Search StrategiesPerfecting Your Google Fu

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Google Search

Stuff Nobody Ever Tells You…

Basic Searching Choosing the right search terms is the key to

finding the information you need. Start with the obvious – if you're looking for

general information on Hawaii, try Hawaii. But it's often advisable to use multiple

search terms; if you're planning a Hawaiian vacation, you'll do better with vacation Hawaii than with either vacation or Hawaii by themselves. And vacation Hawaii golf may produce even better results.

Basic Searching… You might also ask yourself if your search

terms are sufficiently specific. It's better to search on luxury hotels Maui than on tropical island hotels.

But choose your search terms carefully; Google looks for the search terms you chose, so luxury hotels Maui will probably deliver better results than really nice places to spend the night in Maui.

Google’s default search is AND

Searching for rocks minerals tectonics will return only pages that have all 3 of those terms

If you want to search for Any of your terms, use OR (in caps)

Thus, rocks minerals OR tectonics would return pages on rocks and either minerals or tectonics

Keyword Order The order of your keywords

matters A search for geologic time

weathering turns up the same number of hits as weathering time geologic …but the order of those hits – especially the first 10, is noticeably different

Phrases Sometimes you'll only want results that

include an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms.

Phrase searches are particularly effective if you're searching for proper names ("George Washington"), lyrics ("the long and winding road"), or other famous phrases ("This was their finest hour").

Negative Terms If your search term has more than one

meaning (bass, for example, could refer to fishing or music) you can focus your search by putting a minus sign ("-") in front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid.

For example, here's how you'd find pages about bass-heavy lakes, but not bass-heavy music: Bass -music

Wildcards Google lets you insert wildcards into

your searches. Wildcards are denoted by an asterisk * So if you search for it’s +a * world,

Google returns all results that have “it’s a small world” and “it’s a nano world” and “It’s a wonderful world”

Beyond plusses, minuses, and’s…

Advanced Search Operators

Advanced Operators Query modifiers

filetype: site: synonyms

Other information needs stocks: define: Google Calculator weather movies:

Filetype: Google allows you to filter your search terms

by filetype Example: do a search for algebra Now do a search for algebra filetype:ppt Common filetypes are:

PowerPoint (ppt) Excel (xls) Adobe Acrobat (pdf) Shockwave Flash (swf) Microsoft Word (doc)

Site: You can restrict your search

to a specific site as well. For example, let’s say you

wanted to look for volcano resources on PBS only.

You could type site:www.pbs.org volcano

Define: You don’t really

need a dictionary. Just define: your word.

Example: Define:sardonic Define:mitosis

Google Calculator Simply key in what you want to

calculate. Google calculator can handle

conversions, formulas, constants, etc. Examples:

5+2*2 2^20 sqrt(-4) half a cup in teaspoons 160 pounds * 4000 feet in Calories

Weather Using the word

weather gives you a three to four day weather forecast for a particular US city.

Examples: Weather 30458 Weather brooklet,

GA

Movie: Using Movie: gives you information on

movies in an area Example:

movie: hoodwinked movie: 30458 movie: red pill blue pill (this searches

plots too)

Google Book Search Simply enter the title of a book, and

you can then click on the Books link just above the search results

Works pretty well, even with obscure books

Google Book Search Going directly to

http://books.google.com turns up even more biblio-goodness

You can even add books you find to your Google Library

Dude… Where’s My Package?

You can track packages by typing the tracking number for your UPS, Fedex or USPS package directly into the search box!

Google returns results that include quick links to easily track the status of your shipment.

Behind the Google Homepage

Have you noticed? To the right of the

main search box are three links that many people never use Advanced search Preferences Language Tools

Advanced Search vs. Preferences

Advanced Search Many of the options

here are just some of the search string operators in menu form.

This is a one-shot deal too. You aren’t making any permanent changes to your Google search.

Preferences These are permanent

changes to your searches

Preferences Google lets you

change the search interface to support various languages.

Try changing your language preference to something else, like Chinese.

Only the search interface is changed, not the results.

To change it back, click on the Google.com in English link at the bottom of the screen

Preferences… Search Language:

You can permanently set Google to search pages written in other languages.

This is useful for foreign language classes. Safe Search Filter

You can also set Google’s threshold for explicit content.

Google’s default only filters out images – to filter both images and text, choose STRICT.

Wait, There’s More!

Language Tools Language tools let you translate text or

perform one-time language searches (without permanently changing your settings).

Translation services allow you to translate keyed (or pasted) text, or even translate whole web pages.

Google Image Search

http://images.google.com

Using Google Image Search

Search engine math works here as well. Check out Advanced Image Search [to the

right of the search box] for special size, filetype, and coloration options.

Beware of copyright! Google cannot grant you any rights to use the

images you find for any purpose other than viewing them on the web.

To reuse the images, contact the site owner and obtain the requisite permissions.

Google News

http://news.google.com

Customize Your Homepage

www.google.com/ig

Even “More >>” Google

Great y Moogley!

A Cornucopia of Googley Goodness

Grab a copy of this PowerPoint show at:www.fdresa.org/ettc Click on RESOURCES