Searching in Google is pretty easy, but Google’s power search functions are unknown to many. That’s why I’ve created a simple tool here on Google Tutor to help you do a few things you otherwise might not use. I’ll give you a brief rundown of what the specific functions do, and why you’d want to use them.

Search box and search button
You know what that does, right? Otherwise, well, start reading from the beginning…

Country select box
Most people in the US forget that when they give me a URL to a search query, I can get totally different results from what they get, and if I’d pass that URL to Dave, he’d get totally different results as well. Why? Well, I’m in the Netherlands, Dave’s in the UK and they’re in the US, and Google treats us differently.

For any given query, Dutch and European sites are thought to be more relevant for me by Google, because they’re geographically closer to me, and the same goes for the UK. By selecting a country in this select box, you determine to which country the results are geotargeted. So by selecting US there, you can pass the URL to me safely, and I’ll get the same results you get.

Language select box
Another one of those: your browser is English, now mine is too, but I’ve got a lot of friends who have a Dutch Firefox or Internet Explorer. If you pass them that URL, they’ll get the Dutch interface, and if Google can find relevant Dutch words for that result, it’ll give those, meaning that the results are different from yours again.

Duplicate snippet & Duplicate directory filter
Google will only show 2 results from the same domain in a given set of results. So even though Google Tutor has 10 posts and pages that are more relevant to the search query, Google will only show two, unless you disable the duplicate directory filter.

If two pages have different content, and both are relevant to the query, yet they have the same “snippet” (the two lines of text below a search result’s title), Google will only show one too. Disabling these filters can be very wise when you’re researching duplicate content issues, for instance.

Occurrence
Google allows you to search for words that only appear in the title of a page, or in the URL, or in the links towards a page. These are the real power search functions you should be using more often when you’re researching. Once you do, you’ll find that searching becomes easier and more effective.

Disable personalized search
When you’re logged in to Google, to check your GMail account for instance, Google will maintain a history of your searches, and use that to improve your specific search results. That’s usually not bad, the only problem is you can’t reference the search results anymore as they are different to you than they are to your neighbor, disabling personalized search prevents that.

Disable Google Safe search
Well, if you’re looking for pr0n, this is the thing to disable to get all the real juicy stuff..

Conclusion
The main reason you should be using this tool to search is when you’re referencing a specific query in a post or article: everybody will get the same results you did. The second reason is because through this simple interface, you can more easily leverage the power tools Google has to offer to the searcher.

So, try it out and let me know what you think – Simply Advanced Google Search