10 helpful Google search tricks

For better or worse, Google knows everything.  Want the weather forecast? Ask Google. Need directions to a restaurant? Ask Google. Have a weird rash or wonder why your dog won't stop eating grass? Google it... At your own risk.

In a fraction of a second, Google gives you links to hundreds of millions of answers to your questions, ranging from helpful to absurd. But if you've ever clicked through to the second or third page of search results, you know that basic Google searches will only get you so far. You need advanced Google search tricks to find what you're looking for.

If you familiarize yourself with some of Google's built-in tools, you can narrow down your search and get you the answers you want without even having to click through to another website:

1. Perform Quick Calculations

You can access calculators directly in Google's search results by merely searching for the equation. Also, search for calculator, tip calculator, or mortgage calculator to get quick access to helpful tools.

Google even has advanced calculators that can graph functions such as sin and cos—or solve geometry problems such as the area of a circle with a radius of 4.

This would have made high school a lot easier.

2. Perform Quick Currency Conversions

Type "currency converter" to populate a converter in the search results that lists dozens of convertible currencies.

You can even use the tool to convert a few cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Etherium, and Litecoin. Assuming you know what those are and are edgy enough to have some.

3. See What Time It Is Anywhere in the World

You can search for time in [city] to see what time it is in another city right now, or you can search for [city] to [city] time to see the time difference between where you live and somewhere else.

4. Get Word Definitions and Etymologies

Add define: before a word or phrase to get a definition of it, or add etymology: before a word to see its origins.

5. Translate Words to Other Languages

And add in [language] after a foreign language word to have Google translate that word into a language you understand.

6. Find Out When the Sun Will Rise and Set

Get the time the sun will rise or set in your area by entering sunrise or sunset. You can also add a city name to your search to get the sunrise and sunset times for a different city.

7. Set a Timer or Stopwatch

Enter stopwatch to use a stopwatch in Google Search, or search for set timer for [amount of time] to automatically start a timer.

8. Find Your IP Address

If you don't know what your IP address is, "search for what is my ip", and Google will reveal your public IP address.

9. Narrow Down Search Results by Publish Date

Just below the search bar on the default Google Search results page, you'll see a tab titled Tools. If you click the Tools tab, the navigation bar will expand to display two additional dropdown features: Any time and All results.

Using the Any time tab, you can filter results by when the content was published or updated. For example, if I check for cat GIFs every day, the Past 24 hours filter will help me find only the newest cat GIFs. If I'm looking for recent research studies, I might apply the Past year filter. And if I'm looking for something very specific and know when it was published, I can use the Custom range filter to find content published within a specified timeframe.

10. View Cached Pages

Next to the URL of each search result, you'll see a dropdown arrow. Click on that to choose to load the cached version of that page—a snapshot of the page as it appeared the last time Google's robots visited that site.

This is useful when a site goes down and you still want to access some of its content.

You can also access the cached version of a page using the cache: search operator; add cache: in front of the URL you want to view, and Google will open the cached version of that page.