Google 101 - Six Very Cool Google Tricks
(Page 11 of 12 )
Google has a handful of tricks up its sleeve. Here are six special and useful things you can do with Google—several of which even search-hounds tend to overlook.
Definitions
When you can’t remember what “sedulous” means, or you want to find out what a “wireless LAN” is, you don’t have to bother opening the dictionary or calling your friendly neighborhood IT guy. Instead, Google can come to your rescue. Type define into the blank search box, followed by your term, like this—
define sedulous
—and then press Enter to have Google include a definition at the top of your search results. The definitions come from Web sites Google tracks.
If you want a list of definitions and no other results, type in define followed by a colon and your terms, with no spaces on either side of the colon, like this:
define:wireless LAN
You can also get a list of definitions by typing your term into the Google Deskbar (described on page 187) and pressing Ctrl+D (not available for the Mac).
Tip: If Google doesn’t come up with a definition that helps you, or in rare cases, if it doesn’t come up with one at all, try searching for your terms at www.OneLook.com, which aggregates definitions from nearly 1,000 dictionaries. That ought to do it.
Calculator
This trick is extra cool: You can use the blank Google search box as a calculator. Just enter an equation, like 2+2, and then press Enter or Google Search to have Google tell you 2 + 2 = 4. For multiplication, use the asterisk (*), like this: 2*3. For division, use the slash (/), like this: 10/3. (Use the equal sign [=] at the end of your equation if you’re worried Google might not realize your query is actually math.) You can also use the search box to perform unit conversions, like this: 5 kilometers in miles or how many teaspoons in a cup? For a chart listing of units of measure that Google can convert, check out Nancy Blachman’s site, GoogleGuide, at www.googleguide. com/calculator.html.
The calculator works for simple equations and for seriously complex problems, too, like logarithms and trigonometric functions. You can find a rundown of its capabilities at www.google.com/help/calculator.html. And if you know what physical constants are, or the phrase “base of the natural system of logarithms”makes your heart pitter patter with joy, GoogleGuide does a terrific job of steering you through these features.
Tip: For a great alternativeinterface to Google’s calculator, check out Soople at http://soople.com/soople_in-tcalchome.php. Page 56 tells you all about it.
Phonebook
Google provides a phonebook service, allowing you to look up a phone number and address (with corresponding map) for business or residential listings. You can make it work two ways, either as part of your regular results (with a cute phone icon in-dicating that something is a phonebook listing), or as a separate set of listings, both shown in Figure 1-16.
To have a single residential listing appear at the top of a regular results page, try typing any of the following into the Google search box:
- first name (or first initial), last name, city (state is optional)
- first name (or first initial), last name, state
- first name (or first initial), last name, area code
- first name (or first initial), last name, zip code
- last name, city, state
- last name, zip code
For a single business listing, typing in the company name along with city and state or zip code ought to do the trick.
Tip: You can also try an area code and phone number—business or residential—to get the name and address associated with it in Google’s phonebook. There’s no need to include any punctuation.
To get a page of nothing but phonebook listings, type the word phonebook followed by a colon, then a space, and then the name and state you want to look up. (Weirdly, you must capitalize the state abbreviation or Google doesn’t recognize it, but you can’t capitalize phonebook.) The phonebook listings give you only about 600 results, so if you’re looking for a common name, add the city (if you know it) to narrow your search. Your query should look something like this:
phonebook: ansonia veterinary center NY
or
phonebook: ansonia veterinary center new york NY
You can also narrow your search by telling Google whether you want to search for business listings or residential listings only. To limit your search to residential listings, type rphonebook before the name and state. For business listings, use bphonebook. (If you don’t specify one or the other, and your results have both types, Google gives you five of each and lets you pick which you’d like the full set for.)
Note: Google has a parallelservice, Google Local, that provides contactinformationfor businesses anywhere in the U.S. Unlike the phonebook feature, which requires you to know a name, Google Local works more like a Yellow Pages, letting you search by business type (eyeglasses, or bagels, or dog walkers) in a specific zip code or town. The results look similar to phonebook listings. Sometimes when you run a search even with a business name, you get results from Google Local—which has a compass logo rather than a phone icon. Page 59 explains more about the feature.
The phonebook trick has a few quirks:
- You can’t use the minus sign to exclude terms. For example, if you want to find every New Yorker with the last name Doe except those with the first name John, you can’t run a search rphonebook: doe -john new york NY.
- Wildcards don’t work. If you’ve forgotten the exact name of a certain sports bar in Times Square, you can’t throw in the asterisk to stand in for the word you’re forgetting: bphonebook: espn * new york NY doesn’t work. On the other hand, the same query without the wildcard (bphonebook: espn new york NY) gives you every establishment in the city with ESPN in the name, so you’re good to go.
- You can’t use OR to find listings in more than one state. For example, the query bphonebook: espn (NY OR NJ) gives you listings only in New Jersey (Google reads the rightmost part of your query). On the other hand, you can use OR with the name of a person or business. So if you want to find an array of chain restaurants in the heart of Manhattan, try bphonebook: (espn OR hooters) new york NY.
Tip: If you want to remove your listing from Google’s phonebook, head over to www.google.com/help/ pbremoval.html, which provides a delisting form for residences and a snail-mail address to send delisting requests for businesses.
Street Maps
If you enter a U.S. street address, including city and state or zip code, Google usually tops your results with links to several maps.
Stock Quotes
If you enter a ticker symbol for a company or mutual fund listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, or the American Stock Exchange, Google begins your results with a link for that corporation or fund; when you click the link, Google takes you to a page with tabs of stock information from Yahoo Finance, Quicken, and other companies. You can enter one symbol, like this: msft (for Microsoft). Or several symbols, like this:
msft gm dis
If you don’t know the ticker symbol for a company, try the full name. If Google recognizes it as a public company, it provides a link for stock quotes at the end of the result for that company (Figure 1-17).
Tip: Sometimes, adding the word company or corporation after the proper namein your query(like Microsoft Corporation) can prompt Google to recognize that you want stock info.
 | If you've enjoyed what you've seen here, or to get more information, click on the "Buy the book!" graphic. Pick up a copy today!
Visit the O'Reilly Network http://www.oreillynet.com for more online content. |
Next: Patents, Tracking IDs, and Other Numeric Goodies >>
More Google Optimization Articles
More By OReilly Media
/ 17 
