This document provides tips for better searching using Google. It discusses how Google ranks search results based on factors like how keywords are used on a page and how long a page has been online. Advanced search functions are explained, like using quotation marks to search for an exact phrase or a tilde to include related words. The document also demonstrates how to search for math problems, music, and emails directly through Google. Tips are provided for more academic research using tools like Google Scholar and excluding commercial sites.

1. Be#er
searching
Imogen
Ber0n

2. The
science
bit:
how
Google
works
h#p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHR6IQJGZs

3. Congruence:
matching
your
search
• Do
your
search
keywords
appear
in
the
page
0tle?
• In
the
URL?
• In
the
main
text
of
the
page?
Are
there
also
other
related
words
eg
synonyms?
• Is
the
page
good
quality?
How
long’s
it
been
there?
Do
other
quality
pages
link
to
it?
(Pagerank)
• Please
go
to
Google.com
and
carry
out
a
search
–
if
you
can’t
think
of
anything
try
“swallow
fledgling
survival
rate”.

4. What
do
the
results
mean?
The
actual
URL
or
web
address
is
in
green.
Reading
the
end
of
the
domain
(eg
.ie
or
.edu)
can
give
useful
info
The
blue
text
is
whatever
the
web
designer
entered
as
the
page
0tle
plus
here
the
file
type
pdf
The
black
text
is
called
the
“snippet”
You
can
choose
and
is
taken
from
what
type
of
result
For
scholarly
documents
you
can
see
the
body
of
the
eg
pictures
(images)
how
many
other
people
referenced
it
page

5. Google
advanced
search
• Does
exactly
what
it
says
on
the
0n…
h#p://www.google.ie/
advanced_search
• If
you
want
to
find
Ann
followed
by
Brown
and
not
all
the
Anns
and
all
the
Browns,
put
the
search
term
in
speech
marks
“Ann
Brown”

6. This
one
is
really
useful.
It
allows
you
to
search
within
a
specific
site.
Excellent
for
public
organisa0ons
with
useless
websites
and
hopeless
search
features
when
you
cannot
find
that
vital
form…
To
exclude
a
word
put
–
before
it
eg
Shark
–a#ack
in
the
query
box
To
include
words
with
similar
meanings
put
a
0lde
~
before
it
eg
~food
If
you
want
to
use
the
func0on
“or”
(ie
you
don’t
want
pages
with
both
search
terms
on)
then
it
has
to
be
in
upper
case
eg
swallow
OR
mar0n
otherwise
Google
will
ignore
it.
It
may
also
ignore
words
like
“and”
or
“in”

7. Your
turn
• Go
to
www.google.ie
• Can
you
work
out
how
you
would
use
what’s
on
the
previous
slide
to
search
for
reports
about
the
elderly
in
Ireland
that
use
another
word
for
elderly?
So
words
like
elderly
but
not
including
elderly?
• If
you
cracked
that
one
try
going
to
Advanced
search
at
h#p://
www.google.ie/advanced_search
and
take
the
“Find
pages
that
are
similar
to
or
link
to
a
URL”
op0on
and
read
through
that.
The
“related”
operator
is
a
great
way
to
find
similar
sites
when
you
didn’t
quite
get
the
page
you
wanted.
• Show
your
neighbour
what
you
found
and
discuss…

8. Finding
stuff
again…
• Go
to
h#p://www.google.com/history
• Sign
in
using
your
Google
account
if
requested
• Your
browser
also
probably
is
storing
all
your
web
searches
too…
If
you
know
you
looked
for
a
par0cularly
site
on
a
par0cular
day
just
click
it
on
the
calendar
to
find
it
again
• You
can
turn
off
the
history
recording…
we’ll
come
back
to
personalisa0on
and
privacy
later.

9. What
Google
and
facebook
hide…
• Eli
Pariser
h#p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzZzf6PoyC4

10. How
to
turn
off
personalisaCon
h#p://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2410479

11. Maths,
music
and
mail…!
• Maths:
just
type
it
into
the
search
box!
– Eg
what’s
96%
of
300?
Or
try
20
miles
convert
to
– It
knows
quite
a
lot
of
birthdays
and
birthplaces
of
celebs...
To
find
a
date
of
death
put
eg
die
Marilyn
Monroe
• To
find
an
email…
use
just
the
last
part
of
the
company
website
domain
like
this:
If
that
doesn’t
work
eg
for
senior
people
who
avoid
having
their
emails
on
public
web
pages,
it’s
worth
adding
filetype:pdf
OR
filetype:xls
OR
filetype:doc
• Example
of
a
music
search
for
Let
it
be:
in0tle:"index.of"
(mp3|mp4|wav)
let.it.be
-­‐html
-­‐htm
-­‐php
-­‐asp
-­‐jsp

12. Serious
research…
• Use
scholar.google.com
and
books.google.com
• Use
the
“gearwheel”
at
the
top
right
to
alter
your
setngs
and
add
any
library
links
that
you
have
access
to:
• Excludes
commercial
sites
–
more
manageable
• Includes
cita0on
counts
to
help
understand
which
ar0cles
are
best
regarded
by
peers

13. Your
turn
again…
• See
the
search
worksheet

14. Other
search
engines
• Wolfram
Alpha
is
Google
for
Geeks
h#p://www.wolframalpha.com
– The
data
is
organised
so
it
can
be
used
for
calcula0ons.
Try
putng
in
33
grams
of
gold
and
see
what
it
says…
– The
basis
of
Apple’s
Siri
interpreta0on
of
natural
language
into
queries
– WA
is
ace
at
everything
financial
and
scien0fic.
If
you
type
in
a
crossword
clue
you
can’t
get
but
where
you
know
some
of
the
le#ers
it
can
make
a
good
stab
at
finding
word
matches
• Dogpile
is
a
metasearch
engine
that
looks
at
Google,
Bing,
and
Yahoo
simultaneously.
It
can
be
useful!
• Bing
is
about
to
update
itself
to
include
be#er
social
results.
I
find
it
so
lame
I
have
not
included
it
today.
If
you
want
to
remove
it
as
your
default
search
engine
go
here:
h#p://
www.pcworld.com/ar0cle/204718/get_rid_of_bing.html
or
to
learn
about
it
try
here:
h#ps://seogadget.co.uk/what-­‐
marketers-­‐need-­‐know-­‐about-­‐bing-­‐2012/

15. Social
search
• Topsy
is
a
search
engine
devoted
to
spotng
men0ons
on
social
networks
h#p://www.topsy.com
– You
can
select
which
network
– It
allows
very
precise
0me
horizons
eg
past
3
hours

16. Social
search
• Twi#er
has
its
own
advanced
search
feature:
h#ps://
twi#er.com/#!/search-­‐advanced
– It’s
very
loca0onal
so
make
sure
you
set
the
“near
this
place”
op0on
correctly
(distance)
or
it
won’t
find
anything…
– If
you
need
to
search
for
a
product
or
person
or
company
regularly
you
can
save
your
searches
axer
you
have
made
them.
– “Twi#er
people
search
surfaces
results
with
preference
to
those
users
who
have
a
complete
name,
username,
and
bio
on
their
profile”.
– Just
clicking
on
a
#hashtag
in
a
tweet
automa0cally
creates
a
search
for
other
tweets
using
that
tag.
– People
who
send
a
lot
of
spammy
tweets
eg
entering
contests
will
be
“hidden”
by
twi#er
search…

17. Social
search
• YouTube
search:
the
key
is
to
learn
to
use
filter
bu#on
(under
the
logo)
and
how
to
spot
the
irrelevant
promoted
videos
(ads)…

18. Social
search
• For
facebook
search,
type
the
name
in
the
search
box
but
then
click
on
“more
results”
and
select
People
on
the
lex.
This
then
gives
you
filters
by
loca0on,
educa0on
and
workplace

19. Just
for
fun…
• Irish
airspace
live
radar
h#p://www.flightradar24.com/
53.18,-­‐5.68/8
• Type
in
any
flight
number
to
Google
and
it
will
give
status
• Of
course,
you
know
about
Google
Maps
and
Google
Translate?
• Google
Alerts
sent
to
your
email
can
be
very
useful
–
set
one
up
for
your
own
name
to
be
sure
nothing
strange
is
appearing
about
you
on
the
web…
h#p://www.google.com/alerts

20. Google
Trends
• Who
else
is
searching
a
topic
of
interest?
• Find
out
“hot
searches”
(ie
most
popular)
• h#p://www.google.com/trends
Thanks
to
Doreen
O’Mahony
of
MediaManager
for
this
one…

21. Bookmarking
to
keep
track
of
sites
• Pinboard
h#p://pinboard.in/
(my
personal
favourite)
• Evernote
h#p://evernote.com/
• Delicious
h#p://delicious.com
(not
as
good
as
it
was)
• Google
bookmarks
h#ps://www.google.com/bookmarks/
• All
these
install
a
small
app
in
your
browser
that
allows
you
to
tag
any
interes0ng
site
and
refind
it
easily
• To
understand
why
bookmarking
is
useful
watch
this:
h#p://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeBmvDpVbWc

22. Not
sure
about
the
webpage
found?
• Is
the
domain
name
appropriate?
Some
country
domains
(.ie,
.ca)
are
restricted
–
people
have
to
prove
they
have
a
right
to
use
them.
Also
.edu,
.gov,
.mil,
.ac.uk
– For
.com,
.net,
.org,
.net,
.us,
.uk
they
just
buy
them…
• Who
published
it?
NY
Times
or
a
government
website
may
be
more
reliable
than
eg
Business
Insider…
• Search
the
URL
in
alexa.com
(site
info
for…)
to
discover
• Who
owns
the
domain
• Who
links
to
the
site
(are
they
reputable?)
• Check
what
the
site
looked
link
in
the
past
using
Wayback
Machine
h#p://archive.org/web/web.php

23. Further
reading…
• New
“power
search”
course
free
from
Google
starts
July
10th…
6
x
50
minute
sessions
with
a
cer0ficate
at
the
end.
Register
here:
h#p://www.google.com/insidesearch/landing/
powersearching.html
• University
of
California
at
Berkeley
reference
sheet
(excellent
but
not
very
pre#y
to
read…)
h#p://www.lib.berkeley.edu/
TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Googling_Max-­‐Exercises.pdf
• Excellent
examples
of
search
problems
and
solu0ons:
h#p://
www.googleguide.com/solu0ons/
• These
slides
available
from
my
slideshare.net
account
imogenber0n…