Search engines help us to pick the exact information we are looking for from the vast collection of data available in the Internet. It is very much required to understand using a search engine efficiently. Google is the fastest, most used and most useful search engine. In this article I am trying to give a glimpse of Google search functions, hoping to help you googlify yourself!
Visit google.com/help/ or google.com/sitemap.html for complete list.

Google Search Tips

• Obvious and specific search keywords for better search results. Use words likely to appear on a site with the information you want.
• Not case sensitive.
• No wild cards: For example, 'Computer' and 'Computers' do not yield the same result.
• " + ": If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a "+" sign in front of it. (Be sure to include a space before the sign.)
• " - " :You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign ("-") immediately in front of the term you want to avoid
• Phrase : Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks
• "OR" : To retrieve pages that include either word A or word B, use an uppercase OR between terms.
• Domain Restrict: To search for 'Thiruvananthapuram' at www.ananthapuri.com, try Thiruvananthapuram site:www.ananthapuri.com
• use http://www.google.com/microsoft.html for Microsoft specific searches.
• Customize your google search to
  - View results in your own language.
  - Select search language - you may want to exclude another language website from search results
  - Number of results per page can be set
  - Opt to open a mew results window
  - SafeSearch Filtering - for avoiding adult sites being shown in results
  - File Type Search - search for a specific file type
  - Get stock quotes by typing the ticker symbol
  - Cached Links - View the page cached by google.
• Add Google Browser Buttons to your browser, for eazy searches.
• For web developers, google offers WEB APIs Service for using google search from your application.