Learn Googlese in 10 easy steps

As we wrap up 2008, many sites are gluing together their year-end posts. These strings of superlatives come as gift guides, retrospectives, and best ofs – anything to make old news sound like new material.

Not to be out done, Lifehacker published a Top 20 list of its Top 10 lists. Some items seem silly (Top 10 Things You Forgot Your Mac Can Do). But the No. 1 spot was surprisingly helpful: Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks.

The list is a great English-to-Googlese dictionary, offering phrases that will help you talk Google into showing better search results. Here's their rundown:

10. Get the local time anywhere
9. Track flight status
8. Convert currency, metrics, bytes, and more
7. Compare items with "better than" and find similar items with "reminds me of"
6. Use Google as a free proxy
5. Remove affiliate links from product searches
4. Find related terms and documents
3. Find music and comic books
2. ID people, objects, and foreign language words and phrases with Google Image Search
1. Make Google recognize faces

Check out the LifeHacker article for a full write-up and pages of helpful reader comments with more Google tricks.

While we trade search-engine tips, here's the Monitor's best-of on the topic for the past year:

How to access Life Magazine's photo vault
Forget Jeeves, ask Powerset
Microsoft: We’ll pay you to search
Search engines with more sparkle