One of the vendor reports I get is a list of phrases people use with search engines. The list differs from what people search for on this site. I find the list amusing, but not always useful. One of the recurring phrases is game cheats. I don't have any, but I figure if people search for cheats that much, they may enjoy these free advanced search tips and cheat sheets from Google.

I do lot of searching on the web and Google is a resource I use. Despite the frequency of use, I don't always take advantage of some of their modifiers. These cheats or as I would prefer to call them tips can cut the time if takes to find your information.

The nice thing about these tips is you can use many of them on the simple Google search boxes on browsers or even this site. This gives you some of the features offered on the Google Advanced Search page.

Searching for Word Definitions on Google

In the screen capture below, I'm searching for the definition of XML. All I had to do was use the modifier define followed by a colon and my term. I also changed the radio button to Web. Sorry, this word hasn't made it to my Term to Learn section.

Limiting Your Google Results to One Domain

Another modifier I constantly use is site:. This modifier allows me to filter my results by a specific domain. I tend to search Microsoft's support pages before any other domain. If I had a problem with Microsoft Outlook, I could place this query in the search box:

Microsoft outlook site:support.microsoft.com

Google Cheat Sheets

Two of the items on the cheat sheets don't work on our custom Google site search. These are the conversion and math modifiers. I tried these modifiers on other sites that use Google site search and hit the same problems. Best bet is for math and conversions you should use Google's page.

The Google cheat sheets come in two flavors. The first is called the Google Help: Cheat Sheet and is a web page of modifiers and links to other Google properties. The second link is Google Tips and Tricks poster provided as a resource for librarians. Don't let the description concern you as you don't need to be a librarian, nor is it poster size. It is a nice 8x11 or 17x 22 PDF file.

If you're into web search engines, we'd also recommend you look at Search Engine Watch's tips page. It has a nice listing of articles.

Referenced Resources:

• Google Help: Cheat Sheet
• Google Tips and Tricks Poster
• Search Engine Watch Web Searching Tips
• Overlooked Search Engine Features for Google and Yahoo!