Have You Discovered Search Shortcuts?
Permenant Link To: Have You Discovered Search Shortcuts?
What are search shortcuts?
They're only one of the smartest, and most time-saving features to be added to search engines in a long time.
And if you're willing to learn some super-simple syntax, you'll be able to turbo-charge many of the most common search queries you make.
If you're like me, you regularly search for things such as:
- Weather info
- Definitions
- Facts about a person, place, or thing
- Movie showtimes
- Sport scores
When you analyze what these types of searches represent, It's clear that the answer you're looking for in relation to this kind of search is pretty limited in scope.
When you want the weather for the Indianapolis, you simply want the temperature and forecast - a pretty finite scope of information. You shouldn't have to wade through thousands of search results just to get the temperature or forecast.
When searching for the definition of a word, such as blog, you want a definition, plain and simple. Once again, a pretty finite scope of information. Chances are, that you're really not interested in the millions of pages online that use the word.
There are a number of these types of searches that we all make on a regular basis. As a result, some of the more popular search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, in an effort to make our searching easier and faster, have created search shortcuts (Google's | Yahoo's), which quickly enable us to perform these kinds of searches.
There are two main ways of using search shortcuts, both on Google and Yahoo.
The first is the easiest, and simply involves visiting either one's search shortcut page (Google's | Yahoo's) and following the instructions found there.
The second is faster, but requires you remember special syntax when entering your query.
For example, if you wanted to use Yahoo to find movie showtimes for a particular zip code (such as 47401), you would enter the following query into Yahoo's main search box:
The top of results page highlights the movie showtimes for the zip code entered, which is exactly what you were looking for.
To find hotels in the Las Vegas area, you would simply enter this query into the main search box:
Once again, the top of the results page will have very specific information about hotels in the Las Vegas area. You'll see a listing of some of the more popular hotels, their rating and price, along with one-click access to maps and availability.
As you can see, the syntax for using search shortcuts is pretty straightforward and easy to remember. Use them regularly, as I do, and you'll soon become a pro.
Both Google and Yahoo are constantly enhancing their search shortcut features. And despite their best efforts to promote them, there are a lot of people out there who still don't know they exist.
I hope you find them as useful as I have.
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