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1. Explicit Phrases:
If you want all of the phrases to be part of search then use all of them within double quotes. For example, suppose you are searching for next marketing guru. Instead of using the next marketing guru as four separate words in the search box use “the next marketing guru”.

2. Either OR:
By default Google searches for all the terms in your search query so it basically uses AND operator. When you want to search for either of the terms then use the OR operator. Note that – you can also use pipe operator (||) in place of OR.

Example: “TNMG OR the next marketing guru”

3. Excluding Words:
Good Googling is not just searching for what you want but also avoiding what you don’t want. To avoid the unwanted results just type the minus (-) sign in front of the word you want to exclude.

Example: suppose you want to search for the content for “the next marketing guru” but you don’t want the results that contain the term “blog” then in the search box type the following: the next marketing guru –blog

4. Synonyms:
How many times you included a word in the search but thought it would have been better if Google could search for the synonyms as well. What your need to do is just place the tilde sign (~) immediately in front of your search term.

Example: “~fast cars”

5. Word Definitions:
Many a times I was searching for the definition of a word and had to first search for a dictionary website and then only could search the meaning of the word. To cut the process really short simply use the “define:” command.

Example: “define:serendipity”

6. Specify Document Type:
Imagine you have a presentation in 5 minutes and you are yet to start your PPT. It would have been just great if you could directly get a PPT to present. Believe me – you can. You just need to add the modifier “filetype:ppt”. You can use other file extensions (doc, pdf) etc as well.

Example: “the next marketing guru filetype:ppt”

7. Calculator:
Of course you have your desktop or hand calculator for the purpose. But your Google browser window which is already open is as good as or even more convenient. Just type the expression and then equal (=) sign.

Example: “4/2-1*3+5=” or “2^10” or “20% of 500”

8. Unit Conversion:
Did you know that you can convert between many different units of measurement of height, weight, and volume using Google? This is a very powerful tool and can be used for numerous other conversions like converting temperature.

Examples: “10.5 cm in inches” or “10 gallon in litres” or “100F in C”.

9. Currency Converter:
This is very similar to the unit conversion and the syntax is similar as well.

Example: “150 GBP in USD”.

10. Public Data:
How much time did you spent searching for data like population, unemployment rates and other data of some city, state or country? Now it’s easy. Type “population” or “unemployment rate” followed by a state or county name. Note that – these commands should work for all major cities, states and countries – but may be not for all.

Examples: “population Kolkata”; “unemployment rate India”; “area West Bengal”; “Chief Minister Delhi” etc.

11. Time:
Knowing the current time of a city is now so simple. And you don’t need multiple clocks installed in your room or desktop. Just type the ‘time’ and then the city name.

Example: “time Jamshedpur”

12. Weather:
Planning for a trip to India’s financial capital? You might be interested to know the weather of your destination. Just type ‘weather’ followed by the city name.

Example: “weather Mumbai”.

13. Site Specific Search:
Sometimes you want to restrict your search to one website which is relevant to you. For that use “site:” modifier.

Example: “the next marketing guru” site:http://www.tnmg4u.com/

14. Number Ranges:
This might be used rarely but can be very useful in some situations. To specify a range of numbers in your search query use the format X..Y i.e. the lower limit (X) followed by two period (..) and then the upper limit (Y).

Example: Say, you want to purchase a laptop but your budget is between $100 to $150 – then you can use the following search query “Laptop $100..150”.

15. Related Websites:
If you want to search the pages which are related to a specific website then you can type the command “related:” followed by the website address.

Example: “related:www.xlri.ac.in”.

16. Plus (+) Operator:
The ‘+’ operator is used to search for exact word search. Say, you want to search an exact word and don’t want any plural or other tenses or synonyms of the word to be part of your search results. Then place the ‘+’ operator immediately before the word. A special use of this operator will be in the case of common words. As you might know, Google ignores common words and characters such as the, how, and other digits and letters that slow down your search without improving the results. In case a common word is essential for your search then Plus (+) Operator just before that word

Example: “+the next marketing guru”

17. Fill in the Blank:
You had done those ‘fill in the blank’ type questions during your school days. But not needed any more. Now, Google can do it for you. You just need to use the asterisk (*) where the blank is.

Example: “next * guru”. This search query will search for the words next and guru separated by one or more words.

The ‘*’ operator might also be used to ask a question and let Google find the answer for you.

Example: “TNMG means *”

18. I’m Feeling Lucky:
The last but not the least! Have you noticed the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button just right of the “Google Search” button and wondered what’s that? This is just to save your time – it takes you directly to first web page returned for your query.

So, that’s it! Hope these tips will be useful. The list is definitely not comprehensive. But with these you can definitely give tough competition to even the best Googlers out there. In case, you know about some more useful tips on Googling please share in comments so that others can also benefit. We would love to hear back from you.

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Do you use Google search? Of course, you do! Ok, so how much do you pay for it? Zilch, you say? I agree. Did you ever notice how many products and services you are using in your daily life which come at no or almost no cost? Did you ever wonder how this is possible? Of course, the concept of cross-subsidy and bundling free products with other items has been there for a long time. But they all have some hidden costs associated with them. Contrary to that in this new economy there are so many products and services that actually come for free at least so for the consumers – no strings attached. In this article we are going to explore this economy of ‘free’ or ‘Freeconomics’ if we can call it so.

Moving Beyond Economics:

Traditional economics considers only buyers and sellers interacting in an exchange relationship in the marketplace and hence ‘free’ seems to be an unviable concept. But in real markets more than two parties interact while only some of them exchange cash. The most common example of this is media business – where publishers provide the products for free (or almost free!) to the consumers and advertisers pay to ride along. For example – your newspaper company is not charging you for the creation of all those useful and useless content, printing and distribution of newspapers; in fact they are not in the business of selling newspapers – they are selling readers to advertisers. Web is helping industries of all sorts to adopt a similar business model. And advertising is not the only source of income – there are other methods like ‘value-added’ subscription, upgrade to premium version, direct e-commerce, selling information and many more.

How does it make sense?

Google which has converted free search into billion dollar business can be considered as a big success of marketing ‘free’. Recently, this concept of ‘free’ has been popularized by two of the most popular Marketing Gurus of the world – Chris Anderson and Seth Godin. Now, let’s see why marketers do this? Future business is one of key reasons why marketers give away things for free. Consumer psychology theory says: consumers feel guilty when they get something for free. They try to reciprocate or buy the guilt by purchasing something or spreading good word-of-mouth. Sometimes consumers help the companies even without being fully aware. The loyalty cards being used by consumers are meant for capturing consumer data to better target marketing offering and thus making more profit. In the online world the huge customer data obtained through Orkut or Facebook is worth the investment. Recent research shows that a zero priced item are over-valued compared to its dirt-cheap counterpart. Open source developers usually learn this the hard way: distribution plummets as soon as they start charging even a penny for their software. Simply put given the choice between a free, low-end product and a dirt cheap, similar one, we’ll pick the free one. But that does not help marketers. Here comes the concept of Freemium. The key of Freemium is to have the consumer rationalize that the free version won’t satisfy his needs completely; and then proceed with the sale of the premium version. A typical online site follows the 1 percent rule – where 1 percent of the users pay for the premium products or services and support all the rest.

Taxonomy of ‘Freeconomics’:

The Road Ahead:

The gift-economy is actually replacing the monetary-economy in many spheres. The huge amount of user generated contents on web, TV and radio shows that money is not the only motivator. Sometimes self-expression can be a bigger motivation. And who else can be a better example of this than the Wikipedia team! With improvements in technology the marginal costs of manufacturing and distribution is going down rapidly and more so in case of digital economy powered by ever deflating costs of storage, processing power, and bandwidth. So, giving products or services for free (or almost free!) is not as stupid as traditional wisdom suggests. In fact, it will increasingly become a profitable idea in the new economy if the strategy and implementation is executed rightly. So, in this increasingly ‘free’ market – what is there for you? For the generation-X marketers – buyers are no longer your only source of revenue – think beyond the box and the broader you can think the better. More importantly bid adieu to cost-based-pricing and welcome value-based-pricing and while doing that keep consumer psychology as a key determinant. And here consumers are the not necessarily the traditional end consumers using your product but can very well be the advertisers who pays you for putting their ads on site. Pricing should depend on what consumers ‘think’ as the value of the product and not how much you have spent to produce and market the product. Provide value and reap rich returns. Don’t overcharge but at the same time never keep money on the table. For the consumers – ‘free’ is not that bad or irrational at all. So, enjoy the ‘free lunch’!

References:

Marketing Science, The Wall Street Journal, Knowledge@Wharton

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