How To REALLY Search The Internet

Part 1: Add A 'Discovery' Keyword And Relevant Keywords To Your Search
Part 2: Use Relevant Searches
Part 3: Building A Search Engine Toolbox
Part 4: Search Specific Domains
Part 5: Use Shortcuts
Part 6: Using Lesser Known Google Features
Part 8: Finding Different File Types

Part 5: Use Shortcuts

Using shortcuts is a simple ways of telling a search engine that your query is related to a specific search task.

They're a great example of just how useful and smart search engines have become.

The Big-3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Ask) all offer search shortcuts. They may call them different things, but they essentially all work the same.

Here's how:

If you want the weather for your zip code, head over to Google, and enter the following: weather 47401

or on Yahoo, do it this way:

weather Berlin

Want a definition for a word?

Google, Yahoo, and Ask will all allow you to find it quickly by entering your search the following way:

define slurp

The addition of the term 'define' to you query tells the search engine you're looking for a definition for the word that follows.

These are just a couple of the dozens of search shortcuts the various search engines provide.

With search shortcuts you can quickly find:

• The weather
• Flight information
• Movie showtimes
• Gas prices for a zip code
• Scores for a particular sports team
• Exchange rates
• Hotels information for a city or zip code

and much more...

Here are links to the shortcut homepages of the Big-3 search engines. Try these out for yourself. They can be real time- savers.

Google:
http://www.google.com/help/features.html

Yahoo:
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/

Ask:
http://sp.ask.com/docs/announcements/searchsmarter.html

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