Google Search Techniques

Google Search Techniques Chau Man Duc

Version 1.0 – Apr 3 rd , 2009 This is free for distribution under any purposes Any feedbacks, please email to chaumanduc@gmail.com This is created with reference to the following books and website Google Hacks – Paul Bausch, Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest -O’Reilly, 3rd edition Google: The Missing Manual - J.D. Biersdorfer, Rael Dornfest, Matthew MacDonald, Sarah Milstein - O’Reilly, 2nd edition Google™ Search and Tools in a Snap – Preston Gralla – Sams www.googleguide.com - Nancy Blachman

Google Search Techniques What is Google? How Google works? Google Web Search Basics Full-Word Wildcards Special Syntax Special Search Use Google Search as Calculator Advanced Search Setting Preferences Google Search Results

1. What is Google? Google is a full-text search engine , which uses computerized "spiders" to index millions, sometimes billions, of pages, allowing for much narrower searches than searchable subject index, which searches only the titles and descriptions of sites, and doesn't search individual pages Google is case-insensitive . If you search for Three, tHRee, THREE, or even THREE, you get the same results. Singular is different from plural . Searches for apple and apples turn up different pages The order of words matters . Google considers the first word most important, the second word next, and so on Google ignores most little words , including include "I," "where," "how," "the," "of," "an," "for," "from," "how," 'it," "in," and "is,“. Google ignores most punctuation , except apostrophes, hyphens, and quote marks Google returns pages that match your search terms exactly Google search word limit is 32

1. What is Google? Google Alerts - http://www.google.com/alerts - Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic Google News Search – http://news.google.com/ Google Blog Search - http://blogsearch.google.com/ Google Book Search - http://books.google.com/ Google Image Search - http://images.google.com/ Google Maps Search - http://maps.google.com/ Google Product Search - http://www.google.com/products Google Scholar Search - http://scholar.google.com Google Group Search - http://groups.google.com Google Video Search - http://video.google.com/

1. What is Google? Google Mobile - http://www.google.com/mobile/ Google Earth - http://earth.google.com/ Google Finance - http://finance.google.com/ Google Blog - http://www.blogger.com Google Photo - http://picasaweb.google.com Google Language Tools - http://www.google.com/language_tools Google Pack - http://pack.google.com Google Gmail - http://gmail.google.com And more on Google Labs - http://labs.google.com/

2. How Google Works? Google runs on a distributed network of thousands of computers and can therefore carry out fast parallel processing. Google has three distinct parts Googlebot, Google’s Web Crawler Googlebot is Google’s web crawling robot, which finds and retrieves pages on the web and hands them off to the Google indexer Google Indexer This index is sorted alphabetically by search term, with each index entry storing a list of documents in which the term appears and the location within the text where it occurs Google Query’s Processor The query processor has several parts, including the user interface (search box), the “engine” that evaluates queries and matches them to relevant documents, and the results formatter

3. Google Web Search Basics Phrase Searches Enter key words search techniques. Google will find matches where the keywords appear anywhere on the page If you want Google to find you matches where the keywords appear together as a phrase, surround them with quotes, like this “search techniques” Basic Boolean Google's Boolean default is AND, which means that if you enter query words without modifiers, Google will search for all your query words If you prefer to specify that any one word or phrase is acceptable, put an OR (in capital letter), lower case or won’t work correctly. For example: enter Yahoo OR Google . A computer programming character | can work like OR (e.g. Yahoo | Google) If you want to search for a particular term along with two or more other terms, group the other terms within parentheses, like so “search techniques” (Yahoo OR Google)

3. Google Web Search Basics Negation If you want to specify that a query item must not appear in your results, prepend a (minus sign or dash): “search techniques” –Google . This will search the pages that contain “search techniques”, but not the word Google Note that the symbol must appear directly before the word or phrase that you don't want. If there's space between, as in the following query, it won't work as expected “search techniques” – Google Explicit Inclusion Google will search for all the keywords and phrases that you specify, however, there are certain words that Google will ignore because they are considered too common to be of any use in the search (e.g. “a”, “the”, “of”, etc.) You can force Google to take a stop word into account by prepending a + (plus) character, as in +the “search techniques” .

3. Google Web Search Basics Synonyms The Google synonym operator, the ~ (tilde) character, prepended to any number of keywords in your query, asks Google to include not only exact matches, but also what it thinks are synonyms for each of the keywords. Searching for: ~ape turns up results for monkey, gorilla, chimpanzee, and others (both singular and plural forms) of the ape or related family, as if you'd searched for: monkey gorilla chimpanzee (Synonyms are bolded along with exact keyword matches on the results page, so they're easy to spot) Number Range The number range operator, .. (two periods), looks for results that fall inside your specified numeric range (e.g. digital camera 3..5 megapixel $800..$1000 ) You can also use the number range syntax with just one number, making it the minimum or maximum of your query (e.g. digital camera ..5 megapixel $800.. )

3. Google Web Search Basics Simple Searching and Feeling Lucky The I'm Feeling Lucky™ button is a thing of beauty. Rather than giving you a list of search results from which to choose, you're whisked away to what Google believes is the most relevant page given your search (i.e., the first result in the list). Entering washington post and clicking the I'm Feeling Lucky button takes you directly to http://www.washingtonpost.com . Searching Within Your Results Help you narrow down your results to find the really relevant pages within your results pages only . Click Search within results link at the bottom of every results page. It will shows below and you can enter another keyword

4. Full-Word Wildcards the wildcard will act as a substitute for one full word . Searching for tHRee * mice, therefore, finds three blind mice, three blue mice, three green mice, etc. * is a stand-in for one word; ** signifies two words, and so on

5. Special Syntax intitle : restricts your search to the titles of web pages. The variation allintitle: finds pages in which all the specified words appear in the title of the web page. Using allintitle: is basically the same as using intitle: before each keyword: intitle: "george bush“ allintitle: "money supply" economics intext : searches only body text (i.e., it ignores link text, URLs, and titles). While its uses are limited, it's perfect for finding query words that might be too common in URLs or link titles. There's also an allintext : variation intext: "yahoo.com" intext: html inanchor : searches for text in a page's link anchors. A link anchor is the descriptive text of a link. For example, the link anchor in the HTML code <a href="http://www.oreilly.com">O'Reilly Media</a> is "O'Reilly Media.“. There's an allinanchor : variation

5. Special Syntax site : allows you to narrow your search by a site or by a top-level domain site :edu inurl : restricts your search to the URLs of web pages. This syntax usually works well for finding search and help pages because they tend to be regular in composition. An allinurl : variation finds all the words listed in a URL inurl: help link : returns a list of pages that link to the specified URL. Enter link:www.google.com and you'll get a list of pages that link to the Google home page, http://www.google.com (not anywhere in the google.com domain) cache : finds a copy of the page that Google indexed even if that page is no longer available at its original URL or has since changed its content completely

5. Special Syntax filetype : searches the suffixes or filename extensions "leading economic indicators" filetype :ppt related : , as you might expect, finds pages that are related to the specified page. This is a good way to find categories of pages; a search for related:google.com returns a variety of search engines, including Lycos, Yahoo!, and Northern Light info:www.nytimes.com/technology phonebook : , as you might expect, looks up phone numbers phonebook :(510) 555-1212 or phonebook : <name> define : gives you a page full of definitions of a word from around the Web movie : syntax to find reviews of movies on the Web music : explicitly searches for music-related information

6. Special Search http://www.google.com/options/specialsearches.html

6. Special Search http://directory.google.com/

6. Special Search Parcel tracking IDs, patents, and other specialized numbers can be entered into Google’s search box for quick access to information about them Stock Quotes : enter stock symbol (e.g. goog for Google) and Google will return the latest stock price, along with an intra-day chart, the daily high and low, the volume traded, the company’s market capitalization and links to other financial information

7. Use Google Search as Calculator Basic Arithmetic Compute expressions containing standard mathematical symbols. The following table lists operators that come between the two numbers on which they operate, e.g., to multiply 2 times 3, use 2 * 3

7. Use Google Search as Calculator Advanced Math Compute results involving mathematical constants, such as e, pi, i (the square root of –1), and mathematical functions. The following table lists just some of the functions built into Google’s calculator

7. Use Google Search as Calculator Units of Measure and Conversions Compute expressions involving different units. By default, units are converted to and results expressed in meter-kilogram-second (mks) units. Many units have both long and short names. Use whichever name you prefer

7. Use Google Search as Calculator Units of Measure and Conversions Here are calculations that involve units. [ 2 meters + 5 feet ] Convert from one set of units to another by using the notation, x units in y units . [ three quarters of a cup in teaspoons ] [ 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit in degrees Celsius ] [ 130 lbs in kg ] [ 130 lbs in stones ] [ 65 mph in kph ] or [ 65 mph in km/h ] Warning: When your query includes “Calories” with a capital “C,” Google returns kilocalories called “calories” by nutritionists. [ 160 pounds * 4000 feet in Calories ] Convert from one numbering system to another [ 1500 in hex ] or [ 1500 in hexadecimal ] [ 64 in binary ]

8. Advanced Search Advanced Search brings to you everything which you can search using keyword such as filetype, inurl, intitle.

8. Advanced Search Advance Image Search Use SafeSearch The Web is full of inappropriate graphics, and although Google Image Search does not index pornographic sites, inappropriate pictures still might show up inadvertently on some searches. Use the SafeSearch feature to filter out inappropriate pictures. You can choose No filtering, Use moderate filtering, or Use strict filtering

10. Google Search Results Google Logo: Click on the Google logo to go to Google’s home page Statistics Bar: Describes your search, includes the number of results on the current results page and an estimate of the total number of results , as well as the time your search took. For the sake of efficiency, Google just estimates the number of results Dictionary Definition : Every underlined term in the statistics bar is linked to its dictionary definition. Queries that are linked to just one definition are followed by a definition link. Search Results: Ordered by relevance to your query, with the result that Google considers the most relevant listed first. Consequently you are likely to find what you’re seeking quickly by looking at the results in the order in which they appear. Google assesses relevance by considering over a hundred factors , including how many other pages link to the page, the positions of the search terms within the page, and the proximity of the search terms to one another

10. Google Search Results You will see these buttons if you’re currently logged in with Gmail account Promote button: Promote a website to higher order Remove button: Remove a website from search results Comment button : Comment for a website Below are descriptions of some search-result components. These components appear in fonts of different colors on the result page to make it easier to distinguish them from one another. Page Title: (blue) The web page’s title, if the page has one, or its URL if the page has no title or if Google has not indexed all of the page’s content. Snippets: (black) Each search result usually includes one or more short excerpts of the text that matches your query with your search terms in boldface type. Each distinct excerpt or snippet is separated by an ellipsis (…) URL of Result: (green) Web address of the search result Size: (green) The size of the text portion of the web page. It is omitted for sites not yet indexed. In the screen shot, “12k” means that the text portion of the web page is 12 kilobytes

10. Google Search Results Date: (green) Sometimes the date Google crawled a page appears just after the size of the page. The date tells you the freshness of Google’s copy of the page. Dates are included for pages that have recently had a fresh crawl Indented Result: When Google finds multiple results from the same website, it lists the most relevant result first with the second most relevant page from that same site indented below it More Results: When there are more than two results from the same site, access the remaining results from the “More results from…” link Catch pages : Google takes a snapshot of each page it examines and caches (stores) that version as a back-up. The cached version is what Google uses to judge if a page is a good match for your query. Practically every search result includes a Cached link. Clicking on that link takes you to the Google cached version of that web page, instead of the current version of the page. This is useful if the original page is unavailable

10. Google Search Results Similar pages: results similar to current Google search result Spelling corrections and suggestions: Google automatically checks whether you are using the most common spelling of each word in your query Translation: provides a translation link and language tools to enable you to read pages written in unfamiliar languages

10. Google Search Results File type conversion: If you can’t view the page in the native format — for instance, if you don’t have Adobe Acrobat on your computer, or if you want faster access to the file — click on either the “View as HTML” or “View as Text” link

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