I remember when Google was a little sprite of an idea. While most other search engines could be manipulated so that all the big corporate websites were listed at the top, Google appeared with a new way of listing sites using complex algorithms, including such data as how many other websites were linking to it, thus ensuring that when you searched for something it would always return the most relevant pages.
And it worked brilliantly. The rest, as they say, is 'a multi-billion dollar turnover' history.
It's amazing to think that technology now gives you the ability to search through all the billions of pages in cyberspace to list all the pages (in the most relevant way) on whatever topic you care to be interested in, in just fractions of a second. But did you know that you can make Google even more useful? Here are some little tricks to make you into a Google expert. And not a lot of people know these.
1. You can search for specific phrases not just for random words. Suppose you wanted to search for Jane Smith. If you just put Jane Smith into Google then Google will very obediently return all the pages with
Jane Smith
Jane and then Smith somewhere else in the page.
As you can imagine, that would be a lot of pages: 4,750,000 in this example actually. But what if you just wanted pages specifically with the name 'Jane Smith' in? Well Google allows you to search for that too. Just put Jane Smith in quotes like this:
"Jane Smith"
And voila! Now Google returns only those pages specifically with "Jane Smith" in . Now you have only 771,000 pages to look through. That saves you looking through 4 million pages you didn't want. Isn't that useful! This little tip also extends to any combination of words you might be wanting to look for including famous quotes or phrases. That one tip alone can make you an expert at cutting through the cyber-jungle & finding just what you want using Google. But there's more.
2. Suppose you want to find all the pages on the Internet with specific words in but the words don't necessarily have to be together. You do that by putting a +sign in front of the words. You are in effect telling Google that it must return only pages with those words in. Let's stick with our Jane Smith example for now. Suppose you have just watched Doctor Who on television and you actually only want to find pages to do with the "Jane Smith" who appeared on Doctor Who. This is how you would do it.
+"jane smith" +"doctor who"
That means that Google will return only the pages from your original 770,000 which also contain the phrase "doctor who" (notice how we force Google to keep the words 'doctor' and 'who' together). Now with our clever use of the +sign and speech marks we have only 82,900 pages to look through, all of them more useful to the intention of our search.
But here's another thing. Suppose you are looking for a particular episode of Doctor Who with Jane Smith in, you know, the one about the Tardis. Then you search like this:
"jane smith" +"doctor who" +tardis
That refines your search even further, down to 36,000 pages. Hmm. Good, but could be better. So you remember the episode was one with red-haired people in:
"jane smith" +"doctor who" +tardis +"red-haired"
Google will now show you all the pages on the Internet that mention only all of the above in the exact way you specify. 36 actually. So now using Google in a more targeted fashion you can specifically hone in on exactly what you want to search for rather than looking among all the 4,700,000 original pages containing Jane Smith. Not bad. Not bad at all.
3. But get this. On Google you can exclude words or phrases you don't want, and so refine your search even more. Supposing you were searching for "Jane Smith" but the 'Jane Smith' you are looking for is nothing to do with Doctor Who and all those references are getting in the way of you looking. Easy. Just put a -sign next to "doctor who" like this:
"jane smith" -"doctor who"
Now Google will return only 'jane smith' pages without the phrase "doctor who". How brilliant is that?
Funnily enough, while I was looking, I noticed that taking away "doctor who" from "jane smith" actually returns more "jane smith" pages than before. That may be because a lot of people searching for "jane smith" are looking for a reference to the Doctor Who character and clearing 'her' out of the way opens Google to return more generic references to 'jane smith'. It just goes to show how complex those Google algorithms really are.
4. You can search specific websites by specifying the website you want Google to search. Then Google only searches that website. Suppose, for example, you want to search for the show, Dragons' Den on the BBC website. Put the site in the Google box and your phrase, like this:
site:www.bbc.co.uk "dragons' den"
And voila! There are actually 11,600 BBC pages on Dragons' Den. Wow, that's a lot of pages, BBC!
5. You can find out what a word or phrase actually means using Google. Here's how. Type the word 'define' followed by a colon, then the word you want to know about, like this:
define: palaeontology
Notice that that Google returns not only a definition but also
define: palaeontology
Notice that that Google returns not only a definition but also
- links to the explanatory pages
- and related phrases it can also define for you.
6. Use Google as a calculator. Type your numbers using +, -, / for division, * for multiplication, etc, then press search. Hey presto. As sure as 1+1=2, Google just got more useful.
7. Google offers lots of other fascinating tools. Follow this link to look at what all the uber-geeks are working feverishly on at the company that is one of the most sought-after companies to work for in the world.
Google is hoping to become a one-stop shop for all types of knowledge. One of the most interesting to me is that Google has been scanning in thousands upon thousands of books, many copyright-free, from some of the biggest libraries around the world. So it is becoming easier and easier to access information of all kinds using Google. You can search all the books Google has captured so far at http://books.google.co.uk/. Some are limited view but many of the copyright-free books have full-view available.
There are quite a few other neat little tricks that Google does. But these seven tips will help you search the Internet like a true professional. Now all you need to work out is exactly what you're looking for. Happy Surfing.
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