by Zakary Venturo

Created on: October 13, 2010

Few companies have the kind of impact where their product becomes synonymous with the industry. Coke has done it, and so has Google. Google is a verb. When search is critical for getting the right results, Google is always the weapon of choice. But Google is much more than a text box ready to supply a list of results based on a query. Google is an entire arsenal of tools and knowing what those tools are will provide killer results.

Site Search:

One of the basics. Sometimes the content you want comes from a specific site, or you just want to see what a specific site states on a topic. Write out the query as you normally would and add “site:urlofthesite.com” at the end. The only results will be from the specified url, making the chore of sifting through a single site a breeze.

Wonder Wheel:

Once a search has been performed, it is quite possible the results are so broad and the information wanted is so specific, there is just too many results to find the information being targeted. The Wonder Wheel is an option underneath the “more search tools” on the left hand side of the search results. It is sort of like brainstorming technique where an idea is placed in a circle and related ideas are drawn out from its center. In this case, the original search is in the center and Google provides related search ideas, which can make it incredibly easier to find the specific topic needed. While choosing different ideas, the search results change to reflect the related concepts.

Related Searches:

Another option found under “more search tools.” Like the Wonder Wheel, this option intends to help find information related to the original query. Instead of a graphical tool, Related Searches provides links on top of the page for the most common topics related to the original query. As a user clicks through related topics, additional related links are shown to reflect the most popular queries related to each popular search.

Timeline:

Also found under “more search tools” this tool helps unearth results according to relevant dates. Think of this as Google’s search archive, ready to deliver results based on time itself. Google does not contain these results to just when these articles were published on the web, but matches articles to their relevancy to real time. In this way it is entirely possible to organization information from any period in time at all. For example, searching for “US Constitution,” I could start looking at

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