If you were not aware, here are some of the best kept search secrets that make Google a highly useful to power users and SEO specialists.
First the basics
- Ignore capitalization, punctuation and spelling – Search engines, with exception of perhaps Ask.com, ignore punctuation and most like Google will attempt/suggest to correct your spelling
- Exact versus broad – To search for an exact phrase, enter in your text like the following: “best restaurant in san francisco” instead of Best Restaurant in San Francisco.
- Use ignore words with the minus sign in front of them. Strawberry Cake –butter
More advanced tricks
- Search specific types of sites with campus housing site:edu
- Or search a specific site such as campus housing site:Stanford.edu
- Or search for related pages related:cooking.com/recipes/salsa
Additional features include anything from currency and math to tracking packages and using your mobile phones camera to learn about your surroundings.