In this article I want to direct your focus to the Google’s Advanced Search page, which contains many useful search features not available via the left-hand sidebar. This page can make your search a lot easier and more efficient, especially if you can’t be bothered with remembering complicated search operators.

1. Search Images By Region

Image search by region is a new advanced search option. It becomes available when you switch to Images and then open the old Advanced Search window via the link underneath the search button (magnifying glass).

Here you can filter the results by region.

In the examples below I searched for large images with the keyword ‘fashion’ in the regions Cameroon (upper results page) and Canada (lower results page).

The screenshots above reveal several more cool image search features available through the sidebar, for example searching by colors, subject, or (not shown) type. If you would also like to search images from a specific source or with specific usage rights, open the old Advanced Search page and find even more options.

For more tips and tricks regarding Google’s image search, have a look at these articles:

• 10 Tips to Have Fun Using Advanced Google Search for Images
• How To Find Similar Images Using Google’s Image Search

2. Search Videos With Subtitles

The sidebar for Videos search offers many interesting options, for example searching by duration, time uploaded, or source. When you switch to the Advanced Search page, however, you will find several more valuable features, for example searching videos by language or searching only closed captioned videos, i.e. videos with subtitles.

Most results are from YouTube, so this search option ultimately highlights a feature offered by YouTube. When you open the video, you will see that it doesn’t contain any traditional subtitles at all. YouTube does, however, provide something called ‘Interactive Transcript‘. Interactive transcripts essentially work like subtitles, only that they are displayed in a separate window below the video and hence are not visible in full screen view.

Care for more YouTube-related search tricks? Maybe you’re interested in learning How to Search YouTube Like a PRO with Google Advanced Operators.

3. Search With Google SafeSearch Enabled

If you want to avoid adult content on Google, you can turn on the SafeSearch filter. This can be done manually for each and every search or you can make it your default.

To do it manually, switch to Advanced Search, expand the > Date, usage rights, region, and more link and set SafeSearch to > On.

If you are searching for Images, SafeSearch is displayed as the very last option and you can choose from no, moderate, or strict filtering. Other search sub-categories do not offer an individual SafeSearch.

You can also set a cookie to make SafeSearch your default. Google’s Global Preferences page has a Safe Search Filtering section, which offers three settings: no, moderate, or strict filtering.

Most people use Google Search like they use their brains: they don’t use it to its full potential. These articles can help you to change some of both:

• Master the Google Operands – Search Like a God & Save Time
• 3 Google Tricks When You Don’t Know What to Search For
• 5 Ways To Do A Site-Specific Search Using Search Engines
• 6 Ways To Search ‘By Date’ On Google
• 3 Advanced Tips To Get The Most Out Of Google Insights

What is your favorite Google advanced search trick and how often do you use the search sidebar?

Wireless availability is indicated by a small icon on each entry, with no need for additional clicks or searches. These indicators don’t necessarily mean that connecting is free however, as that is determined by the flight operators.

In a blog post announcing the feature, the Hipmunk team said:

At Hipmunk, we’re travel nerds, but we’re also nerd nerds. That means we like the Internet, especially on our flights. We’ve heard that many of you like wi-fi on your planes, too—either when you’re traveling for work or when you just need some quality Facebook time. So we decided to build Wi-Fi right into our flight search results.

Hipmunk are also currently teaming up with in-flight wireless provider Gogo to dish out around 100 free in-flight wireless codes via their Twitter and Facebook pages.

The blog entry stated:

We’ll be asking our fans and followers how they surf the web 35,000 feet in the air. Tell us at any point this week and be entered for your chance to win free wireless, courtesy of Hipmunk and Gogo.

Source: Hipmunk Blog

We also have reviewed a number of tools that run multiple searches at a time: Search Opener is a good example.

Today’s little collection includes best multi-feature web-based tools to search at least two search engines and see results side by side (either to compare  them or just to be able to see more search results at a time):

Search in Two Languages Side-by-Side

2Lingual is a web-based tool that works surprisingly fast and lets you search in two languages with one click.

The app uses Google translate to automatically recognize and translate your query into the second language (this feature can be turned off).

Where the fun is:..

Since this app was reviewed by MUO 2 years ago, there have been 2 important improvements:

• The tool now supports 45 languages;
• The tool now offers smooth “Instant” experience (it starts searching before you enter the full query. I wish it had Google Suggest support as well).

There is also Twitter Bilingual (also reviewed by MUO previously) search that works pretty much the same but sourcing results from Twitter real time results. It currently supports 21 languages.

Search Two Search Engines Side-by-Side

There are quite a few tools that let you compare two sets of results side by side. Not all of them offer a quick way to switch between the available search engines though.

The one app that does this job comparatively well is Googawho: just type your query, get the initial columns of results and click through search engines in the header to switch between the engines.

Supported search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, InfoSpace, AltaVista, Lycos, Dogpile.

Where the fun is:..

• Open results in new tabs / windows by holding SHIFT while clicking the link;
• Click “Tabulizer!” button to open all supported search engine results in new tabs;
• Install Googawho search plugin to easily search from your browser.

Search Two Verticals Side-by-Side

Like the above tool, SearchBoth gives access to several search engines but there’s no easy way to switch between them. What the tool offers though is a handy option to click through vertical search sections, like:

• Images;
• Videos;
• Shopping results;
• News Search
• Blog search.

Note: Googawho does have links for “News”, “Images” and “Videos” as well but they didn’t always work for me.

The ability to search images in two engines simultaneously can really come in handy!

Where the fun is:..

• Hover over any part to enlarge it (or click the “lock” icon to fix the width);
• Navigate through various local tool versions to combine and compare search engines from your country.

Don’t forget to check out related search-productivity tools and tips:

• Easily switch between multiple search engines with FireFox addon Boounce (as well as these addons that let you jump from Google search results to other search engines);
• How To Load Google Search Results In A Preview Panel (On The Same Page): view search results without ever leaving the results page.

Have you ever played with any of the tools above? Do you have your own favorites? Please share your thoughts!

Image Credit: seosmarty

I must say, default YouTube search results page has terrible usability: you can’t preview videos, you have zero understanding if each video might be what you need and you have to scroll down again and again to scan through results.  So I’ve been searching for some browser addons to improve results and I am pretty much excited with what I was able to find. Here are my 3 best finds (tested on FireFox 4).

1. YouPop

YouPop is a Firefox addon that lets you preview or watch YouTube videos on mouse-over on any website (as well as on YouTube itself) in a popup. The popup can be dragged across the screen and resized.

The fun features of the addon include:

• “Stick” the popup (to make it permanent on a page no matter where your cursor goes): press the space bar (to close the stuck video preview, click the X icon in its top-right corner)
• Turn off the lights and move the popup to the center of the page: Press ‘L’ (or hit a little bulb icon in the top-right corner of the video preview pop-up)

2. GridTube

GridTube displays search result video thumbs in grid format arranged in a 2D array (which means much less scrolling through results). This, in combination with the above addon, lets you go through search results much quicker.

The extension adds three icons on the top right of the screen which help to select the appropriate display mode:

• Grid mode with 5 videos per row,
• Grid mode with 4 videos per row,
• Plain list mode.

If you have the YouPop addon installed, you are unlikely to need to click through to the actual video pages (unless you want to comment or rate it). If you do, the videos will open in a new tab by default (you can customize that behavior via the addon options).

3. YouTube User Likes/Dislikes In Search Results

Would you like to never start watching offensive or low-quality videos on YouTube? You may try using user likes and dislikes ratio information to get an idea of how dangerous the content is. Weirdly, YouTube won’t allow users to access this information from search results (it becomes visible only after you click through to the video page and start watching).

This userscript (tested on FireFox 4) lets you see user ratings right within search results. What’s more, it is compatible with the above two addons, so you can view user ratings in grid! With the userscript installed, just hover over any video in the search results and then mouse over a tiny “Rating” icon.

Any other tips to tweak default YouTube results? Please let us know!

Image Credit: seosmarty

So what if you want to look at or locate some of that photographic treasure? There are some great Flickr search engines out there. Ann pointed out 16 of them a few years back, and now I’m here to show you the best of the best. If you’re looking for a high quality photo for a project, article, website, or you’re just bored, these websites can help you find what you want.

1. Compfight

Compfight is a personal favorite among MUO writers. It’s a simple website both in form and function, and it works very well. With Compfight, type in your search query and you can select whether you want to search for that word in the tags of photos or their text descriptions.

You can also opt to look through Creative Commons images, which is important if you’re looking to use a photo for a project. Thumbnails of images will populate after you search and all you have to do is click on one to open up its corresponding Flickr page.

2. Tag Galaxy

Tag Galaxy probably could’ve been the worst Flickr search engine in existence and I still would’ve included it on this list simply because of how cool it is. Just type in your tag on the homepage and click Go to be taken to a search page showing what appear to be planets.

Clicking on the different planets will allow you to drill down your search to a specific tag. For example, I originally searched for the word ‘technology’ and planets named ‘computer’, ‘phone’, ‘laptop’, and ‘ipod’ showed up. Click the tag that most describes what you’re looking for and you will be taken to a 3D spherical image displaying all of the photos associated with that tag.

You can spin the sphere by dragging it and click on individual photos to see them zoomed in. Very cool.

3. Flickriver

Flickriver is another simple Flickr search engine. You can search photos, groups, users, tags, and even places, and photos are displayed vertically on the page according to relevance, most recent, or most interesting. You can also set the size at which photos are displayed on the page.

4. PictureSandbox

PictureSandbox isn’t one of the prettier sites on this list, but it is still very effective. Just type in your search on the homepage and click the Submit button to view photos on not only Flickr, but Stockxpert, Fotolia, Dreamstime, SmugMug, and Webshots as well. If you can’t find the photo you’re looking for on this site, chances are it doesn’t exist.

5. FlickrStorm

FlickrStorm is a very minimalistic photo search site. Like the others on this list, you simply type your search query into the box on the homepage to begin your search. There’s an “advanced” link that you can click if you would like to search for Creative Commons photos that you can use commercially.

With FlickrStorm, you can also view your history of the photos you’ve clicked on, as well as a tray that you can add photos to and download them from.

Honorable Mention: Flickr Flipper

I decided to give an honorable mention to Adobe’s Flickr Flipper application. It’s an application that runs on Adobe Air and it’s pretty lightweight. If you’re looking to flip through random Flickr photos because you’re either bored or not sure exactly what you’re looking for, you should give Flickr Flipper a try.

If you’re looking for more photos, you should also check out Saikat’s article on 5 Good Image Search Engines Apart From Google Image Search.

What’s your favorite way to view Flickr photos?

There is no shortage of things to discover on Google Maps. However, sometimes you just want to access a map or find a location quick and easy. This article provides you with tips and tricks on how to search Google Maps faster and smarter.

1. Use Keyboard Shortcuts To Navigate Maps

To browse the map and gain an overview or find a location, keyboard shortcuts are easier to use than pointing, clicking, and dragging with the mouse. Fortunately, the respective keys are easy to remember.

• pan left, right, up, or down = arrow keys
• pan faster = End, Home, Page Up, or Page Down keys
• zoom in or out = + or – keys

Before you can use the keyboard shortcuts, however, you have to use your mouse and click the map to select it.

2. Change The Default Location

Are you going on a vacation or do you frequently look up places like restaurants or other businesses in your local city? You should consider setting a custom default location. Apart from letting you access your personal points of interest quicker, it’s also a nice change of view if you don’t happen to operate in North America.

Go to Google Maps and on the left-hand side click > Set default location. Enter the address, city, and/or country, eventually pick one of the suggested results, then click > Return to set the default location.

If a default location was set in the past, you can click > Change default location.

3. Refine Your Search

This is a very small and seemingly insignificant feature, but it can have a huge impact on the amount of results you have to weed through.

Next to the ‘Search Maps‘ button is a ‘Show search options‘ text link. Click it to add a pull-down menu with categories, including Locations, Businesses, User-created maps, and Real estate. Next time your search produces too many results, filter search results for the matching category.

4. Use The Bookmaplet Bookmarklet

There is only so much you can do with Google Maps itself and you always have to go there first. To really speed up your map searches, I recommend Bookmaplet. It enables you to view a location in Google Maps by highlighting a city name or address on a website and clicking the bookmarklet in your browser toolbar. You don’t have to leave the page, but you can open Google Maps in a new tab if you want to.

To set up the bookmarklet, go to to the Bookmaplet website and click & drag the ‘Map that address‘ bookmarklet to your browser toolbar. To use it highlight a location of your choice in any online text, it can be an address, city, or country, and click the ‘Map that address‘ bookmarklet in your toolbar.

Per default, the ‘Open in Google Maps‘ link will open in the same tab, unless you have changed your browser preferences. In Firefox and Google, a mouse middle click will open the link in a new tab.

If you’re not fond of bookmarklets, but use Google Chrome, try the Select To Get Maps or the MiniGoogleMaps extension.

5. Enable Google Maps Labs Features

As Tim has pointed out in a previous article, Google tests “new beta-type features in what they call ‘Google Labs’.” There are currently two features that let you zoom into a location faster and smarter. One is ‘Show Me Here!‘, which lets you zoom to the maximum zoom level of a location instantly via the context menu; the other is ‘Drag ‘n’ Zoom‘, it allows you to mark a region you want to zoom into.

To access the Google Maps Labs features, click the ‘New‘ link in the top right toolbar on the Google Maps page. A window showing all experimental features will come up. Enable the ones you find interesting or useful, close the window, and click the button to > Save changes.

Hooked on maps? There is a lot more to discover. Google Maps tips for life contains tons of useful information on how you can use Google Maps. Below is a selection of related articles on MakeUseOf:

• How Does Google Maps Work? [Technology Explained]
• How To Add Your Business To Google Maps
• The Five Best Things About Google Maps
• 3 Awesome Historical Google Maps Mashups
• How To Create Shared Collaborative Google Maps

How do you use Google Maps and what is the most valuable feature to you?

Image credits: ildogesto

But what if you don’t exactly know how to describe the concept or the topic you are interested in? What if you just want “something of the kind”?

In this case, you need to try discovery search engines: these tools rank the Web by similarity (not by popularity). They allow you to discover more pages based on the one you found most relevant.

Here are the three useful and advanced discovery search engine tools.

Google’s Related: Operator

I have mentioned this neat search operator when listing google tricks when you don’t know what to search for. I also reviewed the visualization tool based on this operator called TouchGraph which can be used as discovery tool as well.

The index:

Obviously, the operator uses Google’s own database (which is huge). However, for most searches you run, you are most likely to see no more than 30-50 results (which looks as if Google generates only the fraction of possible results).

The algorithm:

The basic algorithm behind the search operator is co-citation, which, in simple words, works like this: if a web page A links to both page B and page C, the latter pages (B and C) are likely to be related. Of course, not everything is that easy and straightforward (it never is with Google) but the basic algorithm is like that.

Google Search Results Support?

Yes, you can access the list of related sites right from Google search results page by clicking the “Similar” link:

Drawbacks:

It is hard to find faults with the mighty Google. The only drawback that comes to mind is that it is still Google and if you really need to test alternative user experience and get alternative results (ranked not by Google), you should try out other tools as well.

Similar Pages

Similar Pages is a standalone tool that uses its own technology and claims to let users dig into the “hidden” parts of the web – those that you wouldn’t be able to find using Google only: whereas “ordinary” search engines rank results by popularity (preventing us thus from seeing less popular pages), SimilarPages rank pages by similarity.

The index:

The tool uses their own database which is claimed to contain more than 3.2 billion pages. The FireFox addon is said to access 200 million sites.

The algorithm:

The tool uses “PageAffinity” that takes into account both the content of pages as well as the linking structure of the web to determine the level of similarity between web pages.

Google Search Results Support?

Yes, with their addon installed, you are able to view similar pages right within search results:

Drawbacks?

The tool has worked surprisingly well and suggested really good matches but it seems to be somewhat biased to home pages.

Similar Sites

SimilarSites (and its FireFox addon Similar Web) works similarly to the above one. We have written a review of SimilarSites previously.

The index:

The developers seem to be very secretive as to which technology they use and how many sites they crawl. All that I have been able to find out using the external sources is that they have mapped “millions” of sites, and “adding tens of thousands daily”.

The algorithm:

Like the above two tools, this seems to be using page content and linking structure but the unique part is that they also analyze users’ input (votes) as well as user browsing trends.

Google Search Support?

Yes, with their FireFox addon you access similar sites right from the Google search results (works only for site home pages that you come across when searching Google):

Drawbacks?

As the name suggests (and as we have seen from the above screenshot), the tool works only on the domain level. So no matter what the current page is about, the tool will only find similar sites to the current site (home pages). In other words, if you were testing it on this page (which is about search discovery), the tool would list sites about generic web tools and desktop tools and hacks (which is MUO is generally about)

Besides that, the tool inserts “sponsored” results throughout their search results (which are marked as sponsored but may still seem disturbing).

Any other great discovery search engines you are aware of? Please share them in the comments!

Image credit: VJ_fliks

One of the most buzzed about start-ups is Qwiki. This is a web application that will change the way most of us search and consume information. Qwiki has just opened its doors to the general public after refining its system during closed beta. Let’s have a peek inside this video information tool and see what all the buzz is about.

It Knows Millions Of Things

The way Qwiki works is simple. Maybe it’s too simple for some who have great expectations from a company which has just raised $8 million in funding. But sometimes great things come from simplicity.

In a sense, Qwiki is both a search engine and a curator for Wikipedia entries – and more. It will help you search for specific information, and it will collect the results in a visual list and create a video on the go summarizing those results – with computer generated female voice narration. Users can sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Literally.

To start using Qwiki, put your search query into the “Enter A Topic” field.

You can also take another route: by browsing through the featured topics. They are grouped by several categories such as Daily Topic, Monuments, Natural Wonders, Animals, and Historical Figures.

If you’d like to expand your knowledge one article at a time, you can sign up to receive “Qwiki of the Day” emails.

That’s a brief overview of Qwiki. Now let’s get down to business.

The Multimedia Approach To Information

Entering a search query on Qwiki will give you an instant list of results. Pick one to view the collected information about that topic.

For example, I wanted to know more about Easter Island. I typed in the search query and clicked on the result. Qwiki immediately generated a video showing a general overview about Easter Island.

While the video shows you both related images and videos, an accompanying text will be shown below the video and a computer generated female voice will read the narration for you. It’s a truly “multimedia” experience which will appeal to both visual and auditory learners.

The volume control is available next to the video bar along with the replay button (Q plus), the hide/show text button (A), and the full screen button.

After the video ends, the screen will show you groups of information related to the topic that you’ve just searched for. Under the social pane, you’ll find links to more information on Wikipedia, Google, Fotopedia and YouTube.

To see the information from the summary video in a more traditional way, click the “Contents” tab.

Next to the “Contents” tab is the “Improve this Wiki” tab. You can help to improve Qwiki by contributing links to relevant pictures, suggesting YouTube videos, and pointing out mispronounced words on the video.

As with everything else on the web today, Qwiki is also social. You can easily share your searches on your social network via Facebook, Twitter, and/or email.

The social buttons are available at the top of the page under the search box and in the sidebar of the search result.

Qwiki also provides its users with a shortened link of their searches and the embed code so that users can easily attach the searches on their website.

To Sign Up Or Not To Sign Up, That’s The Question

At the top right corner of Qwiki, you can (barely) see a small “Sign Up | Login” link. Since Qwiki is already fully functional without the need to sign up, I assumed there would be some special privileges given to those who sign up for an account.

So I went through the signing up routine and created myself an account. It turns out that the difference between registered users and non-registered ones is a small message displaying how many Qwikis registered users have watched. I tried to click on the number with the hope of seeing a history of all the Qwikis that I’ve watched. But nothing happened.

I think it would be very cool if registered users had the ability to save their searches and to export them as videos to YouTube and to the hard drive for offline use.

Anyway, I found my Qwiki experience to be useful, fun, and entertaining. I would definitely put Qwiki on the list of places that I must visit to find quick references about things that I want to know.

Have you tried Qwiki? What do you think about it? Share your experiences and thoughts using the comments below.

But with the resource being enormous comes one issue: it is almost impossible to search it efficiently. And there are no official guides on how to search YouTube to actually find something.

However, not many people know how flexible YouTube’s search function actually is.

About 2 years ago (maybe more) Google started operating YouTube search — if you haven’t noticed Google Video Search and YouTube search have even identical (advanced) search options. And with Google coming into play, there turns out to be some really tricky and smart ways to search YouTube using Google search operators.

The Issue

YouTube (like Google Video Search) has some handy sorting options that allow you to find videos by:

• Relevancy (based on your search query);
• Upload date (to find most recent videos);
• View count (to find the most viewed videos);
• Rating (to find the highest rated videos).

I love using the latter two options to look through the most popular YouTube videos on any topic.

The only issue is that when you sort by anything other than relevancy, the results are likely to be highly irrelevant.

Let’s compare:

Sorting makes results absolutely off-topic. Luckily, we do have an option to sort YouTube search results while still getting relevant results: YouTube advanced search operators.

YouTube Advanced Search Operators

I don’t think the search operators I am listing here are anywhere to be found in YouTube’s documentation. All that is listed on the official “Advanced YouTube search” page is the set of the usual search options you see below the search field:

You can filter results by:

• Type of results, such as Videos, Channels, or Playlists
• Subject category
• Video length
• Video quality
• Features, such as Closed captions, Partner videos, or Rentals

However, as we have seen above, filtering and sorting seldom triggers relevant results.

To bypass this issue, you need to use advanced operators which were inherited from Google search and are really very helpful:

1. Use quotes to force the exact match

This operator may come particularly in handy when you are sure which exact key phrases you want to be included into the search results, for example, the name of a movie or a music clip.

2. Use plus (+) sign to force a word in the results

If one of your words gets dropped out from search results, this operator may save a lot of your time. Similarly, you can use the minus (-) sign to force YouTube search to exclude any irrelevant but persistent words from the search results.

3. Force any word to appear in the video title with help of INTITLE: operator

This trick turns out to be very useful if you, for example, keep getting irrelevant results (video pages that only mention your search term in comments or loosely in description).

Any more YouTube search tricks to force relevant results even when using sorting options?