The Many Faces of Google

The Many Faces of Google A Presentation by Joel May

Our Goals
To Learn how Google works
To Discover some Google tricks
To Explore some advanced features

The Google Home Screen www.google.com

The Google Home Screen The Search Term Box

Search Term Rules
The Rules of Searching
Targeting Searches
Refining Searches

Search Term Rules Rule #1 – Be Specific (If you aren’t, you’ll end up with a lot of garbage) Search for condominiums : 2,540,000 hits Search for condominiums florida naples time-share : 1,920 hits

Search Term Rules Rule #2 – Use Quotes to Search for Phrases Search for joe montana : 1,080,000 hits Search for “joe montana” : 159,000 hits And, to demonstrate Rule #1 again: Search for “joe montana” 1988 “san francisco” : 6,730 hits

Search Term Rules Rule #3 – To Require Search Terms to be Included Use the Plus Sign (+) or AND
Google ignores common words and characters such as “to” and “for” as well as single digits and single letters because they tend to slow down the search
If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a “+” sign in front of it

Search Term Rules Rule #3 – To Require Search Terms to be Included Use the Plus Sign (+) or AND
For Example: to search for Star Wars, Episode I, use
star wars episode +i, or
star wars episode AND i
without the + or AND, the i will be ignored in the search

Search Term Rules Rule #4 – To Exclude Search Terms Use the Minus Sign (-) or NOT
Sometimes what you’re searching for has more than one meaning
For example, “eagles” can refer to either a large diurnal bird of prey or a professional football team
You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign (-) immediately in front of the term you want to avoid

Search Term Rules Rule #4 – To Exclude Search Terms Use the Minus Sign (-) or NOT
For example, to find web pages about eagles that do not contain the words football or philadelphia, use
eagles –football -philadelphia, or
eagles NOT football NOT philadelphia

Search Term Rules Rule #5 – To Find Pages Containing Either of Two or More Terms Use OR
A search for lodging dining atlanta gets pages referring to BOTH lodging AND dining in Atlanta: 233,000 hits
A search for lodging OR dining atlanta get pages referring to EITHER lodging OR dining in Atlanta: 2,990,000 hits
Can you tell why there are more hits with OR than with AND?

Search Term Rules Rule #6 – To Find Pages Containing either the Term Or its Synonyms Use the Tilde (~)
For example to search for healthy recipes as well as nutritional, low fat, diet, etc. recipes, use the tilde (~) before the term “healthy”
healthy recipes results in 4,800,000 hits
~healthy recipes results in 137,000,000 hits

Search Term Rules Rule #7 – To search for number in a specified range use n1 … n2
For example, to search for a digital camera costing between $250 and $500:
digital camera $250 … $500
To search for Olympic Game records for the years 1950 to 1960:
olympic game records 1950 … 1960

Search Term Rules Rule #8: Use an asterisk (*) as a wild card representing one word For example, google * my life will return (among others) “ Google changed my life,” “Google enhanced my life,” “ Google ruined my life,” etc.

Search Term Rules Rule #9: A term with an accent doesn’t match a term without an accent but the reverse is not true
For example mañana matches mañana but not manana
But manana matches both manana and mañana

Search Term Rules Rule #10 – Combine These Search Box Rules as Often as Possible (see Rule #1)

The Action Buttons

The Action Buttons The Action Buttons Just what does Google do when you click on one of them?

The Action Buttons Google Search

The Action Buttons (Google Search)
To identify the relevant pages, Google uses:
Word Hits (whether the search term appears on the page)
Adjacency Hits (how close together the search terms appear on the page)
Frequency Hits (how often the search terms appear on the page)
About 100 other secret variables
Page Rank (how “important” the page is)

The Action Buttons (Google Search) For a search of disney fantasyland pirates Google would use Word Hits: It would identify all pages that contain disney AND fantasyland AND pirates

The Action Buttons (Google Search) For a search of disney fantasyland pirates Google would then use Adjacency Hits: A page that contains: “ My favorite Disney attraction, outside of Fantasyland , is Pirates of the Caribbean” Would receive a higher adjacency score than one that says: “ Walt Disney was both a genius and a taskmaster. The team at WDI spent many sleepless nights designing Fantasyland . But nothing could compare to the amount of imagineering work required to create Pirates of the Caribbean.”

The Action Buttons (Google Search) For a search of disney fantasyland pirates Google would then use Frequency Hits: A page that contains the word disney four times, fantasyland three times and pirates seven times would receive a higher frequency score than a page on which each of those words appeared only once

The Action Buttons (Google Search) For a search of disney fantasyland pirates Google would then use About 100 Secret Variables Which accounts, at least in part, for the fact that Google’s stock price which opened at $85 is now over $400

Google assigns a score to each page based on
Word Hits
Adjacency Hits
Frequency Hits
About 100 Other Secret Variables
Then . . .

Google applies its patented Page Rank
There is a premise in higher education that the importance of a research paper can be judged by the number of times it is cited or referenced in other papers
Google applies this premise to the Web. The importance of a web page can be judged by the number of hyperlinks pointing to it from other pages
A page with a lot of (incoming) links to it is judged to be more important than a page with only a few links to it
A page with few (outgoing) links to other pages is judged to be more important than a page with links to a lot of other pages

The Action Buttons (Google Search) The pages with the highest ranks appear first on the output list

The Action Buttons I’m Feeling Lucky

The Action Buttons (I’m Feeling Lucky) Directly displays the web page with the highest rank

The Results

The Results Type of Search Number of Hits Length of Time Sponsored Links (Paid Advertisements) Definition of the Term The title of the page A “snippet” of text containing the search term(s) The URL of the page A cached version of the page Links to similar pages At the top of every Google search results page, Google displays a diminutive, but fully featured version of its home page And, if the search term appears on more than one page on the site, a link to a list of those additional pages

Extended Results

Spell Checker

News Headlines

Product Search

Refine Results I

Refine Results II

Translate

Special Web Search Features www.google.com/help/features.html

Special Web Search Features Cached Links
Shows the version of the page that Google last found
Useful when attempting to retrieve copies of pages no longer active on the web
Example: cache:yahoo.com displays the most recent version of the Yahoo page that Google has found

Special Web Search Features

Special Web Search Features Calculator and Unit Converter
Google works as a calculator and as a unit converter
Enter the calculation you’d like done into the search box and press the Enter key or click on the Google Search button
The calculator can solve math problems involving basic arithmetic, more complicated math, units of measure and currency conversions

Special Web Search Features Calculator and Unit Converter
Examples:
(5+5)*2 returns 20
50/4 returns 12.5
2^3 returns 8
36 choose 6 returns 1,947,792
half a cup in teaspoons returns 24 US teaspoons
120 acres in sq miles returns 0.1875 square miles
75 mph in kph returns 120.7008 kilometers/hour
3.5$ in £ or 3.5$ in pounds returns 1.96662359 British pounds
currency of brazil in malaysian money returns
1 Brazil real = 1.72481993 Malaysian ringgits

Special Web Search Features Definitions
Google works as a dictionary
Enter the word you’d like defined preceded by “define:” into the search box and press the Enter key or click on the Google Search button
Example: define:grip returns several definitions of the word

Special Web Search Features Definitions

Special Web Search Features File Types
Google will limit its search to certain types of documents rather than Web pages (or it can exclude certain types of documents from its search)
Google recognizes pdf, Microsoft Office formats, PostScript, Corel WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and other file types
Google also offers the user the ability to “View as HTML” so you can examine the contents of a file even if the corresponding application is not installed on your computer

Special Web Search Features File Types
Example 1: budget filetype:xls would return all the Microsoft Excel spreadsheets on the Web which contained the word “budget”
Example 2: spyware filetype:-pdf would return all the web sites containing the word “spyware” that were NOT in pdf format

Special Web Search Features Movies
To find reviews and showtimes for movies playing near you, type the search term movie: followed by movies or the name of a current film into the Google search box.
If you've already saved your location by using Google Local, the top search result will display show times for nearby theaters for the movie you've chosen.

Example 1: To find reviews and showtimes for the movies playing near you, type movie: movies

Special Web Search Features Movies Movie:movies

Example 2: To find reviews and showtimes for a particular movie playing near you, type movie: followed by the name of the movie

Example 3: You can use the movie: operator to search for films related to a specific actor, director or plot detail.

Special Web Search Features PhoneBook
There are three types of phonebook commands available in Google:
phonebook: searches all of Google’s listings
rphonebook: searches residential listings only
bphonebook: searches business listings only

You can access the information by entering various combinations of information:
LastName
FirstName
City
State
ZipCode
Phone Number (including area code) – this performs a “reverse search”

Example 1: phonebook: jon corzine nj returns information on everyone with the name Jon Corzine living in the state of New Jersey
There turns out to be only one:

Example 2: bphonebook:auto glass trenton nj returns information on all furniture businesses in Trenton, NJ

Special Web Search Features Search By Number
Parcel tracking ID’s, patent numbers and other specialized numbers can be entered into Google’s search box for quick access to information about them
In most cases, Google can recognize the configuration of numbers and determine what kind of a number it is

Special Web Search Features Search By Number
Examples:
UPS tracking numbers (e.g. enter 1Z9999X999999999 )
FedEx tracking numbers (e.g. enter 999999999999 )
USPS tracking numbers (e.g. enter 9999 9999 9999 99 9999 )
Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers (e.g. enter AAAAA999A9AA99999 )
UPC codes (e.g. enter 073333531084 )
Telephone area codes (e.g. enter 609 )
Patent numbers (e.g. enter patent 5123123 ) Note that the word “patent” is required as part of the search term
FAA airplane registration numbers (e.g. enter n199ua )
FCC equipment IDs (e.g. search fcc B47-34009-PIR ) Note that the word “fcc” is required as part of the search term

Special Web Search Features Similar Pages
This feature finds pages that are similar to the page specified in the search term
You enter “related:” followed by a URL to find pages that have the same sort of information
Example 1: related:aarp.org displays all pages with information similar to that on the AARP home page
Example 2: related:microsoft.com displays all pages with information similar to that on the Microsoft home page
As you can see from the second example, this is the technique used by Google for the Special Web Searches for Microsoft, Linux, etc. we discussed earlier

Special Web Search Features Site Search
A site search limits the search to a specified domain
Example 1: courses site:www.ewingsnet.com returns pages with the word “courses” on the Ewing SeniorNet Web site
Example 2: admissions site:www.stanford.edu returns pages with the word “admissions” on the Stanford University Web site
As you can see from the second example, this is the technique used by Google for the University Search we discussed earlier

Special Web Search Features Spell Checker
Google's spell checking software automatically looks at your query and checks to see if you are using the most common version of a word's spelling
If it calculates that you're likely to generate more relevant search results with an alternative spelling, it will ask "Did you mean: (more common spelling)?“
Clicking on the suggested spelling will launch a Google search for that term.

At www.google.com/jobs/britney.html , Google has posted a number of ways Britney Spears’ name has been mispelled

Special Web Search Features Google Financial
Entering the query word stocks: along with selected stock symbols returns current prices along with much additional information on the stocks chosen
Example: stocks:goog msft returns information on Google and Microsoft

Special Web Search Features Stock Quotes

Special Web Search Features Travel Information
Use Google to check the status (delays and weather conditions) at any US airport
Example 1: ewr airport will return the status of the Newark International Airport

Use Google to check the status (delays and weather conditions) at any US airport
Example 1: ewr airport will return the status of the Newark International Airport
You can also check the status of any domestic airline’s flight
Example 2: US Airways 11 will return the status of the US Airways flight 11 from Madrid, Spain to Philadelphia

Special Web Search Features Weather
Use Google to check the weather for any US city
Example weather: naples fl will return the current conditions and the forecast for the next three days for Naples, FL

Special Web Search Features Weather

Special Web Search Features Who Links to You
The “Who Links to You” feature will identify all the Web pages that link to the page you specify
Uses the “link:” query word
Example: link:http://www.aarp.com displays all the pages on the Web that link to the AARP home page

Special Web Search Features Who Links to You

Other Types of Searches
Google provides many kinds of specialized or focused searches
We’ll look carefully at the some of the most useful ones
And we’ll also touch on some of the fun ones

Directory

Google Mobile
Google Mobile uses SMS (Short Message Service) to send queries as text messages over your mobile phone or device
It provides precise answers to your queries in text form

Google Mobile Dial 46645 (GOOGL) to access:
Web Search
Image Search
Local Information and Maps
Phone book listings
Weather conditions
Movie showtimes
And More

Special Searches Limits standard searches to specific subject areas. You can search only:
US Government sites
Microsoft sites
Linux sites
Apple/Macintosh sites
BSD sites

University Searches
Uses a Google query word (site:) to search for sites related to specific colleges and universities

University Searches

Google Tools

Blogger
“ Blogger” is a word which combines two other words:
Web and Log
A “Blog” is a web site where you can post personal opinions about anything you want as often as you wish
Readers of your opinions can visit the site and respond to your opinions
Google provides the technology to enable you to create your own “Blog” at www.blogger.com/start

Blogger

Google Tools

Web API’s
An API (Application Program Interface) allows you to develop your own search applications using Google’s technology
With the Google Web API’s, software developers can query more than 4 billion Web documents directly from their own computer programs
For more information on this and other advanced Google topics see “Google Hacks” by Tara Calashain and Rael Dornfest (O’Reilly and Associates, Inc. ISBN 059600478)

Google Tools

Google Desktop Search
Google Desktop Search indexes files on your computer (similar to the ways in which it indexes web pages) and performs searches on them
Find your email, files, web history and chats instantly
View web pages you've seen, even when you're not online
Google Desktop Search finds entries in:
Outlook and Outlook Express
Internet Explorer
Word, Excel and Powerpoint
AOL Instant Messenger
Text files

Google Desktop Search

Google Desktop Search When Google Desktop Search is installed on your computer, ordinary Google searches produce results from the desktop as well as from the Web

Google Tools

Google Hello
Google Hello is an Instant Messaging program with a special flair for sharing photos
Google acquired it as part of a package purchased from Pyra Labs that included Picasa (discussed shortly)

Google Tools

Google Earth
Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.
Fly from space to your neighborhood. Type in an address and zoom right in.
Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels.
Get driving directions.
Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.
Save and share your searches and favorites.
Even add your own annotations.

http:// www.wikimapia.org/#y =40178873&x=-74674072&z=2&l=0&m=s
Google Earth

Google Earth
By combining Google Earth with API’s (application program interface), creative people have begun creating “mashups”
Crime, air quality, income/wealth, restaurants, roads under construction, gasoline prices, apartments for rent, etc.
Here’s an example showing contributions to political parties (http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~markane/i590/contributors.html):

Google Earth

Google Earth
And here’s one showing the assessed value of each home on the map (www.zillow.com):

Google Earth

Google Earth
You can find these and hundreds of others at
www.mashupfeed.com

Google Tools

Picasa
Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC
It automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize.
Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips.
And it makes it a snap to share your pictures – you can email, print photos home, make gift CDs, instantly share via IM, and even post pictures on your own blog.

Google Tools

Google Toolbar and Browser Buttons
If you use Internet Explorer as your browser, you can use the Google toolbar
This toolbar is visible on your screen regardless of what Web site you are viewing
It gives you direct access to many of the types of searches we’ve discussed
It includes a pop-up blocker and automatic form completion
It’s free
It’s available in 13 languages

You can use the Google Browser Buttons with any browser
They are visible on your screen regardless of what Web site you are viewing
They give you access to many of the types of searches we have discussed

Google Tools

GMail
Search by sender, recipient, date, time, subject and content in exactly the same way you use Google to search the Web. Find the exact message you want, no matter when it was sent or received
Keep it all in context. Each message is grouped with all its replies and displayed as a conversation.
Don't throw anything away. 2 gigabytes of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message.
Gmail is a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail and you should always be able to find the message you want

GMail
Anyone who already has a GMail address can provide you with an invitation
You can buy invitations for around $10 on eBay
You can get a free invitation by giving Google your cell phone number at https://www.google.com/accounts/SmsMailSignup1 (I don’t know what Google plans to do with your cell phone number)
You must be “invited” to get a GMail address

GMail
Critics of Gmail have raised question of privacy.
Since your e-mail is essentially around forever, given the large storage capacity and it has been indexed by Google, is there a risk that it could be disseminated inappropriately or without your permission?
Google’s response to these criticisms can be found at http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/more.html .

Google Calendar
Calendar Sharing: share with friends and family so you can view each other's schedules side by side or set up a calendar for your group or team
Invitations: Create event invitations, send them to friends, and keep track of people's responses and comments, all in one place.
Quick Add: Click anywhere on your calendar where an event belongs and start typing.
Gmail Integration: Add your friend's Super Bowl party to your calendar without ever leaving your Gmail inbox.
Search: Find the date of the family BBQ (you knew it was sometime this summer); search public calendars to discover new events you're interested in and add them to your own calendar.
Mobile Access: Receive event reminders and notifications on your mobile phone.

Google Calendar

Google Labs
Google Labs (http://labs.google.com) is Google’s “technology playground”
Every Google employee is given one day a week to work on a project of her/his choice
Some of these ideas make their way into Google Labs where both Google technologists and general users can try them and comment on them
Those that succeed in being useful are added to the Google product mix

Google Labs

And You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet
Google continues to add and enhance features on almost a daily basis.
To keep up with what’s happening,
Use www.google.com/help/features.html to learn how to use the currently available features
Use labs.google.com to see what the future may hold

Google continues to add and enhance features on almost a daily basis.
To keep up with what’s happening,
Use www.google.com/help/features.html to learn how to use the currently available features
Use labs.google.com to see what the future may hold

Advanced Search Techniques
There are several kinds of advanced search techniques available in Google:
Special search features
Query words
The Advanced Search screen

Special search features (www.google.com/help/features.html)
Query words

Special search features ()

Query words

Query Words
Query modifiers
daterange:
filetype:
intext:
intitle:
inurl:
site:
Alternative query types
cache:
link:
related:
info:
Now let’s take a quick look at the rest of them

The daterange: query word limits a search to pages containing a date or a range of dates
It uses Julian dates which are a continuous count of days and fractions of days since noon Universal Time on January 1, 4713 BCE. Almost 2.5 million days have elapsed since that date
A conversion tool can be found at http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html
Example: “joe montana” daterange:2450815-2451180 returns sites referring to Joe Montana with dates between January 1, 1998 and January 1, 1999
Query Words daterange:

Query Words
Query modifiers
daterange:
filetype:
intext:
intitle:
inurl:
site:
cache:
link:
related:
info:

intext: searches only within the text of pages
Example: intext:trenton finds “trenton” only if it appears in the page text
intitle: searches only within the title of pages
Example: intitle:pirates finds “pirates” only if it appears in the title of the page
inurl: searches only within the page’s URL
Example: inurl:ewing finds “ewing” only if it appears in the URL (the web address) of the page
Query Words intext:, intitle: and inurl:

Query Words
Query modifiers
daterange:
filetype:
inanchor:
intext:
intitle:
inurl:
site:
cache:
link:
related:
info:

info: is a catch-all query word that returns information on the specified domain including:
Google’s cache of the domain page (see cache: above)
Web pages that are similar to the domain page (see related: above)
Web pages that link to the domain page (see link: above)
Web pages that contain the search term (see intext: above)
Query Words info:

Query Words info:

Query words

The Advanced Search Screen

Personalize Google Google Preferences

Google Preferences Choose any of 104 languages for the Google search screen (including Pig Latin, Elmer Fudd and Klingon)

Google Preferences Limit searching only to pages composed in certain languages

Google Preferences Choose the level of filtering to use

Google Preferences Choose the number of results to display on each screen

Google Preferences Choose to open results in a new window (useful for browsers that use tabbed windows)

Google Preferences Save your preferences

Google Labs

Google Labs - GMail
Search by sender, recipient, date, time, subject and content in exactly the same way you use Google to search the Web. Find the exact message you want, no matter when it was sent or received
Keep it all in context. Each message is grouped with all its replies and displayed as a conversation.
Don't throw anything away. 1000 megabytes of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message.
Gmail is an experiment in a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail and you should always be able to find the message you want

Google Labs – Google Sets Google Sets (labs.google.com/sets) automatically create sets of items from a few examples. Use Google sets to suggest: people who might share interests with you, places to visit, books to read, movies to see, synonyms, food you might enjoy, stores where you can buy a particular type of item, etc.

Google Labs – Google Sets

Google Labs – Personalized Search
Personalized Web Search (labs.google.com/personalized) delivers custom search results that are based on a profile you create describing your interests.
In this example, I set the personalization parameters to Health > Medicine and Nursing

After you have created a profile, when you do a search on the Personalized Web Search page, a small slider appears just under the Google logo
With the slider to the left, the results are as expected

After you have created a profile, when you do a search on the Personalized Web Search page, a small slider appears just under the Google logo
With the slider to the right, the personalized results focus on those subjects

Google Labs – Google SMS
Google SMS (Short Message Service) enables you to easily get answers to specialized queries from your mobile phone or device.
Send your query as a text message to 46645 (GOOGL on most phones) and get phone book listings, dictionary definitions, product prices and more.

Google Labs

Google-Related Help and Information
Google Help Central
Search Engine Watch
Search Engine Showdown
Google Zeitgeist
GoogleFight

Google Help Central http://www.google.com/help/
Free guides and FAQs that tell you about Web surfing in general and Google’s features in particular
Search Help
Web Search Features
Google Services and Tools
Contact Us

Google Help Central
Search Engine Watch
Google Zeitgeist
GoogleFight

Search Engine Watch
Search Tips
News about Searching and Search Engines
http://searchenginewatch.com

Google Help Central
Search Engine Watch
Google Zeitgeist
GoogleFight

Reviews and Statistics on Search Engine Use
Comparison of Features, Speed, Selectivity, etc.
http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/

Google Help Central
Search Engine Watch
Google Zeitgeist
GoogleFight

Google Zeitgeist
Track the most popular search terms
Top 10 Gaining and Declining Queries
Most popular News and Entertainment Queries
Etc.
With a bit of analysis, this flurry of searches often exposes interesting trends, patterns and surprises
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

Google Help Central
Search Engine Watch
Google Zeitgeist
GoogleFight

GoogleFight
Type in two opposite keywords:
Michael Jordan / Larry Byrd
God / Satan
Internet Explorer / Netscape
Click on the “Make a Fight” button
See which one wins
http://www.googlefight.com/

GoogleFight http://www.googlefight.com/
For example, in a GoogleFight between
Adobe Photoshop Elements and JASC Paint Shop:

The Meaning of Google Google is a play on the word googol, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, to refer to the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Google's use of the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web . . . . . .

The Future of Google Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

The Future of Google

The Many Faces of Google The End

The Many Faces of Google This presentation is available on the Web at http://snipurl.com/googlefaces A full interactive Many Faces of Google tutorial is available on the Web at http://snipurl.com/googlefacescourse The End A Google “Cheat Sheet” can be found at http://www.adelaider.com/google/ Links to all the features we’ve talked about can be found at http://snipurl.com/googleref

The Many Faces of Google

by Joel May on Jun 30, 2011

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The Many Faces of Google — Presentation Transcript