Chapter 11
Google Codes and Alerts
Can you hire Google to work for you?
Yes, you can. Better yet, it's free! Obviously, we can all use Google to find the information we need online, but few of us take full advantage of all that Google has to offer. Google provides literally hundreds of online services free of charge. We could never cover them all in one short chapter. But we'll touch on a few basics that can help you squeeze a lot more out of Google than you've probably been doing so far.
First, there are a number of codes you can use to refine your Google searches. You can tell Google which types of websites you want to search for (.com, .net, .edu, .gov, etc.), and you can also specify the types of files you're looking for (pdf, doc, xls, ppt, etc.). How can you leverage these options to your advantage? Here's one example: The next time you're looking for a particular PDF e-book or report, search for a couple relevant keywords along with:
filetype:pdf
Including this code with your keywords will restrict the search to PDF files that include your keywords. This can dramatically accelerate your search and may deliver a number of other related PDF files as well. Every time I do this, I end up finding PDF files I never knew about, but that end up benefiting the cause.
Here's another example of how you can narrow your Google search. The next time you need to make a presentation about a particular topic, search for relevant keywords along with:
filetype:ppt
This code will yield ...
