GOOGLE SEARCH TERMS ORDER matters greatly (although I see nothing rational about it): xyz tcv rvdl = 28 results (actual) xyz rvdl tcv = 3 million results, (161 actual, as seen on second page) rvdl xyz tcv = 3 million (181 actual, as seen on second page) ... and the other three combination yield yet more different results. Unless you see something I don't, you have to try various orders to be sure you get all possible results. updated page date in past 3, 6, or 12 months how does this work? info:url.com I don't get enything for this; it appears to have been discontinued negation works also with site: -site:.com (that's site colon dot com) finds everything not on dot com (.com) sites. may work with other cases other than words and site? dash gets all forms of the term, whether spelled as a single word, a phrase, or hyphenated. example: high-speed as in driving at a high speed high-speed chase anda poorly spelled highspeed dash or hyphen is recognized as part of a word only if Google sees it as relevant. filetype: or ext: (as in filetype:pdf or ext:pdf) I find ext, meaning extension, to be easier to remember, since is really is the extension, not the file type name that is searched. Does filetype:video work? intitle: (and allintitle:) [ increases relevance!] The query intitle:term restricts results to documents containing term in the title. For instance, [ flu shot intitle:help ] will return documents that mention the word “help” in their titles, and mention the words “flu” and “shot” anywhere in the document (title or not). [ intitle:pretty intitle:girls ] is the same as [ allintitle: pretty girls ]. inurl: [maybe you remember something in a url? such as a category, such as "gallery" or "photos" or "catalogue"] If you include inurl: in your query, Google will restrict the results to web pages containing that word in the URL. For instance, [ inurl:print site:www.googleguide.com ] searches for pages on Google Guide in which the URL contains the word “print.” It finds pdf files that are in the directory or folder named “print” on the Google Guide website. The query [ inurl:healthy eating ] will return documents that mention the words “healthy” in their URL, and mention the word “eating” anywhere in the document or text. [ inurl:healthy inurl:eating ] is the same as [ allinurl: healthy eating ]. In URLs, words are often run together. They need not be run together when you’re using inurl: [ what sense does that make?] intext: [ not much use since it would be rare for something to be ONLY in url or title and not in text ] The query intext:term restricts results to documents containing term in the text. For instance, [ Hamish Reid intext:pandemonia ] will return documents that mention the word “pandemonia” in the text, and mention the names “Hamish” and “Reid” anywhere in the document (text or not). [ intext:handsome intext:poets ] is the same as [ allintext: handsome poets ]. number range: for price: camera $1..$50000 or born 1910..1930 (that's two periods, no spaces, plus NO PERIODS OR DECIMAL POINTS, also, the search does not find numbers with periods, decimal points or commas in them). $ can be included, but can other symbols? such as usd: 100usd..200usd ? QUIRKY. also DOES NOT FIND EVERYTHING THAT IT SHOULD $ is recognized, VERY USEFUL! for pricing (especial with number range), but how well does it work?A other symbols are recognized when part of a name (such as the programming language C++) what about dash (-), underline (_), + = @ # % ^ & * { } [ ] underline is recognized connecting two words, such as in a file name: "big_deal.doc" traditionally, in Dos, Linux and Unix (and older OS's), the underline has been used instead of a space in file names if you are unsure, it is best to do an OR to include the underline form of your phrase "big deal.doc" OR "big_deal.doc" Undocumented Google: VERY USEFUL: AROUND(n) Here n is an integer that indicates the Maximum number of words that can occur between your terms in either order, as in pizza AROUND(2) restaurant retrieves: pizza served in restaurant and restaurant serves pizza returns pages with pizza and restaurant (in either order) separated by two or fewer words. the order of the terms does not matter. Will it retrieve pizza restaurant (with zero number of words between?) the OR operator can be replaced with | (called a "pipe," some fonts have a separation in the middle of the vertical line) especially useful and quicker as an alternative to OR with the | on a key close to the enter key. Usually directly above the Enter key. even though not documented, searches started from the advanced search page return your search string with the "|" (pipe) replacing your OR's anyway. tilde ~ finds also synonyms ~home (also finds house, residence, abode, etc), may be the same as Googles new default that finds synonyms that you don't want; do a test to see. It is more advantageous to be able to turn of synonyms completely. The 32 term limit (increased from 20 to 32 a few years ago) is easy to reach, given all the variant forms of what you want, especially phrases, adn exclusions If you do not regularly come close to that limit, you are not searching efficiently or effectively. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob: google configuration: Autocomplete: ___ Provide query predictions in the search box. _X_ Do not provide query predictions in the search box. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Firefox configuration: about:config browser.urlbar.autoFill default boolean false openbook.showUR userset boolean true browser.search.suggest enabled false keyword.enabled default boolean true keyword.URL user set string [the string being as follows:] http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&newwindow=1&ft=i&btnG=Search&complete=0&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&num=100&safe=off [besides the google URL, the critical part to prevent autocomplete is: &complete=0] openbook.showURL true middlemouse.contentLoadURL true browser.tabs.opentabfor.urlbar false browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped default false browser.display.screen_resolution 200 browser.download.defaultFolder C:\My Documents browser.download.dir C:\My Documents browser.download.folderList 2 browser.startup.homepage http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&newwindow=1&ft=i&btnG=Search&complete=0&num=100&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off browser.tabs.loadBookmarksInBackground true browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing false [ this is important in order to see what the actual sizes of images are, and at optimal resolution ] &btnG=Search [ makes ctrl-G repeat in-page search, very important! ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------