40+ Google Search Tips, Hacks, & Tricks to Help You in 2024

Work always feels like so much work.

High expectations of your supervisors, constant pressure, tight deadlines.

The good news? You’re about to find out how to take some stress out of your work life.

How’s that?

I’m going to show you how to properly use one of the most powerful tools you’ve got at hand: Google Search.

Think you know all you need? Think again. You might know how to make a basic search with Google, but that’s about it.

This list of Google Search tricks will advance your search and let you zero in on what you’re really looking for.

Whether you’re trying to get exactly what you need fast and effectively, or if you want to boost productivity, these tips and tricks are sure to make things easier for you at the office, at your desk, and even in your personal life.

Impressive, right? But hey—there’s even more!

Less known (but super useful!) Google Search Tips

1. Double Exclude

You can mix and combine all of these Google Search commands to better refine your query.

Add a space and then another negative keyword to omit more than one. This example search will give you brownie recipes that include neither milk nor eggs.

2. The Boolean Search

Use AND or OR (all caps) to perform a boolean search by sticking it between two other words. The pipe operator (|) is the same as using OR.

3. The Tilde to Thesaurize

The tilde symbol generally means approximately, about, or around in English, and placing one just before a search term will broaden your query to match. Note that synonym searches are the default now, so this is all but redundant.

4. Temperature, Weather & Forecast

Weather, temperature, and forecast seem to provide the same, albeit convenient, rich card result.

5. Everything about the Google Calculator

These calculator Google shortcuts explain themselves, but how cool are they, huh? If you live and work in your browser, skip opening up the calculator app on your computer or phone and use Google instead. No need to type an equal sign (=), the search button takes care of that.

6. Determine That Date

You can easily use Google Search to remind you of an upcoming holiday, so you can plan accordingly. Note that if a holiday has just passed, it will show you that one—the current year’s date, rather than the future date.

7. More Unit Conversions

We just talked about time conversions, but you can do so many other unit-to-unit conversions with Google. From currencies to measurements, Google’s got you covered.

Google Pro Tip: You can use both to or in.

8. Get Info on a Site

This one used to be more helpful, but since Google has moved to zero-result SERPs, this particular Google command has lost some of its power. Still, you may find some use for it (and let me know if you do!).

9. Get Cached Version of a Site

Using cache: before a URL will immediately bring up the Google User Content cached version of that page. Note that it requires a specific URL per result, so it can include subfolders, child pages, and subdomains.

10. Investigate Company Information

Are you trying to know to whom to address a cover letter? Perhaps doing some competitor research?

Google Search gives rich card results for any of a number of searches. Just type in the position (CEO, CTO, etc.) followed by the company, and voila!

11. More Advanced Mathematics

We brought up Google’s impressive calculator functionality before, but Google can offer way more advanced mathematics. You can get the answers to geometry dimensions of several shapes, and you can solve for area, side, perimeter, diagonal, diagonal (p), diagonal (q), base, height, side, side (a), side (c), gamma, length, radius, diameter, and circumference!

12. In Titles, URLs & Anchors

Remember intext and allintext? These are the same, but they let you search only in the titles, URLs, or anchor texts of pages and articles.

13. Search Through Social Media

If you’re in marketing, or you just want to sift through all the noise, use the @ or # symbols to help you along. The @ will work with other social media platforms, such as Facebook.

14. Get Song Names and a List of Episodes

Similar to the author’s book search, you can get the same snippet for show episodes and singer’s songs, as well.

15. Sports Scores & Overview

Use Google to get a detailed look at your favorite team. This rich card offering is really rich, including stats, scores per inning (baseball), upcoming games, news, division rankings, and more.

16. Earthquake

Typing in earthquake give you United States Geological Survey information of recent earthquakes around the world. And, if it’s affecting you, quick access to safety advice!

17. Sunrise & Sunset

Get the exact sunrise or sunset time in your city by simply searching for either word. If you want to know the sunrise or sunset for another city, just add that city to your query. Simple and effective!

Well, what did you think?

Hopefully these Google Search hacks will help you lead a more productive work life.

Got any questions or comments? Perhaps some other helpful Google Search tips or tricks? Let us know in the comments below!

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