Google Search Techniques

Google Search Techniques
Chau Man Duc

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Version

1.0 – Apr 3rd, 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

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Google Search Techniques
1.
What is Google?
2.
How Google works?
3.
Google Web Search Basics
4.
Full-Word Wildcards
5.
Special Syntax
6.
Special Search
7.
Use Google Search as Calculator
8.
Advanced Search
9.
Setting Preferences
10. Google Search Results

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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

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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/

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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/

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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

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2. How Google Works?

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3. Google Web Search Basics
1.
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”
1.
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)

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3. Google Web Search Basics
3.
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
3.
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”.

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3. Google Web Search Basics
5.
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)
5.
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..)

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3. Google Web Search Basics
7.
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.
7.
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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

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

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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

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7. Use Google Search as Calculator
1.
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

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7. Use Google Search as Calculator
2.
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

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7. Use Google Search as Calculator
3.
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

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7. Use Google Search as Calculator
3.
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 cal ed “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 ]

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8. Advanced Search

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

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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

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9. Setting Preferences

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9. Setting Preferences

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10. Google Search Results

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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

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10. Google Search Results

You wil 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

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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

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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

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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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THANK YOU

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