* The asterisk is a search wildcard. For example, searching for three*mice finds three blind mice, three button mice, etc.* Google search currently has a hard limit of 32 words - that’s keywords and special syntax combined. Search terms after the first 32 words are ignored.
* Google’s Boolean default is AND, which means that, if you enter query words without modifiers, Google will search for all of your query words.
* The Google synonym operator, the ~ (tilde) character, placed in front of any number of keywords in your query, asks Google to include not only exact matches, but also what it thinks are synonyms for each of the keywords. For example, search for ~legal, you will get results for lawyer, attorney, law, etc.
* Google is case insensitive. If you search for Three, three, THREE, even ThrEE, you get the same results.
* Numrange searches for results containing numbers in a given range. Just add two numbers, separated by two periods, with no spaces, into the search box along with your search terms. For example, If you’re looking to spend $800 to $1,000 on a nice 3 to 6 megapixel digital SLR camera, Google for: slr digital camera 3..6 megapixel $800..1000.
* Page size in Google results is never going to be more than 101 KB. That’s because Google doesn’t index more than 101 KB worth of a given web page.
* Google’s define-operator allows you to look up word definitions. For example, [define:css] yields “Short for Cascading Style Sheets” and many more explanations. You can trigger a somewhat “softer” version of the define-operator by entering “what is something”, e.g. [what is css].
* Google searches for all of your words, whether or not you write a “+” before them (I often see people write queries [+like +this], but it’s not necessary). Unless, of course, you use Google’s or-operator. It’s an upper-case [OR] (lower-case won’t work and is simply searching for occurrences of the word “or”), and you can also use parentheses and the “|” character.
Technorati tags: Google
