Contents
Google Basics
How to Use Google
How to Use Google Web Search
How to Use Advanced Search
How to Use Google Image Search
How to Use Google News
How to Use Google Groups
How to Use Google Product Search
How to Use Google Toolbar
Other Google Services
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- Use advanced web search tricks that make standard searches more powerful
- Search images, news, groups, video, online retailers, books, emails, and more
- Explore Google’s newer features, from Google Book Search to Google Earth
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Google Basics
Google is the world’s largest search engine, and certainly one of the most popular. Fifty-five percent of web searches are conducted using Google. It’s a simple and effective tool for navigating the world wide web.
Why Choose Google?
Many web browsers prefer Google for its:
- Simplicity: Unlike websites that feel like commercial mazes, Google’s homepage is not cluttered with links to other pages or loud banners on the periphery of the page. As a gateway to the internet, Google has a simple design: before it leads you to the world wide web’s plethora of options, it lets you define your search in a blank search box, which is surrounded by white space.
- Scope: The Google search engine combs the text of billions of web pages to produce results that correspond with your keywords. And while some other popular engines search text only, Google also searches the content of PDFs and a variety of other file formats.
- Relevance: Google has developed a fine-tuned system for determining which pages are most relevant to your keywords. You won’t have to sift through excessive spam in your search results; Google typically brings you pages suited to what you’re looking for.
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Ads: When looking at a search results page, it’s easy
to distinguish between the pages Google has ranked according to relevance and the paid advertising in the right-hand margin of the page. All ads are listed separately under the heading “Sponsored Links,” with no distracting images or pesky pop-ups.
What Can You Use Google For?
You can use Google to locate just about anything on the web, from the population of Tuvalu to the address of the nearest laundromat. People generally use Google to:
- Locate a specific web page they assume, or know, exists (e.g., the homepage of the American Red Cross)
- Find information (e.g., the amount of money the Red Cross raised for tsunami relief in 2005) from any web source
Beyond basic searches, you can utilize Google for more sophisticated or personalized functions, such as tracking news stories of interest to you, viewing merchandise within your set price range, or joining discussion groups related to your professional or recreational interests. To peruse the array of Google offerings, check out www.google.com/intl/en/options/index.html.
How Does Google Work?
Ever wonder how Google works its magic? Here’s a summary of what goes on behind the computer screen:
- Google’s computers constantly crawl the web and track the content of web pages in a database called an index, which has more than eight billion pages catalogued.
- You type keywords into the Google homepage and press Enter, prompting Google to comb through its vast index.
- Google uses its unique algorithm to determine which web pages are the most relevant to your keywords. This algorithm is based on millions of variables, the most important being PageRank—how many other web pages link to a given web page, hinting at its popularity among browsers like you.
- Google presents you with pages of search results to click through. Each page displays 10 results.
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