Using Google Search — Be a Web Wizard

Learn how to filter your search results, exclude explicit content and find the images that match your needs

While Google search is quite intuitive, it is also packed full of features that most of us don't use.

Filter your results

Results can be filtered in many ways, here are some of the more powerful ones:

Use the tabs - Google has a range of tabs you can use to filter your results to the following types of content; images, news, videos, maps, books or apps.

Quotation marks - When you are searching for a specific phrase or words put them inside quotation marks and only pages which include those words in that order will be displayed.

Hyphen to exclude - If you want to exclude certain words from your search you can use a hyphen to prevent Google showing you those pages which include the word. For example if i wanted to know about parks but not dog parks could search 'parks -dogs' and no dog parks will be included.

There are many other ways to filter your searches check them out here.

Exclude explicit material

Google has made excluding explicit material very easy - it only requires that you turn on safe search. The way you can do this will depend on whether you are using a computer, tablet or phone.

To turn on safe search on your computer:

• In your search results click the Gear icon (far right of the Google Search results screen)

• Click "Turn on SafeSearch"

Google will now exclude content that it deems to be explicit.

Note: there are different ways to turn on SafeSearch depending on whether you are using a tablet, mobile phone, computer, TV. For more info on SafeSearch click here.

Find the right image with search tools

Google provides you with some powerful search tools to ensure you can find the web pages that will meet your needs. These search tools are especially useful when trying to find images. Search tools can be used to filter images by: size, color, type, time and usage rights. This means it's possible to find a recently posted photo of a beach, larger than 300 x 400 pixels with some red in it, then it's possible with a couple of clicks of your mouse.

To access the image search tools:

• Click the image search tab (below the search bar in your search results)

• Click the Search Tools button (below the search bar on the right hand side)

A new set of tabs with extra filters (such as size, colour, image type) will be displayed.

Other Great Features

Unit Converter - just type what you are looking for in a sentence with the units you have and want, such as 12oz in kg, or 11inches in cm

Calculator - for quick maths problems, just type them into Google Search, such as 173/23+2.5

Definitions - want to know the meaning of a word? If you, for example, type Define: Perception you will get a dictionary definition of the word perception. If you click the speaker icon beside it you can also hear how the word is pronounced.

Timer - type set a timer for 5 minutes in Google Search and a timer will count down the time frame you specified.

Translate - type What time is it in French and it will translate the sentence for you. click the speaker icon and it will speak the sentence back to you.

Flight details - if you type your flight details (such as NZ5057) into Google Search it will tell you whether your flight is on time, the gate number, departure/arrival time and other useful info.