About the Course

Google Search Engine

http://www.google.com

Why Google?

Google searches more sites more quickly, delivering the most relevant results.

Google runs on a unique combination of advanced hardware and software. The heart is PageRank™, a system for ranking web pages. PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search.

A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search.

The Basics of Google Search

To enter a query into Google, just type in a few descriptive words and hit the 'enter' key (or click on the Google Search button) for a list of relevant web pages. Since Google only returns web pages that contain all the words in your query, refining or narrowing your search is as simple as adding more words to the search terms you have already entered.

Choosing Keywords

For best results, it's important to choose your keywords wisely. Keep these tips in mind:

· Try the obvious first. If you're looking for information on Picasso, enter "Picasso" rather than "painters".

· Use words likely to appear on a site with the information you want. "Luxury hotel dubuque" gets better results than "really nice places to spend the night in Dubuque".

· Make keywords as specific as possible. "Antique lead soldiers" gets more relevant results than "old metal toys".

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Search By Category

The Google Web Directory (located at directory.google.com) is a good place to start if you're not exactly sure which search keywords to use.. Searching within a category of interest allows you to quickly narrow in on only the most relevant pages to you.

Advanced Search Made Easy

You can increase the accuracy of your searches by adding operators that fine-tune your keywords. Most of the options listed on this page can be entered directly into the Google search box or selected from Google's Advanced Search page.

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Phrase Searches

Search for complete phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks. Words enclosed in double quotes ("like this") will appear together in all results exactly as you have entered them. Phrase searches are especially useful when searching

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Other Advanced Search Features

· Language: specify which language you would like your results returned in.

· Date: restrict your results to the past three, six, or twelve months.

· Occurrences: specify where your search terms occur on the page - anywhere on the page, in the title, or in the url.

· Domains: search only a specific website or exclude that site completely from your search.

Search Features

In addition to providing easy access to more than 3 billion web pages, Google has many special features to help you to find exactly what you're looking for.

	• Cached Links	Google takes a snapshot of each page examined as it crawls the web and caches these as a back-up in case the original page is unavailable. If you click on the "Cached" link, you will see the web page as it looked when indexed
	• Dictionary Definitions	To use Google to find dictionary definitions, enter your query into the search box as you would normally. Any or all parts of your query for which google has a dictionary definition will be underlined in the center text above the search results. Clicking on the link will take you to the relevant definition from a dictionary provider
	• File Types	There are 12 main file types searched by Google in addition to standard web formatted documents in HTML. The most common formats are PDF, PostScript, Microsoft Office formats.The additional file types provide Google users a wider view of the content available on the World Wide Web
	• I'm Feeling Lucky	The "I'm Feeling Lucky™" button takes you directly to the first web page Google returned for your query. You will not see the other search results at all
	• News Headlines	When searching on Google you may see links at the top of your results marked "News". These links connect you to reports culled from numerous news services .
	• PhoneBook	Look up U.S. street address and phone number information.
	• Similar Pages	When you click on the "Similar Pages" link for a search result, our GoogleScout technology automatically scouts the web for pages that are related to this result. .
	• Site Search	The word "site" followed by a colon enables you to restrict your search to a specific site.
	• 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..
	• Stock Quotes	Use Google to get stock and mutual fund information.
	• Street Maps	Use Google to find U.S. street maps.
	• Web Page Translation	Google breaks the language barrier with this translation feature. Using machine translation technology, Google now gives English speakers access to a variety of non-English web pages. This feature is currently available for pages published in Italian, French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese.