The material on this page is based on a presentation by Nancy Ruff and Christin Chaya at the May 2006 MAGIC meeting.
CONTENTS
What is a search engine?
Google Cheat-sheet
The Google Song
"Do No Evil"
Google Sampler
Google Fun Sites
Depending on what source you use, there are at least 160 search engines in operation. There are, however, only 10 or 12 which could be considered "major" -- those that are well known, well-used, commercially backed and generally more dependable, well-managed and updated. They include:
| NETSCAPE | |
| YAHOO! | MSN SEARCH |
| ASK.COM/TEOMA | LYCOS/HOTBOT |
| ALL THE WEB | GIGABLAST |
| AOL SEARCH | LOOK SMART |
| SEARCH ENGINE COLOSSUS | METACRAWLER |
| MAMMA | DOGPILE |
We all know Google -- it is recognized by most people who evaluate search engines as well as those of us who use them as the first choice. It has been named Most Outstanding Search Engine 4 times. It is most recognized for its coverage and relevancy.
Yahoo is one of the oldest search engines -- it began operation in 1994. At first, Yahoo used individuals to organize data, but now uses a "crawler": by the way, in web speak, a crawler refers to a computer program that automatically gathers and categorizes information on the internet. Over the years, Yahoo has purchased Go to, Overture, and Alta Vista, which was the Google of its day
Google is probably the most famous and most used search engine today. We regularly hear that we are going to "Google something" or someone, and we don't normally hear people say they will Yahoo! it or MSN it, so we are concentrating on Google and hope to give you some tips to help you use it more efficiently and more effectively.
Often when we put a word or phrase in the search box, we are hoping to get what we need with fewer than 145 billion listings to search through. Sometimes we get lucky. So what is a Google? When it was first introduced, just about everyone but mathematicians wondered what in the world it meant or stood for. Many mathematicians knew that googol was a huge number (the number 1 followed by 100 zeros) and the founders of Google wanted its name to characterize what its scope was. That is, it represents the gigantic amount of material available on the Web Google is now used commonly as a verb -- as I said before, how often do you hear someone say "I googled it" or "let's Google it". But what google really is, is a successful and growing search engine.
Until we began preparing for this presentation, I had no idea how much there was on Google. I used it as a search engine, and then I discovered the images and stole a few of those, but I think now I could pretty much live my life with just my computer and internet connection and function quite well -- I think I read recently in USA Today that a guy did just that for 6 months or a year - Actually, when you think about it, it's kind of sad!
Here are some of the things available on the Google site:
| blogs | store | images |
| maps | news | |
| widgets | video | web alerts |
| catalogs | criticism | sight seeing |
We're going to be visiting a number of Google pages during this presentation, but I wanted to actually put the cheat-sheet on slides so you could visit it on the MAGIC website and learn to use Google more efficiently.
It can also be found at: http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html
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| OPERATOR EXAMPLE | FINDS PAGES CONTAINING... | |||||
| vacation hawaii | the words vacation and Hawaii . | |||||
| Maui OR Hawaii | either the word Maui or the word Hawaii | |||||
| "To each his own" | the exact phrase to each his own | |||||
| virus –computer | the word virus but NOT the word computer | |||||
| Star Wars Episode +I | This movie title, including the roman numeral I | |||||
| ~auto loan | loan info for both the word auto and its synonyms: truck, car, etc. | |||||
| define:computer | definitions of the word computer from around the Web. | |||||
| red * blue | the words red and blue separated by one or more words. | |||||
| I'm Feeling Lucky | Takes you directly to first web page returned for your query. | |||||
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| CALCULATOR OPERATORS | MEANING | TYPE INTO SEARCH BOX | ||||
| + | addition | 45 + 39 | ||||
| - | subtraction | 45 – 39 | ||||
| * | multiplication | 45 * 39 | ||||
| / | division | 45 / 39 | ||||
| % of | percentage of | 45% of 39 | ||||
| ^ | raise to a power | 2^5 (2 to the 5th power) |
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| ADVANCED OPERATORS | MEANING | WHAT TO TYPE INTO SEARCH BOX (& DESCRIPTION OF RESULTS) | ||||
| site: | Search only one website | admission site:www.stanford.edu (Search Stanford Univ. site for admissions info.) |
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| [#]…[#] | Search within a range of numbers |
DVD player $100..150 (Search for DVD players between $100 and $150) |
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| date: | Search only a range of months |
Olympics date: 3 (Search for Olympics references within past 3 months; 6 and 12-month date-restrict options also available) |
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| safesearch: | Exclude adult-content | safesearch: sex education (Search for sex education material without returning adult sites) |
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| link: | linked pages | link:www.stanford.edu (Find pages that link to the Stanford University website.) |
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| info: | Info about a page | info:www.stanford.edu (Find information about the Stanford University website.) |
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| related: | Related pages | related:www.stanford.edu (Find websites related to the Stanford University website.) |
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GOOGLE SERVICES |
URL | DESCRIPTION | ||||
| Google Images | images.google.com | Find images related to your search term. | ||||
| Google News | news.google.com | Read the most up-to-date news stories about your search term. | ||||
| Froogle | www.froogle.com | Find sites selling the exact product you're looking for. | ||||
| Google Groups | groups.google.com | Usenet discussion group archive dating back to 1981. | ||||
| Google Catalogs | catalogs.google.com | Search hundreds of online catalogs. | ||||
| Google Labs | labs.google.com | Test-drive potential future Google products and services. | ||||
| Blogger | www.blogger.com | Start your own online journal (or 'blog')
with this free self-publishing service. |
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During the original presentation, an especially written song was performed by Christin Chaya. To hear that song click here (warning: the file is nearly 900 kbytes and will take a while to load on a phone hook up - a high speed connection is recommended. QuickTime® is required to play the song.)
I mentioned earlier that Google's motto is "do no evil" and I do want to just mention a few things about that before we start web searching.
Google's motto generally works -- they provide free information and help for a number of things including free blogs and interactive calendars for groups (individuals, non-profits -- altho the writers association set up a calendar and we discovered it doesn't support Safari) The same could be true for the blogs -- I haven't checked that out.
The free blogger program has been upgraded and lets you compose and design a blog and then publish it. The new iLife does have a blog feature which is highly regarded by reviewers.
Google has a 4 year old search engine, Corporate America, which can fish through a deep pool of data and displays the information in a box near the top of the screen so users don't have to scan through other pages.
Probably the most visible and generous thing Google offers is free advertising through Grants to non-profits. The program is like the pay-per-click ad words program except that the non-profit doesn't pay for clicks. Google has given away close to $50 million in free advertising to almost 1,000 non-profits in the last two years. So far, Google is the only search engine doing this altho Yahoo is testing a similar concept with 12 non-profit groups. They only offer the grant to non-religious and non-political groups, so groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Catholic Relief Services and Sierra Club. And not every group uses the ads to raise money -- some just direct the person who clicks to an information source
I plan to apply for MAGIC, but the requirements are a bit more complicated and I haven't taken the time to do it.
One thing that Google has been accused of it profiting from typos. At first I thought this was when I typed in Josh Brogan (rather than Josh Groban) to look for information on his Seattle concert last year. I got a message that said, "Do you mean Josh Groban?", and listed sites for Josh Groban. That is a help for searchers.
But if I typed in joshbrogan.com, Google would move me to an otherwise unused web site which has ads. If I were to click on an ad, Google (and Yahoo, who also does this) gets paid and shares their revenue with the owners of the domain names. It is estimated that 15% of web traffic is generated this way and that almost half of Google's $6 billion in revenue last year came from this practice. The Washington Post found hundreds of active websites with Google ads that appear to be misspelled variations of well-known company names, known as typo-domains. Their owners are called typosquatters.
It's a complicated process and advertising on unused domains generates a lot of criticism -- there are people who buy up unused domains and earn revenue. The Washington Post interviewed one man who owns 6,600 domains and makes over $1 million a year from advertising. There is also the problem of trademark violation -- Yahoo and Google both use filters to identify domain names that are celebrity names, typos of trademarks and references to illegal activities.
However, there are also those who say that it helps people find information related to what they're looking for.
So, it depends on how you look at it!
| http://www.google.com | Go to the home page and click on "More" |
| http://www.googleguide.com | Tips for both novices and for experienced searchers |
| http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/ Internet/Google.html |
Googling to the Max; includes notes on Google shortcomings |
| http://www.learnwebskills.com/search/google.html | A tutorial |
| http://www.video.google.com | Some clips are free, others are 99¢ to $3.99 |
| http://www.googlefight.com | Compares Google to other search engines |
| http://douweosinga.com/projects/googlehacks | Assorted Fun Stuff and hacks |
| http://www.google-watch.org/ | Google watch - the anti Google people! |
| http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/ news/googlenewswidget.html |
A news widget for Macintosh Tiger that uses Google |
| http://www.google.com/alerts | News alerts |
| http://moon.google.com/ | A map of the Moon with Apollo landing sites |
Unfortunately, we have probably solved any of your sleepless night problems and perhaps have estranged you from your family and friends forever -- and beware, we've barely touched the surface! Once you start searching Google (in addition to using Google to search), you may find if difficult to stop!
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Copyright: |
©Macintosh Appreciation Group of Island County (MAGIC) 2006
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