A Collection of Fun and Interesting Google Search Tips   7/29/2005 - 2,275 views, 2 Comments

Summary: Every so often Aunty runs into some interesting things which make her life a little bit easier, and her Google searches a little more productive or, sometimes, fun. So here are a few which Aunty is going to pass on to you today. I ...

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Every so often Aunty runs into some interesting things which make her life a little bit easier, and her Google searches a little more productive or, sometimes, fun.

So here are a few which Aunty is going to pass on to you today. I hope that you enjoy them as much, or find them as useful, as do I.

Find web pages which link to a particular URL

You can find web pages which reference a particular URL using this search method on Google:

link:url-you-want-to-know-about-here.com

So, for example, a Google search of “link:http://www.theinternetpatrol.com” turns up web sites which link to Aunty.

Note that there is no space after the “link:”

Find web pages which have your search terms in the title

A really useful way to quickly zero in on that for which you are searching is to limit your search to pages which have your search terms right in their title. You can do this with the “intitle:” limiter. For this search you must put the full search string in quotes:

“intitle:term1 term2 term3″

Example:

A Google search of “spam blockers” turns up 637,000 hits. (A search without the quotes turns up a whopping 1,150,000.)

By contrast “intitle:spam blockers” (note again the lack of a space between the “:” and the first search term), turns up 730 hits, all of them highly focused, as they are pages whose titles contain the term “spam blocker”.

Search results in fun languages

Ok, now go to your “preferences” (it’s a link in the upper right of your Google search results page).

Do you see the drop-down menu which says “Interface Language”?

I’ll bet you’ve never looked very closely at that, have you?

Try selecting “Elmer Fudd”, save your preferences, and go back to the search page.

Your “pwefewences” now allow you to “Seawch de Web, you scwewy wabbit”, and “Seawch Engwish pages”.

Or you might want to etsay ouryah efrencespray to igPay atinLay.
But Aunty’s favourite is a tribute to the Swedish Chef, of Muppet’s fame, called, simply, “Bork, bork, bork!”.
Aunty’s search of “intitle:spam blocker” yielded these results in Bork, bork, bork!:

Seerched Engleesh peges fur “intitle:spam blockers”. Resoolts 1 - 10 ooff ebuoot 730. Seerch tuuk 0.38 secunds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

Hint: Be sure to only select a language based on your own primary language or one which you speak, or resetting your preferences may be a bit challenging, as everything gets set to the new language - after setting her preferences to Klingon Aunty, not knowing the Klingon word for “English” had to take a wild guess to get her preferences back to a readable format.

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For additional similar stories check out our archives on Google, Useful & Fun Stuff

 

2 Comments »

  1. I sort of wonder why they don’t have the language options listed in their respective language… or perhaps have them listed both ways (e.g. “English (Saesneg)”).

    Bonus points if you can tell what language I was viewing Google in based on that. :)

    Comment by codeman38 — 8/2/2005 @ 4:47 am

  2. if you look below and to the right of the search bar there is a button that says Google.com in English and that will take you back to the english settings

    Comment by Nimonie — 8/3/2005 @ 5:13 am

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