intranet | Team project | Employee profile | Classroom | Student club |
Some of the features of Google Sites are as follows:
- Single-click page creation
Creating a new page for your Google Site just takes the click of a button.
- No HTML required
Creating a Google Site is as easy as editing a document, which means there’s no markup language for you to learn — just get started.
- Make it your own
Our customization options let you give your Google Site your own look and feel
- Get started with templates
We offer a growing list of page types — web page, announcements, file cabinet, dashboard and list — to help you get started with your Google Sites pages.
- Upload files and attachments
Use the file cabinet to upload files up to 10MB in size. Each Google Apps account receives at least 10GB of storage in Google Sites. Google Apps Premier and Education editions get an additional 500MB for each user account.
- Embed rich content
Google Sites is integrated with other Google products, so you can insert videos, docs, spreadsheets, presentations, photo slide shows, and calendars directly onto your Google Sites pages.
- Work together and share
Our permission settings let you designate owners, viewers and collaborators (meaning they can edit pages) for your site. And you can make your Google Sites available to just a few people, your entire organization, or the world.
- Search with Google
You can search across Google Sites pages and content using powerful Google search technology. You’ll find specific pages and documents instantly, the same way you would on Google.com.
Reference: http://www.google.com/sites/overview.html
Google Drive
Google Drive is a cloud hosting product from Google that allows users to store up to 15 GB of files and information for free with additional storage available for a fee. This technology was released in 2012, and includes older offerings like Google Docs, which was originally offered in 2007.
To use Google drive, users must have Google client software running on a device. Google Drive was originally launched to be compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, as well as some versions of the Mac operating system. The iPad and Android smartphones are also supported. There are also other Google Drive applications or tools that can help users get more out of this cutting-edge software service.
By offering Google Drive cloud hosting, Google is presenting some of the biggest benefits of today’s cutting-edge technology to its users. Across the business world and in consumer industries, cloud hosting is quickly becoming a standard for data security and ease-of-use. Good cloud systems with adequate security allow for much more effective data handling for both individuals and businesses.
Reference: http://www.techopedia.com/definition/29470/google-drive