The Google search page is probably the most simple, yet most popular starting page on the web. How many times have you seen the “preferences” link beside the search box, yet never gone ahead and actually used it. Power Googlers always modify the Google Search Preferences to search smartly.
First on the list is the Interface Language, which is usually set to “Display Google tips and messages in: English”. You can change this to the local language of choice if you prefer non-english. I do not need to change this.
Next is the Search Language, which has a preselected option for “Search for pages written in any language”. I want all my search results in English, so I select “Search only for pages written in these language” and check the English box.
SafeSearch Filtering is on by default. Google’s SafeSearch blocks web pages containing explicit content from appearing in search results. You can select depending on you search preference. Strict filtering will filter both explicit text and explicit images, Moderate filtering will filter explicit images only (default behavior) and you can opt for Do not filter my search results. (Use this to get the maximum number of results.)
You can select the Number of Results to display on one page. The Google’s default is 10 results, but you can change the value to get more results. I choose to Display 100 results per page. This gives me the most search results on one page and I do not need to keep clicking next everytime for browsing from page to page after every 10 results. Takes a fraction of time more, but Google is fast enough.
You can select the Results Window and check the box to Open search results in a new browser window. Thus, everytime you click the searched links, new windows open and you do not need to go back everyitme to your search results. If you use Firefox, or IE7 (or Avant Browser), then nothing better than tabbed browsing and mouse gestures.
SAVE your preferences and you are done. So look into the Google search preferences and find new alternatives to smart searching with Google.