Below I have compiled a list of 7 clever Google tricks that I believe
everyone should be aware of. Together I think they represent the apex
of the grand possibilities associated with Google search manipulation tricks
and hacks. Although there are many others out there, these 7 tricks are my all-time favorite.
Enjoy yourself.
1. Find the Face Behind the Result – This is a neat
trick you can use on a Google Image search to filter the search results
so that they include only images of people. How is this useful? Well,
it could come in handy if you are looking for images of the prominent
people behind popular products, companies, or geographic locations. You
can perform this search by appending the code
&imgtype=face to the end of the URL address after you perform a standard Google Image search.
- Examples (notice the differences in each URL):
2. Google + Social Media Sites = Quality Free Stuff
– If you are on the hunt for free desktop wallpaper, stock images,
Wordpress templates or the like, using Google to search your favorite
social media sites is your best bet. The word “free” in any standard
search query immediately attracts spam. Why wade through potential spam
in standard search results when numerous social media sites have an
active community of users who have already ranked and reviewed the
specific free items that interest you. All you have to do is direct
Google to search through each of these individual social media sites,
and bingo… you find quality content ranked by hundreds of other people.
3. Find Free Anonymous Web Proxies – A free
anonymous web proxy site allows any web browser to access other
third-party websites by channeling the browser’s connection through the
proxy. The web proxy basically acts as a middleman between your web
browser and the third-party website you are visiting. Why would you
want to do this? There are two common reasons:
- You’re connecting to a public network at a coffee shop or internet
caf├й and you want privacy while you browse the web. You don’t want the
admin to know every site you visit.
- You want to bypass a web content filter or perhaps a server-side ban
on your IP address. Content filtering is common practice on college
campus networks. This trick will usually bypass those restrictions.
There are subscription services and applications available such as
TOR and paid VPN servers that do the same thing. However, this trick is
free and easy to access from anywhere via Google. All you have to do
is look through the search results returned by the queries below, find a
proxy that works, and enter in the URL of the site you want to browse
anonymously.
4. Google for Music, Videos, and Ebooks - Google
can be used to conduct a search for almost any file type, including
Mp3s, PDFs, and videos. Open web directories are one of the easiest
places to quickly find an endless quantity of freely downloadable
files. This is an oldie, but it’s a goodie! Why thousands of
webmasters incessantly fail to secure their web severs will continue to
boggle our minds.
5. Browse Open Webcams Worldwide – Take a
randomized streaming video tour of the world by searching Google for
live open access video webcams. This may not be the most productive
Google trick ever, but it sure is fun! (Note: you may be prompted to
install an ActiveX control or the Java runtime environment which allows
your browser to view certain video stream formats.)
6. Judge a Site by its Image – Find out what a site
is all about by looking at a random selection of the images hosted on
its web pages. Even if you are somewhat familiar with the target site’s
content, this can be an entertaining little exercise. You will almost
surely find something you didn’t expect to see. All you have to do is
use Google’s
site: operator to target a domain in an image search.
7. Results Based on Third-Party Opinion - Sometimes
you can get a better idea of the content located within a website by
reading how other websites refer to that site’s content. The
allinanchor:
Google search operator can save you large quantities of time when a
normal textual based search query fails to fetch the information you
desire. It conducts a search based on keywords used strictly in the
anchor text, or linking text, of third party sites that link to the web
pages returned by the search query. In other words, this operator
filters your search results in a way such that Google ignores the title
and content of the returned web pages, but instead bases the search
relevance on the keywords that other sites use to reference the
results. It can add a whole new dimension of variety to your search
results.
Bonus Material:
Here is a list of my favorite Google advanced search operators, operator combinations, and related uses:
- link:URL = lists other pages that link to the URL.
- related:URL = lists other pages that are related to the URL.
- site:domain.com “search term = restricts search results to the given domain.
- allinurl:WORDS = shows only pages with all search terms in the url.
- inurl:WORD = like allinurl: but filters the URL based on the first term only.
- allintitle:WORD = shows only results with terms in title.
- intitle:WORD = similar to allintitle, but only for the next word.
- cache:URL = will show the Google cached version of the URL.
- info:URL = will show a page containing links to
related searches, backlinks, and pages containing the url. This is the
same as typing the url into the search box.
- filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will restrict searches to that filetype
- -filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will remove that file type from the search.
- site:www.somesite.net “+www.somesite.net” = shows you how many pages of your site are indexed by google
- allintext: = searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title
- allinlinks: = searches only within links, not text or title
- WordA OR WordB = search for either the word A or B
- “Word” OR “Phrase” = search exact word or phrase
- WordA -WordB = find word A but filter results that include word B
- WordA +WordB = results much contain both Word A and Word B
- ~WORD = looks up the word and its synonyms
- ~WORD -WORD = looks up only the synonyms to the word
- More info.
Want more info on Google Hacking? These 3 books are must reads:
# What Rights Do Robots Have?
# How to Stop Hearing Voices through Electronics?
# Who invented Ice?
# Can You make a Lot of Money Reading Emails?
# What Inventions Haven’t Been Made?
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