Most of the hacks are pretty basic stuff, for example hack 6 “Check Your Spelling”, and the explanation “Google sometimes takes the liberty of “correcting” what it perceives is a spelling error in your query” Not such a great hack if you ask me.

Most of the hacks published there are probably not hacks but advices. The advanced user should know most of them if he uses that services, so nothing new for us.

The inexperienced user has the chance to learn some new concepts, but he might receive the same level of insight from googles help pages.

Update:The page on the O’Reilly website is no longer available, which leaves Google’s own help page as the only source for this information.

Google divides the information on multiple pages. The basic search help page offers tips for better searches. Tips on the page include keeping it simple by using as few terms as possible and choosing descriptive words. Results will for instance be better if you are searching for headaches instead of “my head hurts”.

A click on the more search tips link at the bottom of the page opens a page that lists some of the operators that are supported by Google Search.

• Phrase Search: Use double quotes to ask Google to consider the exact phrase, e.g. “ghacks technology news”.
• Search single word exactly: Use double quotes for this as well, e.g. “headaches”
• Search within a specific site: Use the site: command for that, e.g. site:ghacks.net
• Exclude terms: Use the minus sign to exclude terms from the search, e.g. apples -green
• Use wildcards: Add * where appropriate, for instance Mercedes Benz model *
• The Or operator: Google will only consider one of the OR terms, e.g. New York Mets 2010 OR 2011