Hack College has created a useful infographic on how to use Google more effectively. It’s targeted toward students, but is helpful to anyone who uses Google – which is just about everyone, right?
I found the section on the operators to be the most useful. I’ve long used quotes to search for exact phases and the minus sign to exclude words, but I didn’t know about the ~ to search related works or the .. to do a number range search. I will certainly be making use of those from now on.
You can also limit your search to a specific file type, search just the title of a webpage, search within a specific site, get a definition, do calculations or unit conversions, and lots more.
Don’t worry if you can’t remember all these operators. Google will walk you through many of them on the Google advanced search page. I just wish that Google didn’t make the advanced search page so hard to find. There used to be a link to it from the main Google page, but they removed it for some odd reason. Now you have to either know the direct URL (http://www.google.ca/advanced_search) or search for it.