Short Bytes: The fastest search engine on the planet has many special features hidden inside which can enhance your experience. Use these simple tips and tricks to make your Google search more efficient and save your time.
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oogle Search has the biggest consumer base in the world. In fact, many people often open google.com just to check whether their internet connection is working or not. That’s the proof of the popularity that Google deserves after creating a matchless product. Intelligent minds at Google work very hard to come up with complex formulae and algorithms that make the search simpler for you.
The behind the scenes of Google Search or any other search engine include crawling websites on the internet and arranging the data in an index. In this article, I have covered various Google Search tricks which you can use to amaze yourself. Learn these simple things and your daily search regime will be like a knife in hot butter.
Before trying out these tricks, make sure that you are already logged in with your Gmail account in your web browser.
Manage your life with Google Search Tricks
Plan your day with Google Search
Help yourself with a donut or a latte by stealing some minutes out of your busy schedule. Just write about your daily plans in the search box and Google will display all the meetings and appointments for the day. For example, “When is my next appointment?”
Track your shipments
Google knows how eagerly you wait for your online shipments and that’s why they have added package tracking functionality into their search engine. Type “Where’s my package?” or “Where’s my Amazon package?” and Google will tell you where your package has reached by extracting the tracking number from the confirmation mail in your Gmail account.
Timer and Stopwatch in Google Search
Running out of minutes? Use the time and stopwatch features in Google Search. All you have to do is type “Set a timer for 5 minutes”. You can set the time as per your convenience. Type “Stopwatch” for accessing the stopwatch feature.
Create Calendar Events
Plan something special for your Mom this weekend, take her out for a dinner. You need to create an event in order to make it memorable. Just type “Create an event, dinner with mom on Saturday 9 pm”.
Set Reminders in Google Search
You want to visit a salon or a supermarket, just add a reminder to your Google account by typing in the search box. Use your free time to visit fossBytes again, just type “Remind me to open fossBytes at 7pm”.
Photos tell a lot
Type “Show me my pictures in the mountains” and Google will display your photos having mountains as background, provided you have uploaded some of them in your Google account (either in Google Photos or Google+). Relevant snaps from Google+ are displayed even if you haven’t tagged yourself.
Google Search Utility Tricks
Deal with the units
Converting one unit to another is a child’s play on Google search. Be it volume, weight, currency, etc. the search engine is at your service. For example, “What is 25 cm in inches?” or “Convert $250 to INR”.
Be a stock market pro
Track your stock prices directly from the search engine, type “stock GOOGL” or “stock MSFT”. The share price data will be displayed along with highs and lows graph in different time spans.
Know about events with Google Search
I told you about how you can add events to your calendar. You can also ask Google about natural events like a sunset or some celebration day like “When is the Good Friday?” or “When is Tomorrowland?”. If you write something like “When is the sunset?”, Google will display the sunset timing based on your current location.
Things around you
If you have the habit of skipping your breakfast in the morning, well, you can grab a sandwich while in the commute to work. Type “Where is the nearest sandwich shop?”. Google search allows you to find local businesses like grocery shops, ice-cream parlors (and much more) around you.
Google Search is Your personal nutritionist
Just type “How many calories in an apple” or “Nutritional value of banana”. Google wants to make sure your body is nourished properly. You can check the nutritional value of various food items.
Use Google Search as Dictionary
Want to expand your vocabulary and impress your crush, Google would love to help you! Just type “define” before the word you like to know about and the search engine will tell you the meaning of the word, example sentences, synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation, etc. For example, “define nostalgia”.
It all about photos
Use this Google search trick view photos of people and places like the Empire State building or the Bondi Beach. Type “Show me the photos of Pattaya” or “Show me the photos of Brangelina”.
Know about famous people
“When was Peter Dinklage born?” or “How old is Luis Suarez?”. Know about the lives of celebrities and famous personalities like Albert Einstein. Google usually sources information from Wikipedia to answer queries regarding birth, age, career, etc.
Customer Service Information
You can ask Google for customer care numbers and service center addresses. For example, “What is Sony’s Customer Care Number?” or “Samsung service locations in New York”.
Weather Stats on Google Search
Visiting some city in a day or two? Check the weather conditions in advance so you don’t have to deal with difficulties during your trip. Type “weather” followed by the name of the place like “Weather London” or “Do I need a raincoat today?”.
Use Google Search as a clock
Type “time” to know, at what number the clock is ticking at your location. To know the time of another location, type the name of the place after “time” in the search box. For example: “What time is it in Mumbai?”.
Get Sports Updates
Experience the heating of the playground right on the screen in front of you. Type “La Liga Fixtures” or “Did West Indies win last night?”. You can also know about live scores when a game is in progress.
How much tip should you give?
Giving tips is a normal ritual for us at restaurants and hotels. But sometimes we can’t figure out how much tip should be paid or in case, someone is giving the tip for the first time. Some people give fat tips at luxury fine dining restaurants to show their status symbol. But you can’t shell out a 50 dollar tip for a 100 dollar bill. Google search also has an inbuilt Tip calculator, so that you don’t flow in your emotions and empty your pocket in front of the waiter. Just type “What’s the tip for 100 dollars?” in Google Search.
Math Calculator in Google Search
Burnt your brain circuits while solving math problems? All complex questions will be like a no-brainer with the help of the search engine’s calculator tool. It is not just the cube roots and square roots, you can solve question involving sin, cos, tan functions as it is a scientific calculator. Like “What is the cube root of 375?”. You can actually write complex formula like “0.67 + 56*64 – pi +(sqrt(e^6)/756))”.
Be Multilingual with Google Search
Have a familiar conversation with your international friends by including words and phrases from their language. Type “How to say hello in Spanish?”. Use the translating capabilities of Google Search. You can use this feature to give directions to a local taxi driver in another country who may not be able to understand your language.
Entertainment Tricks in Google Search
View song lists
You can see the list of songs sung by a particular artist or a band. Type “What does Myles Kennedy sing?” or “Best songs of Linkin Park”. Album and release year is mentioned for each song that comes up on the list. Clicking a song name displays more information about the song and YouTube video if available.
Enjoy the flicks
Search for local movie showtimes. Type “What movies are playing in cinemas” and Google will display the list of movies in the cinemas nearby. Click a movie to know more about its timings and location of the movie theater. You can also type “Superhero movies in 2016”, but if you type “Superhero movies to be released in 2016” it will only display those movies which haven’t been released in the year 2016.
Trivia Info with Google Search
Can’t remember the real name of Khaleesi in GOT, Google it — “Who plays Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones?”. You can search a lot of trivia facts like TV show casts, director names, et cetera. And do remember to pay more attentions to the credits in season 6. You can search it on Google, anyways.
Travel Tricks In Google Search
Navigation with Google Search
You can use turn-by-turn navigation functionality right from the search. Type “Take me to home” and it will starting helping you to reach your home by knowing your address saved in Google Maps.
Travel information
A little knowledge about the new place you’re visiting adds to your convenience during the trip. Type “What are the popular attractions in London?”.
Manage your trips
You might want to re-check your flight tickets or hotel address, type “Show me my flights” or “Where is my hotel?” Google will be able to show your flight and hotel information only if you have ticket confirmations in your Gmail.
Know about the world
Utilize your holidays to improve your general knowledge. Use Google to know about historic buildings and places or explore the modern world. For example, just type “Where is Madison Square Garden?”.
The 18-year old search engine handles around 3 billion search requests in a day and yet, it has time to listen to every individual user’s needs. These simple google search tricks will help you find relevant content easily and quickly. In a nutshell, Google has combined its various products with the search engine, otherwise, you would have to individually access the translator, maps, Gmail other features.
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