Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Pump Up Your Google Search Skills (YouTube via Digital Inspiration)

Digital Inspiration featured this excellent short video on getting the most out of your Google searches featuring Matt Cutts, a senior engineer at Google. The video starts out with a number of well-known tips but quickly gets to some stuff that I did not know Google could do. Even if you are an expert, this is a good 5 minute refresher course on getting the most out of Google.

2 comments:

Pat said...

A very useful set of hints. Thanks, Kris.

I don't think they mentioned that you can click on Advanced Search to acquaint yourself with at least some of these special features. It's a good place to start if you're uncomfortable with adding code to searches and need to get your feet wet. For the uninitiated, Advanced Search has fields you fill in that look just like the main Google search window fields. But they are loaded with additional code. The results page reveals the hidden code and allows you to manipulate the search elements to suit you. Eventually, you just might remember the code from the start and dive right in from the main window.

Also, I would like to mention that I've been using Google Image more and more to help me land on text of interest. Scanning the images can quickly sort out whether Google has taken me somewhere related to my research or not. Then I just open the associated page and have a look around.

Kristan J. Wheaton said...

Thanks, Pat!

All true and all good advice.