Everyone knows how to use Google to find whatever information they are looking for. However, we are not always going to find what we are looking for, especially when it comes to very specific searches. Google is not the most used search engine because it is the oldest, but also because it offers us a large number of tools to find the specific information we are looking for, filtering the results that do not interest us.
If we want to always obtain the information we are looking for, eliminating from the search results all the information that is not useful to us to find what we are really looking for, we can make use of some of the different tricks that this search engine offers us.
search functions
When filtering the number of results that Google searches show us, we can use one of the following tricks. To show you these functions, we have used the brackets to separate the functions, but we should not use them.
- [termino 1] | [término 2]. This function will display all results that match both search terms.
- [término 1] -[término 2]. All results corresponding to term 2 are eliminated.
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*. We can use the asterisk to show all the results that match the rest of the search. For example: Best smartphone of * will return the results that begin with those terms that correspond to each year, each manufacturer, according to a certain price range, among others.
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«[término]». By entering quotes in the text we are looking for, Google will only return the results that match that text.
- [termino] [importe]€. It will show the products that match a certain price.
- [término] [número 1] .. [número 2]. This function is useful to search for products that are in the values number 1 and number 2.
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([término]) [término 2]. Thanks to this search function, we can filter the results of the searches so that those related to term 1 are shown first, and then those related to term 2, instead of collating the results.
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Movie [término]. Accessing the tab of a movie is very simple using this command.
- [Equipo 1] [Equipo 2]. It will show us the result of the last game in which team 1 and team 2 met.
- [ciudad 1] [ciudad 2]. It will show the flights between city 1 and city 2.
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Time [ciudad]. This command will allow us to obtain the current weather status in a specific city.
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Hour [ciudad]. Like the previous one, it allows us to know the time of a city together with the time difference with our country.
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Map [ciudad]. Without resorting to Google Maps, with this command we can access the map of any city in the world.
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Define [término]. Thanks to this function, we can obtain the definition of any word in the Oxford Languages.
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Translate [texto] [idioma]. It is not necessary to use Google Translate to translate short texts into other languages using this function.
- [unidad] to [unidad]. This function allows us to translate measures, units quickly without having to use a converter.
Google Utilities
In addition to the commands that we have shown you in the previous section, Google also allows us to use web applications from the search engine itself.
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convert from units. This function allows us to convert between different metric units without having to resort to any website.
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chronometer. This command opens an on-screen timer.
- [duración] timer. With this Google search engine utility, we can set a countdown in the search engine without having to resort to our smartphone, smartwatch or the native Windows application. When it’s over, a beep will sound, so we must first make sure that we have the headphones or speakers connected.
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calculator. Displays a scientific calculator in the browser.
