Seven Strategies for Search

AJ Million — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:41:49 +0000

A few weeks back I did a “Lunch n’ Learn” presentation for MoDOT staff on basic internet searching. I’m still not sure how useful it was (the presentation was very high-level), but I’m posting it here anyway. Lift, borrow, or plagiarize to your heart’s content.

Google Guide

AJ Million — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 05:47:27 +0000

I cleaned out one of my desk drawers today and came across a useful handout for searching with Google. Believe it or not there are numerous operators that can be used to sift through all of the worthless junk out there! For more information check out the Google Guide.

Basic Operations:

   boats ~gloassary - Finds glossaries and dictionaries about
   boats.
   cat dog - Finds the words "cat" and "dog."
   cat -siamese - Finds cat but not siamese.
   "I am batman" - Finds the exact phrase "I am batman."
   fortune-telling - Returns all forms hyphenated or otherwise.
   shoes nike OR adidas - Finds "nike shoes" or "adidas shoes."
   define:skeptic - Defines the word skeptic.

Site Restrictions:

   link: - Find pages that link to another site
   (i.e. link:amillion.us).
   site: - Search only one website
   (i.e. Christmas site:www.census.gov).
   [#]..[#] - Search between numbers. (i.e. Scrubs 2003..2007).

Special Queries:

   book - Search a full-text book
   (i.e. book Great Expectations).
   weather - Find the weather somewhere
   (i.e. weather Columbia MO).
   stocks: - Check your stocks (i.e. stocks: goog).
   phonebook: - Show all listings (i.e. phonebook: MoDOT MO).
   rphonebook: - Show residential numbers 
   (i.e. phonebook: AJ Million).
   info: - Find info on a page (i.e. info:weblog.amillion.us).
   related: - Show all listings
   (i.e. related:weblog.amillion.us).

Many of these aren’t that usefull but it’s always handy to know you can do much, much more than conduct a simple search.

Library Without Walls » Searching

Seven Strategies for Search

Google Guide