---
authors:
  - "itsHobbes#1985"
created_at: "2021/04/08"
title: What is Google?
---

## What is Google?

Google allows us smooth brained chumps to keep our jobs while looking like we know what we're doing.

"What!?!?" I hear you say. That's right. Google can almost always give you the answers you're looking for and in this spotlight we'll show you how!

"No! It cannot be! Surely such a tool cannot exist!" Yes, yes it can. And don't call me Shirley. :pray:

## How do I use google?

It's easy! Unbelievably easy. Alright, let's imagine you have a question, say "How do I create an array in java?".

Step 1. open <https://www.google.com/>

Step 2. Take your question, and put it into the big search box.

Step 3. Click search.

Yup, google is just that good it can understand your question and give you relevant answers.

That's all folks.

🦗

**But... I want to _really_ know how to use google!**

Alright alright. Pull your chair up close and I'll tell you the secrets big search don't want you to know! You didn't hear it from me though!

## Toby's top tips for refining your queries:

One of the most important things to know is that google uses various keyword and punctuation combinations as filter operators. Let's take a look at what they are, and how they affect your search results.

### 1. The colon

`site:` - Imagine you're looking for that one specific stack overflow post. You remember seeing it way back when you were just a wee little programming child typing on your keyboard with your index fingers only. We can use `site:` to filter our results to a specific website.

Example: `site:stackoverflow.com html regex` - One of the top results here should be an infamous SO post on parsing HTML with regex. If you haven't read it take a look!

`imagesize:` - Looking for that perfect desktop background or that perfectly sized stock photo of a well dressed individual posing at a computer to make your business seem more legitimate? use this to filter results to a specific image size

Example: `imagesize:1920x1080 dogs` - enjoy the cute dogs

`cache:` - If for some reason a website you want to visit is down, you might be able to view the content from google's cache.

Example: `cache:https://stackoverflow.com/questions` - Now you need not panic when stackoverflow goes down and you need to centre that div with css!

`filetype:` - If you're looking for a specific filetype, this is what you need!

Example: `filetype:pdf On Computable Numbers` - PDF results for one of Alan Turing's papers.

### 2. The dash

`-` this little guy is a tricksy fellow. The echos of enraged Java programmers shattered through the lands as they searched `-xmx` and were given no results. As it turns out, using a dash will **exclude** the following word from the results

Example: `-xmx` - will give you no results.

### 3. Quotes

`"` - When you make a search on google, if you put a word or phrase in quotes, google will look for an exact match. Useful if you're looking for a very specific error.

Example: `"Fly, you fools"`

### 4. Range ..

`..` - Do you remember reading an article or an event happening but can't recall the exact date? Want to search for a new phone within a price range? Putting two dots between two numbers will filter results.

Example: `rgb mechanical keyboard $50..$150`

## Google Scholar

If you're looking for research papers for school/college/uni/fun then Google Scholar can be your best friend. Google scholar exclusively searches academic & scholarly work. These are the kind of results you'll be wanting to cite in your own essays/papers. The same kind of filters work here too!

<https://scholar.google.com/>

## Advanced Search

Still stuck trying to find what you want? Try Google's Advanced Search page <https://www.google.com/advanced_search>
This page is a slightly more UX friendly version of all the above filters and more!
Image advanced search: <https://www.google.com/advanced_image_search>
Book advanced search: <https://books.google.com/advanced_book_search>
Video advanced search: <https://www.google.com/advanced_video_search>
Scholar advanced search: <https://scholar.google.com/#d=gs_asd>

## Here is a handy cheatsheet!

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/825348974164049920/829494747910504498/google-online-research-cheat-sheet.png
