Google Hacks Part Two

Oh, so you want more google hacks that make your life easy? Don’t worry, blogger Krishna returns to look at some more ways to ‘Mastering Google’. If you haven’t read the first load of Google hacks, make sure to check them out here.

In this article, we look at some advanced googling techniques. With these techniques, assignments, homework and research are a lot easier. You can still use some of these hacks in your day-to-day life!

Hack 1) After and Before Commands: Filtering by Time

You can use the “AFTER:” and “BEFORE:” keywords to return results corresponding to a specific timeframe. For that matter, you can specify your range of years by typing “YEAR1…YEAR2”. This would return results that belong to that time period.

For example, you want information about global warming from an authoritative site. You also want the information to be published between 2012 and 2015. So, using our last article’s knowledge and the time filter, you can do this –

Hack 2) Cached: Return an Earlier Version of the Webpage 

Sometimes, the website you want might be down. In these cases, you can use the “Cached:” command followed by the URL of the website. This returns the saved version of a website. Another alternative to this method is the “Way Back Machine”. This website stores different versions of the website in its database. You might consider that too. This is useful for the times you are interested in legacy information.

Hack 3) Related: Helps you find related Information, Posts and Websites

The “Related:” command is useful in searching for related websites, information and services. Let’s say you found a website that you found interesting. If you want to find similar websites, you can use the related command to find similar websites.

I used this technique to find a colour palette generator for my web design projects. Generally, this makes it super easy to find similar information. The above image shows how I found websites that resembled “mycolor” website.

Hack 4) Reverse Image Search

Image Search is a powerful tool that you should add to your repertoire. This is the technique of using an Image to return topics or other images related to the subject image. You can do this by visiting “images.google.com” and searching by image. You can combine this with the other hacks to obtain the results you want. This is particularly helpful when you’re trying to find the origin of a photo. Use this while referencing or citing an original source of the image.

Hack 5) Google Dataset Search

The biggest challenge in any research is finding data. Finding data shouldn’t be hard in the information age, right? Yet, it is.

If you need data for your research, assignment or personal project, you can use Google’s Dataset Search functionality. You can go to the Dataset Search website and search for your requirements. Here is an example of me searching for NASA’s data on Cosmic Microwave Background.

This is a convenient tool for dataset searching. It is an invaluable tool to have for any student. his is especially important for Humanities students who work with contemporary indicators data.

If you are only looking for Public Data, you can use Google’s Public Data service. This filters your datasets to only those which are publically released.

Is Googling a skill?

So, that concludes the second part of the “Mastering Google” series. I recently read an article about a person who mentioned ‘Googling’ as a skill in his CV. This made him stand out of the crowd and bag a lucrative job offer. Keep your eyes peeled for the next instalment.

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Have your found these Google hacks useful? Let us know your experiences by leaving your comments below, tweeting us @warwicklibary or emailing us at libraryblogs@warwick.ac.uk

Header Image: Brett Jordan.