Hacking

Some Tips & Tricks

Google Tricks
Search for Similar Words

Not sure you’re thinking of the right word for a query? Do you figure that some Web pages might use alternate words to describe what you’re thinking of? Then use synonyms in your searches! Google uses the tilde (~) operator to search for synonyms of a specific word. Just enter the tilde before the keyword, like this: ~keyword. For example, to search for words that are like the word “elderly,” enter the query ~elderly. This will find pages that include not just the word “elderly,” but also the words “senior,” “older,” and so on.

Include Stop Words in Your Search
In an effort to produce more efficient searches, Google automatically disregards certain common words, called stop words, that you might include in your search queries. Including a stop word in a search normally does nothing but slow the search down, which is why Google excises them. Examples of the types of words that Google ignores are “where,” “how,” and “what,” as well as certain single letters (“a”) and digits. For example, if you enter the query how electricity works,
Google ignores the “how” and searches only for “electricity” and “works.” If you want to include specific stop words in your search, you have to instruct Google to do so. You do this by adding a plus sign (+) to your query, immediately followed (with no space) by the stop word you want to include. (Make sure you put a space before the plus sign but not afterwards!) Using our example, to include the stop word “how” in your search, you’d enter the following query: +how electricity works.

Resurrect Dead Pages
What do you do if you click to a Web page in the search results list, but that page no longer exists? (It happens; thousands of older Web pages go dead every day.) You may still be in luck, because Google saves a copy of each page that it indexes as it existed at the time it was indexed. So even if a page is dead and gone, you may still be able to view the cached (saved) version of that page on Google’s server. To display a specific cached page, use the cache: operator, like this: cache:URL. For example, to display the cached version of my Molehill Group home page,
enter cache:www.molehillgroup.com.

Yahoo Tricks
Yahoo! Site/Service URL
Yahoo! home page www.yahoo.com
Yahooligans! www.yahooligans.com
My Yahoo! my.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Address Book address.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Astrology astrology.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Auctions auctions.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Autos autos.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Banking Center banking.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Bookmarks bookmarks.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Briefcase briefcase.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Buzz Index buzz.yahoo.com
Yahoo! by Phone phone.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Calendar calendar.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Chat chat.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Classifieds classifieds.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Companion (toolbar) companion.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Education education.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Entertainment entertainment.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Fantasy Sports fantasysports.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Finance finance.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Games games.yahoo.com
Yahoo! GeoCities geocities.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Get Local local.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Greetings greetings.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Groups groups.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Health health.yahoo.com
Yahoo! HotJobs hotjobs.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Insurance Center insurance.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Launch (music) launch.yahoo.com

Yahoo! Site/Service URL
Yahoo! Loan Center loan.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Lottery Results lottery.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Mail mail.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Mail Plus mailplus.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Maps maps.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Message Boards messages.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Messenger messenger.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Mobile mobile.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Movies movies.yahoo.com
Yahoo! News news.yahoo.com
Yahoo! PayDirect paydirect.yahoo.com
Yahoo! People Search people.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Personals personals.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Pets pets.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Photos photos.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Picture Gallery gallery.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Products Search products.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Real Estate realestate.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Shopping shopping.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Small Business smallbusiness.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Sports sports.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Store store.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Tax Center taxes.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Travel travel.yahoo.com
Yahoo! TV tv.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Wallet wallet.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Weather weather.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Web Hosting webhosting.yahoo.com

Newspaper Web Sites
Newspaper URL
Boston Globe www.boston.com/news/globe/
Chicago Tribune www.chicagotribune.com
Denver Post www.denverpost.com
Detroit Free Press www.freep.com
Los Angeles Times www.latimes.com
Miami Herald www.herald.com
Minneapolis Star Tribune www.startribune.com
New York Times www.nytimes.com
San Francisco Chronicle www.sfgate.com
USATODAY www.usatoday.com
Wall Street Journal www.wsj.com
Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com

Magazine Web Sites
Magazine URL
Business Week www.businessweek.com
Entertainment Weekly www.ew.com
Harper’s www.harpers.org
National Review www.nationalreview.com
Newsweek www.newsweek.com
The New Republic People Time
www.tnr.com
www.people.com
www.time.com
TV Guide
U.S. News and World Report
www.tvguide.com
www.usnews.com