Google is no doubt one of the most innovative companies in the world. When they launched Google Search way back in 1997, they surely became the darling of millions of internet users. After the initial launch, Google had steadily launched many other services like Gmail, Google Doc, Photos, Google News etc. which were also emphatically welcomed by users around the world. Now people use Google services daily for so many of their tasks and there is no doubt that Google has become the integral part of so many of our lives. Let’s talk about Google Search, the gateway to an endless information and the most popular way to seek answers to our questions. Now, Google Search can do a whole lot more bunch of things than just looking up for simple queries. In fact, if you know the full potential of Google Search then it can be a prudent tool to get many other benefits some of which may be beyond your expectations. In this article, let’s discuss about some of these highly useful advanced functions and tips and get ready to take your Google Search experience to a new level.

Top Useful Tips and Tools for Effective Google Search

Find Your Next Job:
You can easily find your next job on Google by searching for “jobs near me” or something specific like “mobile app development jobs” as it will show you mobile app development company and list of related jobs. You can then narrow down the search as needed, find direct links to apply to positions and even you can turn on email alerts for important and worthy queries. Job search function pulls in postings from all over the internet and presents them in a centralized, easy-to-follow manner in front of you in Google.

Limit Your Search Results to a Particular Time Period

If you want to search for the information from a specific time period for example say past one year only then type in the term you want to search and then click or tap the “tools” menu at the top of the Google results page and select the period, say past year. By this way you can limit your search results to the content which has been updated or posted in past one year only.

Weather Forecast

A quick Google Search will give you the weather anywhere in the world for the next week alongwith the graph representing the maximum and minimum temperature variation. This really works as we wrote weather in city New York and checked outside – it was actually cloudy with right temperature.

Convert between Units

You can also use Google whenever you have any need to convert between units. In addition to handling currency and practically any measurement system, Google can convert Fahrenheit to Celsius, megabytes to gigabytes, and days into minutes or even seconds. You can explore all the possibilities by just typing unit converter in Google search box and then looking through the dropdown menus there. Actually, you can even do most of the conversions directly by searching for the exact changeover you want. For example, 10 lbs to kg.

Tip Calculator

Many of us regularly go to restaurants for lunch or dinner. How Google is useful here? Do one think when next time you go there and you want to work out what tip you have to pay at the restaurant, just type “tip calculator” into your phone and Google will do the calculation for you. Wait! It gives even more. It can also split the tip and the bill among all of those who are going to pay, which is really useful.

Time Conversion

Using Google, you can easily and quickly find out what is the time anywhere in the world. You just need to write “time in [country]” and you will get the right answer with the bonus of daylight saving already calculated.

Currency Conversion

Using Google, you can quickly and easily work out what you are really paying for that online transaction by converting another currency to your own currency. For example: – you can search “20 Euros to US Dollars” and you will get the right answer based on the current exchange rate. With this you will also get a useful graph of how these currencies are moving day by day.

Random Number Generator

Do you need a random number to make some decision or calculation? Try typing “random number generator” into Google. It will bring up a tool that lets you specify a minimum and maximum number and when you click on the generate button, it will show a random number between those minimum and maximum value. Each time you click on this button, Google will pick and show some random number each time. There is also a more visual version of the same concept. For this you just need to type spinner into Google Search and then switch the toggle at the top to “Number”. After that you can create a wheel with anywhere from 2 to 20 numbers and click spin button. It will stop at a random number every time.

Flip a Coin or Roll a Dice

Google provides you even more options. For example, for simple decisions, you can write Flip a Coin or Roll a Dice into Google Search box. Now whenever you will click the button it will give you random answer.

Timer or Stopwatch

You can make Google your personal time-keeper by typing “timer” or “stopwatch” into a search box. You can also launch them by typing “10 seconds timer” or whatever amount of time you want or need.

Advanced Calculator

You must be knowing that Google can act as a basic calculator which performs addition, subtraction, multiplication etc. but you might not know that using Google you can do all kinds of advanced mathematical calculations. For example, you can have Google solve complicated equations like “Sin(x) + Cost(2x), cos(10x) + Sin(2x)” by entering them directly into the Google search box. It will also show you the related graph. You can also do geometry calculations by searching for specific query like “Area of a triangle”, “formula for circle area” or “Volume of a cylinder” and then entering in the values it asks for. You can use Google’s geometry calculator for a number of advanced formulas.

Number into English Words

Whenever you come across a long number and want to find out how to say it in English words, you can just type any number followed by in words or in English. For example, if you will write “4973645959 in words”, Google will show “4 973 645 959 = four billion nine hundred seventy-three million six hundred forty-five thousand nine hundred fifty-nine”. That means Google can spell out your number for you in plain English words.

Sports Schedules

To find out when you team is playing in a particular tournament, just type in “team name” and “game” into Google Search and you will get the full schedule. For example, if you type Delhi IPL Schedule, you will get the information and schedule of all the games Delhi Capitals is going to play in IPL.

Find Best Time to go to Restaurant

You don’t need to wait long in the restaurant as you can choose your timing to go there based on the restaurant’s average wait time for any day and time before you actually go there. Just search for the restaurant name and its place and then look for the “Popular times” section in the info box that appears. There, you can click a dropdown menu to select any day and then scroll through a timeline to see the crowd level and wait time for any given hour. By this you can easily know what is the busy and non-busy timing of the restaurant and plan accordingly.

Color Picker Tool

This is very useful took for designers and developers. When you write “color picker tool” in Google Search box then it will show you a simple tool that lets you select a color and find its hex code, RGB value, CMYK value and more. It can easily convert from one color code type to another. Hence this color picker tool is an easy way to find color codes and convert among different code types.

Flight Information

You can get the up-to-date information on any flight, anytime, by just typing the airline name or code and flight number directly into Google Search box.

Know your IP Address

You can easily know your IP address by just writing “my IP address” into the Google Search box.

Old Newspapers Archive

You search or browse through hundreds of old print newspapers at Google’s hidden newspaper archive site. The selection is like hit and miss but there are more chances that you might find what you are looking for.

Organizing Your Google Search Results

Not many people know that Google has a system that allows you to save results from your Google searches and then let you organize them into collections. From a browser, it works with images, jobs and places; after searching for any of those type of items, you will see small bookmark icons alongside your results that can be clicked to save the associated titles. You can find and sort your saved stuff by going to google.com/collections.

Find Word Definitions

Google offers a dictionary service. If you will search with “define” before a word, you will get a result just like in a dictionary. We tested it by typing “define guru” in Google Search box and we got an amazing result with two of its definitions or meanings.

Useful Information About Colleges in US and Elsewhere

Do you want to join a college in United States or anywhere else in the world? Google can give you useful information about any college in US or any famous college elsewhere. For this you just have to search for the college’s or institute’s name, and you will get an interactive box with facts about its average cost – before and after financial aid for any income level along with its acceptance rate, typical test scores, rankings and famous alumni.

Get the Perfect Recipe for any Meal

You can also get the perfect recipe for any Meal by searching for the name of a dish on Google from your mobile device. For this you just have to type the “[name of the recipe] recipe”. For example: – pizza recipe.

Find Detailed Nutritional Information about any Food

You can Google any individual ingredient to find detailed nutritional information about any food. You can also search for specific nutritional queries like: – “How much protein in milk”, “How much iron in Apple” or “How much Calcium in Curd” etc.

See the Site Which is Temporarily Down or Permanently Offline

If you want to see a site that is Temporarily Down or Permanently Offline, then Google can help you. For this, you just need to type “cache:” followed by site’s address directly into Google search box. This will take you to a recently saved version of the site hosted on Google’s own servers.

Find Out Where and at What Time to Watch a Movie or a Show

To find out information about where and at what time to watch a movie or a show just type “watch” followed by the movie title in the Google search box and Google will give you a list of places or theaters where you can watch it along with the timing and days of the weeks when the show will run.

Try Variety or Alternate Version of Your Favorite Song

Do you want to listen to the alternate version of your favorite song? Try searching for an artist name and song title together and then in the info box that appears, click the “Other recordings of this song” header. This will bring up an interactive list of artists who have covered your favorite tune. You can even watch videos of these alternate versions of your favorite song.

Get Real-Time Game Scores

Are you a fan of a sports like cricket or Football? If the match is over or even if it is still going on and you want to know the score, then search for the name of a team to get real-time game scores and detailed information of the recent or ongoing match of any sport.

Find List of Upcoming Local Events

Now you can find the list of upcoming local events by searching for “events near me” from the Google search box. After the info box comes in front of you, you can check days or click any event to get more information. If you are looking for something specific, you can also search for things like “Music Concerts near me”, “festivals near me”, “conferences near me” or “book fairs near me”.

Time Zone Conversion

Google can help you to find out the time in any location. Using Google, you can quickly perform time zone conversions by typing in something like “time 6:00 pm US” – which will show you what time it will be in your location when it is 6:00 pm in US.

Search Any Site Through Google

You can search any website through Google to find whatever you need to search on that site. For this you just need to type in the term you want to search followed by “site:” and the URL. For example: – “[word to search] site:websitname.com”. By this you will get a list of results that will be more accurate and better than what the website’s own internal searching will give to you.

Filter Your Image Search to Show Results of a Particular Size or Color

Google’s image search function also has an option to filter the images based on your preferred size or color. For this, after searching for an image, tap “tools” at the top of the search results. Then you will be able to filter your image search to show only results of a particular size or color or images that were created during a specific time period.

Tell Google to Show More Search Results Per Page

If you don’t want to click for more search results on next pages of search results, then you can simply tell Google to show more search results per page so that you don’t need to press “Next” or “More” buttons anymore. For this, just go to the Google preference page (https://www.google.com/preferences) and move the slider under “Results per page” as per your choice. After that click on the Save button at the bottom of the screen. Google says that this can slow down your searches but actually if you have a good internet connection then you won’t notice much of the difference.

Open Every Search Result as a New Tab by Default

Go to the Google Preference page (https://www.google.com/preferences) and you can do the settings so that Google will open every search result as a new tab by default. After that click on the save button. If you do lots of google searches and always open links in new tabs then this tip will be very useful for you.

Direct Link to the Latest Update of Your Package Delivery

If you have a tracking number from the postal service, FedEx or other popular courier company then you can paste the number directly into Google Search followed by the name of the courier company and it will give you a direct link to the latest update on your package’s delivery.

Search by File Type

Google says that you can search by file type by just adding its extension, for example, if you are looking for pdf document then add pdf after your search query. If you are looking for serious documents or work, then use this feature. For example, when we wrote Delhi master plan pdf, we were immediately directed to the PDF version of this document.

Conclusion

Although Google is so much popular that even a child or even a not so much computer literate person can open it and use it to search the information which he is looking for. But the real benefits of Google can be availed if you know some or all of the tricks and tips of doing Google Searches which we have discussed in this article. If you use the above tips for Google Search, then not only it will save your time but you will also get more accurate and amazing Google Search results based on your queries.