Kooky Google Trick #1

Posted by Jim Stroud

October 1, 2005

In case you did not know, this is a tilde (~). When you use a tilde in your Google search, it searches for the keyword you use as well as the synonym of the keyword you are looking for. This is a good thing as it will save you time, so long as you understand what Google considers to be synonymous with your keyword. Let’s do a quick example.

Let’s search for the term CV:

I get back 60,900,000 search results describing what a CV is, how you can write one and perhaps hire someone to write it for you. Now let’s use a Tilde.

I get 17,900,000 search results, but I notice a curious thing. In the search results certain words are bolded: resume (see the arrow?) for example. Other highlighted words include: CV, curriculum and curriculum vitae. As far as Google is concerned, searching for ~CV is the same as searching for resume, CV, curriculum and curriculum vitae at the same time. Interesting? If not, it will be in a moment.

Check out the Google synonyms for job.

~job = job, jobs, salary, career, employment, recruitment and vacancy.

Now let’s combine these two terms in a search string for ummÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ say, a Verification Engineer.

verification=engineer -~job +~cv

At this writing I get 959 results. Nice trick huh? In case you are scratching your head, this is what my G’ string (nickname for “Google Search String”) was asking Google’s search engine to do.

verification=engineer

Asks Google to find the exact phrase “verification engineer” I could have use quotes, but the equal sign tends to work better.

-~job

Please do not bring back documents that have the words: job, jobs, salary, career, employment, recruitment or vacancy in them.

+~cv

Please do return pages that have the words resume, cv, curriculum and curriculum vitae somewhere in the web document. Ahh… now I see the lightbulb is going off in your head! (Hi, glad to meet you.)

Here are a few other tilde words that may be of use to you.

~staff = staff, personnel, staffing
~members = members, countries, member, login, membership
~team = baseball, basketball
~personnel = jobs, employment, staff, human resources, employee
~alumni = school, reunion, high, highschool
~directory = yellow pages, white pages, white page listings, numbers
~openings = jobs, opportunities, employment, vacancies
~software = software, freeware, shareware, driver
~qa = quality assurance, testing, software quality assurance
~scripting = javascript, script, programming, shell, automating, batch
~gui = gnome, swing, interface, graphical user interface, gui
~program = software, program software, exe, program, programme
.

Here is another example to get your imagination in gear.

-~job +~cv -~openings quality=assurance

Experimentation is key, so practice, practice, refine and practice some more. Happy hunting!

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