In Part One, we covered the basics of searching on Google.com
and in Part Two we moved into more advanced search techniques.
In today's third and final installment we will peer into some
ways of using Google you may have never thought of or knew
existed.
DATE RANGES: You may limit your search to an exact date of a
"range" of dates that a page was indexed by Google. To use
Google's "daterange" function, you will need to express your
dates in "Julian" dates. This date format is express as an
integer. To convert a common date into Julian format go to:
http://www.24hourtranslations.co.uk/dates.htm
As an example, if I wanted to find pages (about a certain topic)
indexed by Google during the month of May 2003, I would type in:
"direct response marketing" daterange: 2452774-2452803
TYPES OF FILES: You can limit your Google search results to
specific files ending in a particular extension (.doc, .txt,
.rtf, .pdf etc...)
To find a file on the topic "direct response marketing" in Adobe
(.pdf) format you would type in: "direct response marketing"
filetype:pdf
You can exclude certain types of files from your search by doing
a "negative" search and placing a "minus" ( - ) sign in front of
the "filetype:"
ANCHOR TEXT SEARCHES: Allow you to just search the "anchor"
text in web page link anchors. Link anchors are the words
that appear between: <.a href=''>Direct Response
Marketing<.a> In this case it's the phrase Direct Response
Marketing.
PLAIN TEXT SEARCHES: By using Google's "intext" search
capabilities, you can search JUST the body text of web pages
and not any links, urls or titles, just the body. Simply
type:
intext:"direct response marketing"
CACHE SEARCHING: This form of searching will only search for
results on sites that are stored in Google's "cache' or memory.
This sometimes can give you older versions of sites. Example:
cache: direct-response-marketing.net
LINK SEARCHES: Want to know how many and what sites have links
back to your site? Just search for your domain preceded by
"link:"
link: direct-response-marketing.net
INFO SEARCHING: Find out what information Google has stored
about a particular web page or site by searching:
info: direct-response-marketing.net
GOOGLE'S PHONEBOOK: Yes, Google has a phenomenal phone book
database allowing you to search for both residential and
business phone numbers. You may use the following search
orders:
FN or FI (first name or first initial), LN (last name), city
FN (FI), LN, state
FN (FI), LN, area code
FN (FI), LN, zip code
phone # including area code (ex: 111-222-3333)
LN, city, state
LN, zip code
To find the phone number of the Whitehouse you would search:
phonebook: whitehouse washington dc
To find the phone number of the John Smith in Anytown, NY you
could search:
phonebook: john smith ny
or
phonebook: smith anytown ny
or
phonebook: j smith ny
STOCK SEARCHING: Google can generate results on just about any
stock because they use the stock information from the Yahoo!
finance pages. For example:
stocks: ebay
Phew! Now, this list isn't even exhaustive, but it will give
99.99% of you enough information and insight to start REALLY
tapping into the top ranked search engine in the world:
Google.com Go have some fun!
Did you miss one of the previous search articles? Just go to:
http://www.direct-response-marketing.net/articlelib/
Andrew Wroblewski and Steve Robichaud have been helping
people and businesses learn how to effectively use the
power of the internet since Moby Dick was a minnow.
To contact them and/or to learn more visit or write:
http://www2.direct-response-marketing.net
email: mailto:admin@direct-response-marketing.net
Source: Andrew Wroblewski and Steve Robichaud
License: Creative Commons - No Derivatives