My personal favorite: In Google, add "site:URL" (without the quotes, replacing "URL" with an actual URL) to the end of whatever search string you choose to limit the search to a specific URL.

Example: "searching 101 site:salon.com"

Note that this doesn't seem to work (yet?) in Cuil.

I haven't checked again lately, but although I routinely used to put quotes around things in Altavista, with success, my recollection is that doing so in Google had no effect.

The best tip for a quick return on your search is to think of the most unusual word in whatever it is you are trying to find. Better yet, the most unlikely combination of unusual words. Example: I recalled hearing a radio report from a couple of years ago about the curious origin of the Bond movie theme song in a musical based on a book by V.S. Naipaul. Easy search. Type in

Naipaul 007

How often will they come up together? Well, more often than you would think -- 10,000 hits on Google; 21,000 on cuil -- but the December 2005 NPR story is right up there at the top.

Are we really supposed to care about using quotes in searches? This discussion is really too basic for a high-traffic technology blog.

Unless there's some better content, you're gonna' start losing readers.

Sorry.

Hey, folks. Thanks for the helpful tips - a few are new to me, and to mann, your comment is noted. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

If you want to do these things but can't (or don't want to) remember all these nifty shortcuts on Google, use the Advanced Search page at http://www.google.com/advanced_search (or go to the Advanced Search link on the Google home page).

It lets you do all these functions and more, as well as gives you tips on how to do this from the search box.

(command line interface). You might be amazed how much of that CLI isn't publically known or well documented.

The neat thing about "site:URL" in Google is you don't need to type a full URL; suffixes work on their own. So if you're looking for something on hunting permits and don't remember which part of the government deals with it, you could type [hunting permit site:.gov] (or here in the Great White North, [site:.gc.ca]).

Given the immensity that is the web, you should be as specific as you can in your searches. Don't type [cars] when you're looking for information about a Ford Explorer. Don't just type ["Ford Explorer"] when you're looking for help in replacing your air filter; you'll be sifting through hundreds of promo and sales sites to get to what you need. Basically, don't be lazy; sometimes a 10-word search string is what you need to do the job. E.g., ["1999 Ford Explorer" how replace cabin air filter]

-A librarian

Farhad, stay gone, bitch.

Joe's cool. The first Mac user/devotee I can recall reading who doesn't sound like a Jobs' fanBoy Wonder.

This discussion is really too basic for a high-traffic technology blog.

Funny, this is more technical that Farhad used to get. And Farhad wouldn't really have understood what he was talking about either.

Keep the new guy; good riddance to Farhad.

I've read Machinist way more in the past two weeks than in the past two months. And I'm not newbie; I'm a fairly power user who's built systems since 1985 or so.