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Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource

Rule the Web: How to Do Anything and Everything on the Internet - Better, Faster, Easier

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Google Basics

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How to Use Google Web Search

How to Use Google

Once you’ve arrived at Google’s familiar homepage, the first step is to choose a search engine. While most people stick with Google Web, Google’s default engine, the alternative search engines that Google offers may be better suited to your web hunt.

Selecting the Right Google

Additional Google search engines, such as Google News and Google Scholar, allow you to perform specific types of searches within different Google databases. Some important Google search engines are:

Google Web (www.google.com): Google’s default search engine, which combs the world wide web.
Google Images (images.google.com): Google’s search engine for photos, icons, drawings, maps, and a variety of other web images.
Google Groups (groups.google.com): More than 30,000 discussion groups organized by topic, plus a searchable database that dates back to 1981.
Google News (news.google.com): Google’s database of current news articles, updated by the minute, from more than 4,000 media sources.
Google Product Search (www.google.com/products): A search engine for online merchandise that organizes search results to facilitate product comparison.
Google Local/Maps (maps.google.com): A localized search engine for regional business information, maps, driving directions, and other information specific to your area code.
Google Scholar (scholar.google.com): A database of scholarly research and literature that archives academic papers, theses, books, abstracts, and articles.

You can find direct links to Google Images, Video, News, Maps, and Gmail on the Google homepage. All five links are located at the top left of the page.

To access Google’s other programs, click on “About Google” on the homepage, then on “Google Services and Tools.” This will take you to a complete list of Google cousins, from Google Finance to Google’s Blogger. Though the “More Google Products” page is not quite as plain and intuitive as the main Google homepage, the programs are organized alphabetically to help you locate the one that you need.

Navigation Tip

When using any Google website, you can return quickly to the Google Web homepage by clicking on the large “Google” icon in the upper left corner. This multicolored icon appears on just about every Google-related page.

Advanced Search

If you want to refine your query after running it, click on the Advanced Search link on Google’s homepage. Advanced Search gives you an array of options to help specify your query—according to date, domain, file format, and so on—and it can eliminate hundreds or even thousands of irrelevant search results.

If you think of ways to specify or narrow your search after you’ve already submitted a standard query, you can still utilize the Advanced Search tools without having to start from scratch. Just click the Advanced Search link at the top of your Search Results page.

Customizing Google

If you are a frequent Google user, consider customizing Google according to your search needs and personal preferences. It takes just a few seconds to tell Google how you like your searches conducted and how you want your search results displayed. Click on the Preferences (www.google.com/preferences) link on the Google homepage or any Search Results page to adjust the following settings:

Interface Language: In what language do you want Google to communicate with you?
Search Language: Do you want to search for pages written in a particular language?
Filtering: Do you want to turn up or down the Google SafeSearch (www.google.com/intl/en/help/customize.html#safe) filter?
Number of search results: Do you want to view more than 10 results per page?
Search Results window: Do you want a new browser window to open up every time you click on a search result? (If you find it bothersome to click the forward and backward arrows, try adjusting this setting.)