I absolutely love Google. Anybody that knows me, knows how much I love it. I feel I get a lot out of Google and know a lot of the nifty tricks and about its sheer power. Many friends, acquaintances, colleagues (et al.) of mine, however, don’t seem to know how powerful Google actually is. What I intend to do over a few up and coming blogs is explain to my readers some of these tricks and talk about Google’s power and reach.

Before I sign-off on this blog, I’ll talk about to common mistakes I have seen people make when searching with Google:

Using Quotations when Searching Broadly:

Ok, so you’re searching for restaurants in Darlinghurst lets say. By using quotations (”restaurants in Darlinghurst”) you are narrowing your search down to pages that contain that exact arrangement of words. In fact, because I have used that arrangement as an example here, at Pajago.com, if you were to search for “restaurants in Darlinghurst”, once this post has been crawled by Google, it will come up in the search options.

To search broadly, allow Google to do what is does best. Search for relevent keywords. If you are searching for a restaurant in Darlinghurst; search as if you are asking a friend. After all, Google is your friend! So, if you were to ask your friend “do you know of any good Thai restaurants around Darlinghurst Road?” use this as the basis of your Google search. Here is an example (ignore the apostrophes by the way): thai restaurants Darlinghurst Road. Because you are not using quotations it will not narrow your search to the exact arrangement of words.

Being shy:

People are often shy with Google but I see it more with Google Maps (Earth). I displayed the power of Maps to some friends yesterday. We were looking for a business on a street in the CBD. For the purpose of this post it shall be known as 234 Smith Street, Melbourne. I typed in the address as you see it and it zoomed straight in and showed us the exact building of XYZ company.

These friends never realised that Google Maps had this power. They presumed that Maps was more of a browsing tool. The sort of thing you play around with on a Sunday afternoon.

I feel a lot of people are too shy or uncertain to just have a fiddle around with Google’s many products. Have a play; I say. Nothing will break.

PJG