As a tech guy, a large portion of my life is spent on the internet and I am always looking for ways to make my online life easier and better – including how to make better searches on Google.

A few years ago a friend taught me a Google search trick which allowed me to specify what type of files Google should show me in the search results.

I was fascinated and decided to search for more tricks, and today I share with you 10 Google search tricks that will improve your Google search results.

1. Searching for specific words or phrase

If you want Google search results to show you sites which contain a specific word or phrase, put the word or phrase in quotation marks. For example you want sites containing the phrase, “Pasco App”, You enter it in Google Search like this:

 "Pasco App"

2. Searching for specific?file types

If you want to search for files of a specific filetype, such as business plan templates in word (.docx) format, you use the “filetype” operator?like this:

filetype:docx business plan template

3. Searching?through a particular site

If you want to search through a particular site for something specific, you can use the “site” operator, specify the website and then your search terms like this: So lets say you want to search for Nova Agrisystems (one of the companies I’m involved with) on this blog, you’ll search like this

site:blog.isaacsesi.me Nova Agrisystems

4. Searching for Word Definitions

Google search has this nice feature which will directly display the definition of a word in the search results when you use the “define” operator. ?Assuming you want the definition of the word “computer”, just search like this

define:computer

5.?Performing Mathematical Calculations

You can directly perform calculations in the Google search bar and instantly get results displayed on a nice calculator. Assuming we wanted to find 20% of 15300, we will search like this:

(20/100) * 15300

?

6. Performing unit and currency conversions

You can easily convert miles to kilometers or dollars to Ghana cedis directly in Google search. Assuming we wanted to convert $1000 to Ghana cedis, we would search like this.

 1000 dollars to ghana cedis

7.Find?your Android device

If you?misplace your Android device, simply Google?Where is my phone??from another phone or your PC.??And if all goes will, Google will show you an approximate location of your phone, provided is on. If your GPS is on, you’ll get more accurate results. I actually used this to find my phone which I left in a shop sometime ago.

Where is my phone?

8.?Finding your location

If you get lost or you just want to know where you are for fun, you can type “Where am I?” in Google search and ?depending on your settings, it would show you your approximate location. (The location is not always correct though)

Where am I?

9.Find sites similar to other sites

If you are looking for sites which are similar to other sites, you used the “related” operator. Assuming we want to find sites which are similar to ebay.com, we could search like this and we will get a list of sites similar to ebay.com, such as amazon.com

related:ebay.com

10.Using the?asterisk(*) wildcard

This is a very useful functionality Google gives you to enhance your searches. You use the asterisk as a placeholder which is automatically filled by Google with relevant results. For example if you want to know which companies Facebook has bought and how much dollars you search

Facebook bought * for * dollars

Google will automatically replace the asterisks (*) with?asterisk with relevant results like you see here.

Also assuming you forget some of the words in the song and you want to find the lyrics, the asterisk wildcard is very useful. Example you want the lyrics to Kirk Whalum’s ?Falling In Love With Jesus, but you remember only “Falling” and ” Jesus” you can search like this

Falling * * * Jesus

and you’ll get this results

So that’s it folks!?There are many other hacks and tricks to improve your Google searches. If you know more, you can share in the comments below.

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