Become an Expert Google Searcher in an Hour – Review

Review and notes on a video I watched recently on how to search google in expert mode. If you think you know how to search well on Google and you don’t use these tips, you’re wrong. These will help you with domains, content and much more! Always applying things I watch and learn like this to domain names and this one is a keeper – here’s an hour of content consolidated down into a few minutes for you to read and apply today.

Stephan Spencer had a nice video hosted over on O’Reilly and it is about an hour long as the title suggests – here are my notes on the video and a link to the book if you are interested in learning more.

Tips, tricks and hacks on how to find stuff in Google

Author of Google Power Search

According to Google, and most experts, many searches don’t find the right answer in the SERP’s – up to 30% and probably more since that doesn’t account for searches that don’t find the optimal answer!

Here’s a little pop quiz to see what would give the best answer to “How many women buy cars in the United States?  What’s the best Google search query? Here’s some possible answers from the video:

The answer is 3 or 4, but 4 preferably because the tilde (~) symbol provides a synonym lookup for the word it is attached to and gives a wider set of results.

5 keys to smarter searching

1. Cutting Through the Clutter
   • Use quotes for exact phrases for things you want exactly
   • Avoid questions – “how many”, “What is”
   • Singular vs plural – if you think plural, but looking for singular you will get wrong “Templates” vs “Template”
   • Word order is very important to Google in the SERP
   • Boolean logic is very useful -,+,(),OR,|
     • +car gives only results with car and ignores synonyms
     • –car excludes results with that word
   • Search operators like:
     • Filetype:  – this restricts results to a specific file extension like ppt, xls, pdf
     • Site:   – only find/search specified domain – can also specify extension like site:edu
     • Intitle: & allintitle:   – words must appear in title
     • Inurl: & allinurl:  – words must appear in title
     • Daterange:  – only search pages added/updated in that range of dates, but it is in Julian so it is better to use the more options on left.
     • Define:  – get a glossary definition
   • Date based searching – on the left there are “More search tools” option list and use advanced search page
2. Cast a wider net with synonyms, etc
   1. ~ (tilde) gives Synonyms
   2. * (asterisk) is a wildcard replacement
   3. OR or |  – logical or conditions – either satisfies
   4. ..  used for number ranges 1..10
   5. Related:
3. Master the google interface including the options on the left side such as date based searches
   • Type in keyword and “I’m feeling lucky” button and  it will go to first result on search
   • Cached version can get you file not found type stuff or if it scrolled off of active page
   • If you wanted images, go to images link.
   • Advanced search page – provides simple interface to many of these options – good to look at results of the engine that creates the query
   • Google Groups – under more – archive of all usenet and google groups postings – some great results in these verticals
   • Forrester research grapevine filetype:pdf – gives you true forrester research documents
4. Employ specialized search services (verticals such as news, patent search, etc)
   • Soople
   • Google Patent Search
   • Google Books
   • Google Scholar
   • Google Q&A aka instant answers
   • The search box has its own toolbox features
     • Phonebook
     • Calculator
     • Measurement conversion
     • Dictionary
     • Package tracking
     • Airline schedules
     • Atlas of street maps
     • Stock tickers
5. Assemble your toolbox such as books, references, etc
   • Download and install the Google Toolbar
     • Gives advanced options like PR meter
     • Toolbar.google.com to download
   • Subscribe to Google Alerts – Can specify news results only, frequency…
   • Set your start page
   • Buy a reference book on Google
   • Create a Google cheat sheet
   • Take the GoogleGuide.com tutorial

Domain Name Hot Search Tips!

Tip – +”confidential and proprietary” +”do not distribute”
Tip – 2009..2011 to get only recent ones
Tip – related: on a site www.test.com give related sites…
Tip – use this to find creative commons licensed images and use them with attribution
Tip – Can have more results in page with query parameters – switch from 10 to 100 with &num=100
Tip – Can change your location on left side options – specific for geo is great!

You can contact Stephan by emailing Stephan@stephanspencer.com
You can get copy of his original slide deck by emailing admin@stephanspencer.com