Google is a powerful search engine, to be sure, but most of us use it for only the simplest of queries.  Why?  Because the true power behind the Google engine lies in special commands that you probably don't know.  These special commands (called advanced operators) can take you to places in Google (and thus places on the web) that you would never find otherwise.  Here are the most powerful of the advanced operators:

• filetype: The page must be of a specific file type or extension
• link: Returns pages that link to the specified page
• cache: Returns google's cache of the specified page
• site: The search term must appear in the domain
• inurl: The search term must appear in the URL
• inanchor: The search term must appear in the anchor text of links to the page
• intitle: The search term must appear in the title
• intext: The search term must appear in the text of the page

Here are some examples of power searches that can really let you dig deeply into the web using the power of google:

• site:irs.gov filetype:pdf - returns a list of all PDFs available throughout the IRS website
• site:.edu inurl:blog "post a comment" - returns all blogs on .EDU sites that let you post comments
• link:www.yoursite.com - returns all the pages that google knows that link to your website

Finally, here is a quick review of the different types of basic google searches, in case you've forgotten any of them (or never used them!):

• AND (implied): to search for more than one term, just list the terms in sequence (for example, nokia phone searches for both nokia and phone)
• OR: put the word "or" between terms to search for any occurrences of either term (for example, sailing or boating searches for either sailing or boating)
• PHRASE: put quotes around a phrase to search for the entire phrase as one search term (for example, "love me tender" searches for the entire phrase but will not give results that have only one or two of the words)
• NOT: put a hyphen in front of a search term to exclude it (for example, printer -cartridge searches for printer but excludes any pages that have the word cartridge in them
• SYNONYM: put a tilde ("~") in front of a search term to search for the term or any synonyms of it (for example, ~auto searches for any of auto, automotive, automobile, car, truck or vehicle)

Good luck and happy googling!