More effective Google results with "Search Preferences"

Here are couple tips that may not be new news for many, but they have been for some. Did you know you can tweak Google's "preferences" to change how many results you get, and whether to bother returning foreign language sites?

Changing the number of returned results

First, if you have a high speed connection (and possible a high-res monitor), you may feel constrained by Google's default to return only 10 records. That's easily changed. See the "preferences" link to the right of the search button on any google search page. I've set mine to 30, so I don't have to page forward so often. There's a fine line, so choose what works best for you, your monitor, your network, etc.

Do you care about foreign language sites when Google searching?

If you've done a search on Google that returned a boatload of pages in foreign languages, do you tire of wading past those? In the same preferences page, note that you can change the default of showing pages in any language, to just show those in your preferred language. It's not anglo-centric. You can receive only sites in any of a couple dozen languages, or any combination.

There are a couple other useful preferences you may enjoy. Check them out.

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