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August 2002
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Still haven’t found what you’re looking for?

Check here.

You can vastly improve your Internet searches with two simple tips: First, use Google.com. Second, learn how to really use Google. The search engine favored by many Web users and portals has capabilities far beyond a simple site search. Here are a few tips to help you find what you’re looking for.

Search a single site

When you can’t find something on a particular site that has no search engine or one that hasn’t given you the results you need, you can use Google to search only that site’s pages. To find marketing materials on TexasRealtors.com, for example, type marketing materials site:www.texasrealtors.com.

Find similar sites

If you’ve ever wished you could "find more sites like that one," you could be in luck. Google can serve up suggestions. Type into the search field related:www.texasrealtors.com, for example, and you’ll find links to TREC, the Institute of Real Estate Management, Realty Times, and Web sites for the Greater Dallas, Williamson County, Virginia, Tennessee, California, and other REALTOR® association Web sites.

Where are they coming from?

You can find a list of sites that link to a particular site. For example, links to TexasRealtors.com can be found by entering link:www.texasrealtors.com.

Site-name search

When you want to find only sites that have a particular word or words in the name of the site, use the allinurl command. For example, allinurl:texasrealtors.

Search images

Google has an Images tab at the top of the page that leads to an image search.

Find that phone number

You can look up phone numbers and addresses by entering directly in the search field a person’s first and last names, city, and state. Same goes for businesses. You can also perform a reverse lookup by entering a phone number to find that phone customer’s name and address.

Put Google on your browser

You can add a Google toolbar to your browser (Internet Explorer 5.0 or later). Performing a search without leaving the page you’re on is the only feature to recommend the toolbar. Once on a site, you can click a button to highlight your search words in yellow for quickly locating them on the page, or you can click on each search word to scroll directly to instances of its inclusion on that page.

Photo © Brand X Pictures.

 

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