Improve Your Search Experience
In addition to providing easy access to billions of web pages, Google has many special features to help you to find exactly what you’re looking for. Some of our most popular features are listed below.
Everyday Essentials
To see the weather for many U.S. and worldwide cities, type “weather” followed by the city and state, U.S. zip code, or city and country.
To see current market data for a given company or fund, type the ticker symbol into the search box. On the results page, you can click the link to see more data from Google Finance.
To see the time in many cities around the world, type in “time” and the name of the city.
Reference Tools
To use Google’s built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation you’d like done into the search box.
If you’re looking for results from Google Book Search, you can enter the name of the author or book title into the search box and we’ll return any book content we have as part of your normal web results. You can click through on the record to view more detailed info about that author or title.
You can use Google to convert between many different units of measurement of height, weight, and mass among others. Just enter your desired conversion into the search box and we’ll do the rest.
Choosing Keywords
If you want to search not only for your search term but also for its synonyms, place the tilde sign (~) immediately in front of your search term.
To see a definition for a word or phrase, simply type the word “define” then a space, then the word(s) you want defined. To see a list of different definitions from various online sources, you can type “define:” followed by a word or phrase. Note that the results will define the entire phrase.
Google’s spell checking software automatically checks whether your query uses the most common spelling of a given word. If it thinks you’re likely to generate better results with an alternative spelling, it will ask “Did you mean: (more common spelling)?”. Click the suggested spelling to launch a Google search for that term.
Local Search
Local Search
If you’re looking for a store, restaurant, or other local business you can search for the category of business and the location and we’ll return results right on the page, along with a map, reviews, and contact information.
To find reviews and showtimes for movies playing near you, type “movies” or the name of a current film into the Google search box. If you’ve already saved your location on a previous search, the top search result will display showtimes for nearby theaters for the movie you’ve chosen.
To see home listings in a given area type “housing”, “home”, or “real estate” and the name of a city or a U.S. zip code into the Google search box and hit the Enter key or click the Google Search button. Clicking the “Go” button on the results page will display details of individual homes that Google has indexed.
Trip Planning
To see flight status for arriving and departing U.S. flights, type in the name of the airline and the flight number into the search box. You can also see delays at a specific airport by typing in the name of the city or three-letter airport code followed by the word “airport”.
To use our built-in currency converter, simply enter the conversion you’d like done into the Google search box and we’ll provide your answer directly on the results page.
Looking for a map? Type in the name or U.S. zip code of a location and the word “map” and we’ll return a map of that location. Clicking on the map will take you to a larger version on Google Maps.
Query Refinements
Google ignores common words and characters such as where, the, how, and other digits and letters that slow down your search without improving the results. If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can make sure we pay attention to it by putting a “+” sign in front of it.
To search for web pages that have similar content to a given site, type “related:” followed by the website address into the Google search box.
Sometimes the best way to ask a question is to get Google to ‘fill in the blank’ by adding an asterisk (*) at the part of the sentence or question that you want finished into the Google search box.
Search by Number
You can track packages by typing the tracking number for your UPS, Fedex or USPS package directly into the search box. We’ll return results that include quick links to easily track the status of your shipment.
To search for U.S. patents, enter the word “patent” followed by the patent number into the Google search box and hit the Enter key or click the Google Search button. Example:
To see the geographical location for any U.S. telephone area code, just type the three-digit area code into the Google search box and hit the Enter key or click the Google Search button.
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