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Introduction toGoogle

Part 1—Search Techniques

and Tips

Welcome to Googling to the Max part 1—search techniques and tips. In this section, I will cover the basicsof searching with Google and introduce you to some more advanced techniques that will get you on the roadto becoming expert searchers.

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Joe Barkerjbarker@library.berkeley.edu

John Kupersmithjkupersm@library.berkeley.edu

A “Know Your Library” WorkshopTeaching Library, University of California, Berkeley

Fall 2005COURSE PAGE URL:http ://www . lib .berkeley .edu/Teaching Lib/Guides/Internet/Goog le.htm l

The information in this tutorial was adapted from a workshop designed by Joe Barker and John Kupersmithat the University of California at Berkeley. The slide format and the basic material in this online course isused with their permission. Supplemental details were found in the book “Google: the missing Manual bySarah Mill-steen and Ray-el Dornfest.

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Googling

Goals and Objectives

Learn why Google is the most popularsearch engine

Learn how Google works Learn how to craft useful searches

The Goals and objectives for this section of the course are toLearn why Google is the most popular search engineLearn how Google worksLearn how to craft useful searches

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GooglingWhy Google?

Biggest web search engine database 22+ billion pages

Unique PageRank™ system Many useful features, shortcuts, and

special Google databases & services

NOTE: POWERPOINT IS SET TO CLICK EACH LINE.CAMTASIA FILM NOTE—BE CAREFUL

Why use Google?

Google is currently the biggest web search engine database. It searches over 22 billion pagesGoogle uses a unique algorithm called a PageRank system to get targeted results for your search queries. I’llexplain PageRank in more detail later.Finally, Google offers many useful features, shortcuts and special databases and services. These will becovered in other sections of this course.

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GooglingWhat’s Googling?

Crafting searches likely to work Knowing how Google “thinks” about your

searches Exploiting Google’s strengths and

weaknesses Knowing what Google’s special features

and databases can do for you

NOTE: POWERPOINT IS SET TO CLICK EACH LINE.CAMTASIA FILM NOTE—BE CAREFUL

What is Googling?Googling is knowing how google thinks so that you can create searches that are going to work best for yourneeds.Googling is knowing how to exploit Google’s strengths and weaknesses (yes Google does have a fewweaknesses!)Googling is also knowing how to access and use Google’s special features and databases. The specialfeatures and databases will be highlighted in another part of this course.

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GooglingHow Google works Spider program finds pages on the public

web; builds huge database of web pages The Search box gives you ways to search

this database PageRank™ arranges your results

Importance - traffic, popularity of pageslinking to a page

Popularity - a link to a page is a vote for it Word proximity and placement

NOTE: POWERPOINT IS SET TO CLICK EACH LINE.CAMTASIA FILM NOTE—BE CAREFUL

How Google works

A spider program finds pages on the public web and builds a huge database from the web pages. Wordnetdefines a spider as “a computer program that prowls the internet looking for publicly accessible resourcesthat can be added to a database”

The familiar search box on Google’s home page gives users a way to search this database by entering searchterms and symbols that act as search limiters.

Google’s unique pagerank system decides how the results should be organized for display.

The page rank system looks at a number of thingsFirst it looks at the links going to a particular page and considers those links to be like votes. For example, ifyou do a search for “stamp collecting” one page that consistently is at or near the top of the hit list iswww.stamps.org. There are many pages that link to www.stamps.org, so it got lots of votes according topagerank.

Google also looks at the pages that cast those votes, based on the number of sites that link to them—sort of apopularity contest.

Finally, Google looks at the search terms themselves and where they are in relation to each other and theweb pages and documents that they are in.

All of these factors (plus some that Google keeps secret) make up the unique search algorithm that googlecalls PageRank. PageRank by the way, doesn’t refer to web pages, it is named after one of Google’sfounders, Larry Page.

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GooglingThe Google Search Interface

Here is Google’s home page.When you go to this page, at www.google.com, the default setting is for a general Web search. Otheroptions that are possible from the home page screen include images, videos, news and maps. There are alsolinks for more search options, advanced searching, preference settings and Language tools.

In this section of the course, I will be concentrating just on Web searching. See section four of this course ofinformation about Advanced Searching, Preference Settings and Language Tools. See Section three forsearching images, videos, news, maps and more. In section four, I will introduce you to some new projectsthat Google has in the works as well as some fun with Google.

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GooglingHow Google Thinks AND

Is automatically implied between searchterms in the search box

Is automatically implied when searching textof pages within the same site

Example: california vacation anaheim

So far, you’ve learned a bit about how google works behind the scenes. Now we’re going to start talkingbout how google thinks. Knowing how google thinks will help you understand how to get faster, moreaccurate results from your searches.

First, when you enter two or more words into google’s search box, it automatically assumes that you meanAND between each of your search terms.

For example, if you enter the words california vacation anaheim it is the same thing as entering californiaAND vacation AND anaheim. In fact if you type and in between each term, google gives you the followingmessage:

The "AND" operator is unnecessary -- we include all search terms by default

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GooglingHow Google Thinks

It STEMS some words It finds word with various endings

Search kite flying and get matches on kite,kites, kiting and flying, fly, flies

You can turn off stemming by using + or “” asin +kite +flying or “kite flying”

Google stems words to allow for various endings and verb tenses. If you search for kite flying, you will getresults that show the words kite, kites, kiting, flying, fly and flies.

If you don’t want google to stem your words, you can tell it not to do that.

A plus sign forces google to just search for that specific term. If you only want to search the for the wordkite or the term kite flying you can use a plus sign or quotes to make your search very specific.

In the example on the screen, the searcher wanted the specific words kite and flying or the specific phrase“kite flying”. To force specific words, use the plus sign in front of the word. Make sure you don’t put aspace between the plus sign and the word. To find a specific phrase, use quotes around the phrase.

Quotes are often called a searchers “best friend”. You can get very targeted results using this technique. Forsome fun, try using quotes in a vanity search—that is searching for your own name on the Internet. Put yourname (or that of someone you know in quotes) in the Google search box and see if you can find yourself onthe Internet—you may be surprised by what you find!

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GooglingHow Google Thinks It IGNORES common or STOP words

When this happens, a gray message boxappears just below the search box whichtells you what was ignored

You can force Google to look for stop wordsby using the + sign or putting the word(s) inquotes Examples of stop words include the, and, or,

where, this, who, with, for, from

Google ignores common words, also called “stop “ words in database and internet searches.

Stop words don’t stop the search, they are just ignored. Notice that “and” is stop word. Remember that ANDis implied in searches; you don’t need to use this word to join search terms together.

A few stop words are the, and, or, where, this, who, with, for and from. Remember, this is not an all-inclusive list. You will discover other stop words in your searches.

Before we leave this screen, I want to point out that “or” in lowercase letters is considered a stop word.When OR is in uppercase letters, it is considered a Boolean search term. Go to the next screen for anexplanation of when to use uppercase OR.

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GooglingHow Google Thinks Using OR between words can broaden your

search California OR oregon OR “pacific coast” “global warming” OR “greenhouse effect”

Google uses the Boolean OR search to broaden search terms. As I mentioned on the previous slide, or is onthe list of stop words. That’s because when or is in small letters it is ignored; when it is in capital letters ithelps define a search by making it broader. When you use or, you are telling Google to search for “this” OR“that”. This is particularly helpful when several terms that mean roughly the same thing, as in the “globalwarming OR “greenhouse effect”.

AND and OR are two Boolean search terms. Google doesn’t support full Boolean searching For moreinformation about about this topic, see the Boolean Searching tutorial in the LATI website.

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GooglingHow Google Ranks Pages RANKING favors pages that have your

phrases close together and in the ordertyped. So, with Google, the order in which you

place your words for searching really doesmatter.

(see next two slides for examples)

Google’s ranking system favors pages that have your phrases close together and in the order typed.So with Google, the order in which you place your words for searching really does matter.

The next two slides show some examples.

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GooglingExample Searches Grass snake—mostly about a kind of

snake; stemming also matches snakesand grasses

Snake grass—mostly about a kind ofgrass, not present in 1st search

Snake in the grass—most pages containthis expression, even though Google saidin and the were ignored; also finds pageswith grass snake and a few with snakegrass (cont.)

If you search for Grass Snake, your results will mostly be about a kind of snake. Google’s stemming featurewill also match those words to snakes and grasses.

If you search for Snake Grass, your results will mostly be about a kind of grass.

If you search for the words snake in the grass, most of the pages do contain this complete expression, eventhough google said that in and the were ignored. It also finds pages with grass snake and a few with snakegrass.

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GooglingExample Searches Cont. Snake +in +the grass—eliminates pages

not containing in and the somewhere “snake in the grass” Most specific and

precise. Requires exact phrase in allpages.

If you force google to include the stop words in and the, it will eliminate pages not containing in and thesomewhere. Since most pages contain these words, this type of search probably won’t get you the bestresults for what you are looking for.

By putting quotes around “snake in the grass”, you will get much more precise search results than youwould in the previous example. This search requires that this exact phrase occur in all pages. Quotes aresometimes referred to as a “searcher’s best friend”.—they are often the best, most direct way of findingaccurate results when using a search engine or searching in a database.

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GooglingPunctuation that is Not Ignored Apostrophe—peoples, people’s and

peoples’ are searched as different words Hyphen—same-sex retrieves same-sex,

same sex and samesex Accent marks in foreign

languages—éléphant doesn’t matchelephant

Asterisk—this is a whole word wildcard.Google doesn’t have a wildcard thatsubstitutes for single letter(s)

If your search term has an apostrophe in it, first try entering it exactly. If you don’t find what you arelooking for, try entering it without the apostrophe-- you will get different results.

With hyphenated words, google will look for words with the hyphen, without the hyphen and alsocompound words that combine the hyphenated words together.

Google treats accented letters as different symbols. It will not match a word with accents to one without.

An asterisk is a wild card symbol that substitutes for a whole word. Google doesn’t have a wildcard forsingle letters.

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Googling“Fuzzy” ThinkingSearch Options

Tilde (~)—Google will “think” of wordswith similar meanings ~food matches recipes, nutrition, cooking ~facts matches information, statistics ~help matches guide, tutorial, FAQ, manual

If you aren’t sure which is the best search term to use, you might try using Google’s fuzzy logic feature. Ifyou put a tilde [til-duh] in front of your search term, it will “think” of words with similar meanings. This isparticularly helpful when you are trying to narrow down very general searches as in the examples shownhere.

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GooglingSimilar Pages Google will “think” of pages like the one

you chose. You can use the similar pageslink, or force it to look for similar pageswith the related: [URL] command Related:www.cnn.com will bring up pages for

CNN, New York Times, MSNBC, Fox News,etc.

Google will think of pages like the one you choose by using links to and from the page, words in the pageand the importance of the pages in linksPossible uses for this include –evaluating web pages, finding comparable pages and broadening searches byseeing what else links to a particular website.When using the “related colon” search limiter, don’t put any space between the colon and the url.

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GooglingSearching Specific Sections ofWeb Pages

Intitle:searchterm-- Words must occur inthe official title field of the page Example: Intitle:mileageThis searches for the term mileage in the page

title

The intitle search limiter forces google to look for your search term in the official title field of the page. (Bytitle field, I am referring to the title field in the HTML coding, but for most purposes this is also the title thatappears on the web page).A Google search for the term mileage without the intitle limiter results in 59 million hitsBy using the intitle limiter, you focus your search and narrow your results considerably. When I did anintitle: mileage search, I got 648,000 hits.

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GooglingSearching Specific Sections ofWeb Pages

site:searchterm – limits your search to aparticular site.site:www.whitehouse.gov “global warming” OR

“greenhouse effect”

This searches just the official white house sitefor information that includes the terms globalwarming or greenhouse effect.

The Site: limiter limits your search to a particular website.

When you use the site search, remember to include both the site that you want to search and the search termor terms that you are looking for.

The sample search on this slide searches just the official white house site for information that includes theterms global warming or greenhouse effect.

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GooglingSearching Specific Sections ofWeb Pages Inurl:searchterm—searches for results that

contain your searchterm within the URL (webaddress)

inurl:lincoln "gettysburg“

This searches for the term gettysburg in any webaddress that contains the term lincoln.

Sample result:www.classicallibrary.org/lincoln/gettysburg.htm

The inurl search limiter forces google to search just within the URL—which stands for Uniform ResourceLocator by the way—also known as the web address.

In the example on this slide, google searches for the term gettysburg in any web address that contains theterm lincoln. See the sample result to see how this search might work.

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GooglingSearching Specific Sections ofWeb Pages

But wait… there’s more!

Intitle:, inurl: and site: are just three examples of specialized searches that you can do. You can also searchwithin the text of documents or look for specific file types (.pdf, powerpoint, .word docs, etc.). You can alsomix your searches and tell Google to eliminate some things from your search. For more information, see theresources listed at the end of this presentation.

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GooglingWeaknesses of Google Google doesn’t support the full use of

Boolean search terms It only indexes the first 101k of a web

page Doesn’t allow for truncation Isn’t good for most “deep web” searches. 10 word limit for searches

Google does have a few weaknesses.

It doesn’t support full boolean searching. You can only make use of the default AND, the forced AND andthe OR terms in your search.It only indexes the first 101 kilobytes of a web page. Another search engine, Yahoo for example, indexes upto 500 kilobytes in the text of web pages.Although it does stem words, it doesn’t allow for truncation. You can’t put in part of a word and get Googleto “guess the rest”. Although if you misspell a word, or enter a strange word, it will often ask you if youreally mean something else and take a guess as to what you might really be looking for.Google isn’t good for most “deep web” searches, which is why libraries subscribe to unique databases.However, google is improving in some specialized areas such as google scholar which searches scholarlydocument, google book search which searches the full text of thousands of books and “find in a library”which searches the OCLC database. OCLC stands for online computer library center and is a worldwidelibrary cooperative.

Google has a 10 word limit for searches, but you probably won’t run into this limitation too often.

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GooglingOther Google Tips The first search term is the most

important Google search box is also a calculator Google can be used as a converter for

measurements and currency Google can be used as a dictionary

(define:) And many more…

Google considers the first word you give it to be the most important. A search for the terms library marylandbrings up different results than Maryland library.The google search box can be used as a calculator, a mathematical converter and a dictionary. It can also beused to find airport conditions, track airline flights, find stock information, look up information in white andyellow pages and get movie listings for your home location. With google you can also track packages fromUPS, FedEX and the US Postal service. You can look up Universal product codes and VIN numbers to getvehicle information.

All of these special services will be explained in greater detail in Part 2 of this course.

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GooglingFor More Information Google: The Missing Manual by Sarah

Milstein and Rael Dornfest Web Search Garage by Tara Calishain The UC Berkeley website—excellent

tutorials and info about searching theInternet--http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

For more information check out these resources. Google also has excellent explanations of its servicesthroughout it’s web site.

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GooglingWhat’s next…

Congratulations! You’ve completed part one of this online Google training course. Practice some of thethings you’ve learned before moving on to part two, Google Tools and Shortcuts.