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Google calls itself the “World’s Best Search Engine,” and by most accounts that statement is a true one. Google is not only the world’s largest and most trafficked search site, it’s also one of the 10 most popular sites on the entire Internet. Just look at these statistics:
More than 73.5 million unique users visit Google each month
Google is used for more than 200 million searches every day
Google’s search engine indexes more than 3 billion Web pages, more than 425 million images, and more than 700 million Usenet messages
Google provides an interface for 88 different languages and offers results in 35 languages—more than half of Google’s traffic is from outside the U.S. Unlike a portal like Yahoo!, Google is all about searching—no e-mail, no personalized start page, no streaming audio or video. But that doesn’t mean Google is just a simple query box. Google offers basic and advanced Web searching, an editor-driven directory, and dozens of specific searches—for images, news articles, Usenet newsgroup messages, street addresses and phone numbers, and stock quotes and information.

Google’s newest services let you search online catalogs and Web sites for products to buy and to narrow your searches to specific government and university sites. Google even lets Web site developers incorporate Google searches into their own Web sites and build custom applications using Google Web Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Chapter 1: Google Secrets 1 Google at a Glance If you’re a typical Internet user, you access Google several times a week, if not several times a day. As a typical user, you also don’t use a tenth of Google’s search power—which means you’re not searching as effectively or as efficiently as you could. That’s probably because you never move beyond Google’s admittedly easy-to-use home page. The Google home page (www.google.com) is a marvel of simplicity and elegant Web page design & most searches can be undertaken by entering a query into the search box and then clicking the Google Search button. This returns a list of results ranked in order of relevance. Google’s simple, easy-to-use home page. caution Google queries cannot exceed 10 words in length. Most users like Google’s easy-to-use, uncluttered interface; its fast operation; and its quality search results. What most users don’t know is that Google offers a variety of specialty search services that you can use to perform more targeted searches. Read on, then, to discover the secrets of Google searching—and become a Google power searcher. ?Se?cret # 2 : Why Google Delivers More Targeted Results Than Other Search Engines Like most of the major search engines, Google assembles the pages in its search index by using special “searchbot” or crawler software to scour the Web. Found pages are automatically added to Google’s ever-expanding database; when you perform a search, you’re actually searching this database of Web pages, not the Web itself. The results of your Google searches are ranked according to Google’s trademarked PageRank technology.

This technology measures how many other pages link to a particular page; the more links to a page, the higher that page ranks. In addition, PageRank assigns a higher weight to links that come from higher-ranked pages. So if a page is linked to from a number of high-ranked pages, that page will itself achieve a higher ranking. The theory is that the more popular a page is, the higher that page’s ultimate value. While this sounds a little like a popularity contest (and it is), it’s surprising how often this approach delivers high-quality results. The number of Web pages indexed by Google is among the largest of all search engines (Google and AllTheWeb are continually jockeying for “biggest” bragging rights), which means you stand a fairly good chance of actually finding what you were searching for. And the Google search engine is relatively smart; it analyzes the keywords in your query and recognizes the type of search result you’re looking for. (For example, if you enter a person’s name and city, it knows to search its phone book—not the general Web index.) ?Se?cre t # 3 : Bypass the Search Results—and Go Directly to the First Page on the List You have another option after you enter your search query, other than clicking the Google Search button. When you click the I’m Feeling Lucky button, Google shoots you directly to the Web page that ranked at the top of your search results, no extra clicking necessary. If you trust Google to always deliver the one best answer to your query, this is a fun option to try. For the rest of us, however, it’s still best to view the rest of the search results to see what other sites might match what we’re looking for. ?Se?cre t # 4 : Google Automatically Corrects Your Spelling That’s right—you don’t have to be a spelling bee winner to search with Google. That’s because Google has built-in automatic spelling correction.

If you inadvertently misspell a search query, Google recognizes what you meant to type and provides the correct spelling for you. So go ahead and type as fast as you can. Google will correct all your spelling mistakes. ?Se?cret # 5 : Don’t Bother with Capitalization When you’re entering a Google query, don’t waste time pressing the Shift key on your computer keyboard. That’s because the Google search engine isn’t case sensitive. So it doesn’t matter how you capitalize the words in your query—Red Dog and red dog will both return the same results. ?Se?cret # 6 : Search for Similar Words Not sure you’re thinking of the right word for a query? Do you figure that some Web pages might use alternate words to describe what you’re thinking of? Then use synonyms in your searches! Google uses the tilde (~) operator to search for synonyms of a specific word. Just enter the tilde before the keyword, like this: ~keyword. For example, to search for words that are like the word “elderly,” enter the query ~elderly. This will find pages that include not just the word “elderly,” but also the words “senior,” “older,” and so on. ?Se?cret # 7 : Conduct an Either/Or Search When you enter multiple keywords in a search query, how does Google parse all those words? It’s quite simple, really. By default, Google searches for Web pages that contain all the words you entered. That means that Google is inserting an invisible “and” between the words in your search query. For example, if you enter red corvette as your query, Google reads this as red AND corvette, and searches for pages that contain both the words “red” and “corvette.” Results are likely to include pages dedicated to the Prince song, as well as to owners of crimson cruisers. But if a page is only about ‘Vettes—and doesn’t specifically mention red ones—it won’t be listed. The bottom line? You don’t have to enter that AND between keywords; Google does it for you. On the other hand (and here’s where the secret starts), if you want to search for pages that contain either one or another keyword (but not necessarily both), you have to give Google explicit instructions. You do this by using the special OR operator.

So, to search for pages that include either of the words you enter, you insert this OR operator between the words in your query. (Surrounded by spaces, of course.) Using the example from the previous secret, if you want to search for pages that contain either the word “red” or the word “corvette,” you enter the query red OR corvette. This will return all pages that include the word “red” as well as all pages that include the word “corvette,” no intersection necessary. So, you’ll get a lot of pages about red balloons and red robins, as well as general pages about Corvettes—as well as those pages that include both words. ?Se?cret # 8 : Search for an Exact Phrase Here’s one of Google’s most powerful search tools, but also one that not enough users know about. When you want to search for a particular item that you describe in multiple words, enclose the entire phrase in quotation marks. This forces Google to search for the exact phrase, and thus returns more targeted results. For example, if you’re searching for Monty Python, you could enter monty python as your query, and you’d get acceptable results; the results will include pages that include both the words “monty” and “python.” But these results will include not only pages about the British comedy troupe, but also pages about snakes named Monty, and guys named Monty who have snakes for pets. To limit the results just to pages about the Monty Python troupe, you want to search for pages that include the two words in that precise order. So you should enter the query “monty python”—making sure to include the quotation marks. This way if the word “monty” occurs at the top of a page and “python” occurs at the bottom, it won’t be listed in the search results. Let’s take this a step further. Want to search for the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Enter “monty python and the holy grail”. Your results will be much more targeted than if your query includes all these words separately without the quotation marks. ?Se?cret # 9 : Let Google Complete the Phrase Unlike most other search engines, Google does not support the use of wildcards to complete a keyword, nor does it use automatic stemming. Wildcards would let you search for all words that include the first part of a keyword; for example, a search for book* (with the * wildcard) would typically return results for “books,” “bookstore,” “bookkeeper,” and so on. Stemming is kind of like an automatic wildcard, where entering the keyword book would return all the aforementioned results (“books,” “bookstore,” etc.), no wildcard necessary. Since Google doesn’t support wildcards or stemming, you have to enter all forms of any words you want to search for. Using the above example, you would have to enter the query book OR books OR bookstore OR bookkeeper to return all possible results. It’s a bit of a bother and a real weakness when you’re comparing Google to search engines with more powerful query features, such as AltaVista. However, Google does let you use whole-word wildcards within a phrase search. That is, you can search for a complete phrase even if you’re not sure of all the words in the phrase.

You let the * wildcard character stand in for those words you don’t know. Here’s an example. Let’s say you want to search for pages that discuss Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech, but you’re not sure whether he “has,” “had,” or “have” that dream. So you use the * wildcard to stand in for the word in question, and enter the following query: “i * a dream”. You can use multiple wildcards within a single phrase, within reason. While “* * a dream” might return acceptable results, “* * * dream” is a fairly useless query. ?Se?cret # 10 : Include Stop Words in Your Search In an effort to produce more efficient searches, Google automatically disregards certain common words, called stop words, that you might include in your search queries. Including a stop word in a search normally does nothing but slow the search down, which is why Google excises them. Examples of the types of words that Google ignores are “where,” “how,” and “what,” as well as certain single letters (“a”) and digits. For example, if you enter the query how electricity works, Google ignores the “how” and searches only for “electricity” and “works.” If you want to include specific stop words in your search, you have to instruct Google to do so. You do this by adding a plus sign (+) to your query, immediately followed (with no space) by the stop word you want to include. (Make sure you put a space before the plus sign but not afterwards!) Using our example, to include the stop word “how” in your search, you’d enter the following query: +how electricity works.

If a particular stop word is part of a phrase, you can also use the phrase operator to include the stop word in your query. In this particular example, you could enter the query “how electricity works” and the stop word “how” would automatically be included. insider insight ?Se?cret # 11 : Exclude Words from Your Results Just as you can use the “plus” operator to specifically include words in your results, you can use the contrasting “minus” operator to exclude pages that include specific words. This is particularly useful if you’ve used a word in your query that has more than one meaning. For example, if you search for cloud, you could get pages about those fluffy floating things, or about a blurring or obscuring (of vision, of minds, etc.). If you don’t want your results to include clouds of the meteorological variety, enter a query that looks like this: cloud –cumulus. If you want to search for bass—the singer, not the fish—you’d enter bass –fish. And so on. insider insight You can also use the “plus” operator to make sure your results include pages that contain a specific word. Using the meteorological example, to search for pages about floating clouds, enter the query cloud + cumulus. (Although, technically, the “plus” operator isn’t necessary because Google includes an automatic AND between all the keywords in a query.) ?Se?cret # 12 : Narrow Your Search to Specific File Types Google can search for information contained in all sorts of documents—not just HTML Web pages. In particular, Google searches for the following file types and extensions in addition to normal Web pages:
Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)
Adobe PostScript (PS)
Lotus 1-2-3 (WK1, WK2, WK3, WK4, WK5, WKI, WKS, WKU)
Lotus WordPro (LWP)
MacWrite (MW)
Microsoft Excel (XLS)
Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT)
Microsoft Word (DOC)
Microsoft Works (WDB, WKS, WPS)
Microsoft Write (WRI)
Rich Text Format (RTF)
Text (ANS, TXT) If you want to restrict your results to a specific file type, add the following phrase to your query: filetype:filetype. For example, if you want to search only for Microsoft Word documents, enter filetype:doc. To eliminate a particular file type from your search results, add the following phrase to your query: -filetype:filetype. For example, if you want to eliminate PDF files from your results, enter -filetype:pdf. ?Se?cret # 13 : Narrow Your Search to a Specific Domain or Web Site Maybe you want to search only those sites within a specific top-level Web domain, such as .com or .org or .edu—or, perhaps, within a specific country’s domain, such as .uk (United Kingdom) or .ca (Canada). Google lets you do this by using the site: operator. Just enter the operator followed by the domain name, like this: site:.domain.

For example, to search only those sites within the .edu domain, you’d enter site:.edu. To search only Canadian sites, enter site:.ca. Remember to put the “dot” before the domain. The site: operator can also be used to restrict your search to a specific Web site. In this instance, you enter the entire top-level URL, like this: site:www .website.domain. For example, to search only within my personal Molehill Group Web site (www.molehillgroup.com), enter site:www.molehillgroup.com. To search only within Microsoft’s Web site (www.microsoft.com), enter site:www.microsoft.com. Your results will include only pages listed within the specified Web site. ?Se?cret # 14 : Narrow Your Search to Words in the Page’s Title, URL, Body Text, or Link Text Google offers two methods for restricting your search to the titles of Web pages, ignoring the pages’ body text. If your query contains a single word, use the intitle: operator. If your query contains multiple words, use the allintitle: operator. We’ll look at some examples. If you want to look for pages with the word “Toyota” in the title, use the intitle: operator and enter this query: intitle:toyota. If you want to look for pages with both the words “Toyota” and “Camry” in the title, use the allintitle: operator and enter this query: allintitle: toyota camry. Notice that when you use the allintitle: operator, all the keywords after the operator are searched for; you separate the keywords with spaces. If you enter intitle:toyota camry, Google will only search for the word “Toyota” in the page titles; it will conduct a normal full-page search for the word “Camry”. caution Similar to the intitle: and allintitle: operators are the inurl: and allinurl: operators. These operators let you restrict your search to words that appear in Web page addresses, or URLs. You use these operators in the same fashion: inurl: to search for single words and allinurl: to search for multiple words. It’s more likely that you’ll want to search the body text of Web pages. You can restrict your search to body text only (excluding the page title, URL, and link text), by using the intext: and allintext: operators. The syntax is the same as the previous operators; use intext: to search for single words and allintext: to search for multiple words.

There’s one more operator similar to the previous batch: inanchor: lets you restrict your search to words in the link, or anchor, text on a Web page. This is the text that accompanies a hypertext link—the underlined text on the page. For example, to search for links that reference the word “dinosaur,” you’d enter inanchor:dinosaur. ?Se?cret # 15 : Travel Back in Time for Your Search When you conduct your search, do you have in mind a particular page or article that you remember reading a year or so ago? Then what you want is a time machine—one that can take you back to search the Web as it existed at a particular point in time. Google can be that time machine. Google lets you limit your search results to Web pages created within a particular date range. This way you can eliminate newer (or older) pages from your results, and glimpse a snapshot of the Web the way it once was. There are two ways to restrict your Google search to a specific date range. The first is the least practical, but it’s worth discussing anyway. When you use the daterange: operator, Google restricts its search to Web pages that match the dates you enter. Know, however, that Google dates the pages in its index based on when it indexed them—not when the pages were actually created. So if a page was created sometime back in 1999 but Google didn’t get around to indexing it until June 15, 2003, it will be dated June 15, 2003. It’s an imperfect way to approach this issue, but it’s the only one that Google offers. And there’s another catch to using the daterange: operator—you have to express the date as a Julian date, which is a continuous count of dates since January 1, 4713 BC. If you don’t feel like calculating your own Julian dates—and who does?— you can look them up at the U.S. Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department Web site (aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/ juliandate.html). insider insight.