Google: More Than Words
How can I use Google better?
References:
Patrick Crispen: Google 101, Google 201 (web); 2003.
Tara Calishain, Rael Dornfest: Google hacks (O'Reilly); 2003.
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
S. Dekeyser
The PageRank Algorithm
 PR(T1)
PR(Tn) 

PR( A)  (1  d )  d 
 ... 
C (Tn) 
 C (T1)
Where
•
PR(A) is the PageRank of Page A
•
PR(T1) is the PageRank of page T1
•
C(T1) is the number of outgoing links from the page
T1
•
d is a damping factor in the range of 0 < d < 1,
usually set to 0.85
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Source: Google Hacks, p. 295
The Biggest Mistake
Typing URLs in the wrong box
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Top 20 search terms
1. britney spears
2. victoria gotti
3. kelly blue book
4. doom 3
5. howard stern
6. dallas cowboys
7. paris hilton
8. ebay
9. google
10. yahoo
11.anastasia myskina
12.anime
13.mapquest
14.carmen electra
15.yahoo.com
16.ashlee simpson
17.games
18.lindsay lohan
19.nudist+image
20.jokes
-- Courtesy WordTracker.com
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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What most people notice
1. britney spears
2. victoria gotti
3. kelly blue book
4. doom 3
5. howard stern
6. dallas cowboys
7. paris hilton
8. ebay
9. google
10. yahoo
11.anastasia myskina
12.anime
13.mapquest
14.carmen electra
15.yahoo.com
16.ashlee simpson
17.games
18.lindsay lohan
19.nudist+image
20.jokes
-- Courtesy WordTracker.com
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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What *I* notice
1. britney spears
2. victoria gotti
3. kelly blue book
4. doom 3
5. howard stern
6. dallas cowboys
7. paris hilton
8. ebay
9. google
10. yahoo
11.anastasia myskina
12.anime
13.mapquest
14.carmen electra
15.yahoo.com
16.ashlee simpson
17.games
18.lindsay lohan
19.nudist+image
20.jokes
-- Courtesy WordTracker.com
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The Second Biggest Mistake
Using the wrong tool at the wrong
time
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Three questions
• Where would you find the telephone number or
address of the Bama Six theatre?
• Where you would find the definition of the word
“pestilence?”
• Where would you find the name of the war that
the Treaty of Westphalia ended?
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What would happen if you tried to
look up the definition of the word
“pestilence” in the telephone
book?
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YAHOO ISN’T A
SEARCH ENGINE!
... it is a directory.
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Directories
• Usually humancompiled guides to
the web, where sites
are organized by
category
• Major directories:
– MSN
– Yahoo
– Netscape ODP
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What directories are good for
• “What is the Web page address for some
company, organization, or entity?” (or “who
makes product X?”)
• “Where can I find a list of Web pages that focus
on a particular, ‘universal’ topic?”
• In other words, directories are GREAT for
“telephone book” searches.
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What directories AREN’T good for
• Directories are horrible for “encyclopedia”
or “dictionary” searches.
• The only exception is if the topic is so
universal that the directories have no
choice but to link to a page or two that
discuss that topic (and even then the
selection will be slim.)
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Directories v Search Engines
• Directories are
– human-compiled and
– have a small number of pages in their databases
(usually in the low millions)
• Search engines are
– machine-compiled and
– have a HUGE number of pages in their databases
(usually in the hundreds of millions or even the
billions)
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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The Third Biggest Mistake
Not knowing how to use
directories or search engines to
actually FIND stuff
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Search engine rule #1
Be specific ... because if
you aren’t specific, you’ll
end up with a bunch of
garbage!
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Search engine rule #2
Use quotes to search for
phrases.
“the tide is
rising”
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Search engine rule #3
Use the + sign to
require.
“the tide is rising” +book
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Search engine rule #4
Use the - sign to
exclude.
“the tide is rising” +book
-drugs
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Search engine rule #5
Combine symbols as often as
possible
(see rule #1).
“the tide is rising” +book
–drugs +climate
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The five rules
1. Be specific ... because if you aren’t
specific, you’ll end up with a bunch of
garbage!
2. Use quotes to search for phrases.
3. Use the + sign to require.
4. Use the - sign to exclude.
5. Combine symbols as often as possible
(see rule #1).
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Part Two:
More Stuff No One Tells You
Google’s shocking secrets
revealed!
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Part Two: Contents
•
•
•
•
Google’s Boolean default is AND.
Capitalization does not matter.
Google has a hard limit of 10 keywords.
Google ignores a BUNCH of common
words.
• Google does support wildcard searches …
sort of.
• The order of your keywords matters.
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Google’s Boolean Default is AND
But there are ways to get around
that.
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Boolean Default is AND
• If you search for more than one keyword at a
time, Google will automatically search for pages
that contain ALL of your keywords.
• A search for disney fantasyland pirates
is the same as searching for disney AND
fantasyland AND pirates
• But, if you try to use AND on your own, Google
yells at you.
Source: http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
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Boolean OR
• Sometimes the default AND gets in the way.
That’s where OR comes in.
• The Boolean operator OR is always in all caps
and goes between keywords.
• For example, an improvement over our earlier
search would be disney fantasyland OR
“pirates of the caribbean”
– This would show you all the pages in Google’s index
that contain the word disney AND the word
fantasyland OR the phrase pirates of the
caribbean (without the quotes)
Source: http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html
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Capitalization Does NOT Matter
The old AltaVista trick of typing
your keywords in lower case is no
longer necessary.
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How Insensitive!
• Google is not case sensitive.
• So, the following searches all yield exactly
the same results:
disney
Disney
DISNEY
DiSnEy
fantasyland
Fantasyland
FANTASYLAND
FaNtAsYlAnD
pirates
Pirates
PIRATES
pIrAtEs
Source: http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
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Google Has a Hard Limit of 10
Keywords
Bet you didn’t know THAT!
Source: Google Hacks, p. 19
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Google’s 10 Word Limit
• Google won’t accept more than 10
keywords at a time.
• Any keyword past 10 is simply ignored.
• How can you get around this limit? Well,
first you need to remember that …
Source: Google Hacks, p. 19
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Google Ignores a BUNCH of
Common Words
Words to avoid
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Stop Words
To enhance the speed
and relevancy of your
Web search, Google
routinely and
automatically ignores
common words and
characters known as
“stop words.”
Source: http://www.google.com/press/guide/reviewguide_7.html
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Stop _ _ Name _ Love
• This is certainly not a canonical list, but here are
28 stop words I know about.
• a, about, an, and, are, as, at, be, by, from, how,
i, in, is, it, of, on, or, that, the, this, to, we, what,
when, where, which, with
• You can force Google to search for a stop word
by putting a + in front of it (for example pirates
+of +the caribbean)
Source: 10/23/02 post by Bill Todd to news:google.public.support.general
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Dealing with the Word Limit
• Omit the stop words
in your search terms
and you’ll probably
never run into the 10
word limit.
• Another way around
the limit is to use
wildcards.
Image source: http://www.alloyd.com/
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Google DOES Support Wildcard
Searches … Sort Of.
When you wish upon a *.
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Wildcards
• Wildcards are characters, usually asterisks (*),
that represent other characters.
• Google offers full-word wildcards.
• For example, if you search Google for it’s +a
* world, Google shows you all of the pages in
its database that contain the phrase “it’s a small
world” … and “it’s a nano world” … and “it’s a
Linux world” … and so on.
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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it’s +a * world
• The + before a is
required because it is a
stop word and would
otherwise be ignored.
• Most of the hits are
phrases because that’s
what Google looks for
first.
• Oh, and I defy you to get
that song out of your
head!
Image source: http://themeparksource.com/
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Wildcards and the Word
Limit
• Remember when I said that one way to get
around the 10 word limit was to use wildcards?
• Google doesn’t count wildcards toward the limit.
• For example, Google thinks that though *
mountains divide * * oceans * wide
it's * small world after all is exactly
10 words long.
Source: Google Hacks, p. 19
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The Order of Your Keywords
Matters
A me life for pirate’s?
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How Google Works
• When you conduct a
search at Google, it
searches for
– Phrases, then
– Adjacency, then
– Weights.
• Because Google
searches for phrases
first, the order of your
keywords matters.
Image source: Google
Source: Google Hacks, p. 20-22
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For Example
A search for disney
fantasyland
pirates yields the
same number of hits as
a search for
fantasyland
disney pirates, but
the order of those hits –
especially the first 10 –
is noticeably different.
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Part Two: In Summary
•
•
•
•
Google’s Boolean default is AND.
Capitalization does not matter.
Google has a hard limit of 10 keywords.
Google ignores a BUNCH of common
words.
• Google does support wildcard searches …
sort of.
• The order of your keywords matters.
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
S. Dekeyser
Advanced Operators
Query modifiers
• daterange:
• filetype:
• inanchor:
• intext:
• intitle:
• inurl:
• site:
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
Alternative query types
• cache:
• link:
• related:
• info:
Other information needs
• phonebook:
• stocks:
• define:
• Google Calculator
S. Dekeyser
Other Information Needs
Did you know that Google can look up phone
numbers, stock quotes, dictionary definitions,
and even the answer to math problems?
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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phonebook:
• There are actually three
different Google
phonebook operators.
• Using phonebook:
searches the entire
Google phonebook.
• Using rphonebook:
searches residential
listings only.
• Using bphonebook:
searches business
listings only.
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
Source:
http://www.google.com/help/operators.html
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How to Use the
Phonebook
• first name (or first initial), last name, city (state is
optional)
• first name (or first initial), last name, state
• first name (or first initial), last name, area code
• first name (or first initial), last name, zip code
• phone number, including area code
• last name, city, state
• last name, zip code
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phonebook:Data
phonebook:disneyland ca
phonebook:(714) 956-6425
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stocks:
• If you begin a query with
stocks: Google will
treat the rest of the query
terms as stock ticker
symbols, and will link to a
Yahoo finance page
showing stock information
for those symbols.
• Go crazy with the spaces
– Google ignores them!
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
Source:
http://www.google.com/help/operators.html
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stocks:Symbol1 Symbol2 …
stocks: msft
stocks: aapl intc msft macr
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define:
• If you begin a query with
define: Google will
display definitions for the
word or phrase that
follows, if definitions are
available.
• There can be no space
between define: and
the word or phrase you
wish to define.
• You don’t need quotes
around your phrases.
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
Source: http://www.google.com/help/features.html#definitions
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define:term
define:pirate
define:barbary coast
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Google Calculator
• Simply key in what you'd
like Google to compute
(like 2+2) and then hit
enter.
• Google’s Calculator can
solve math problems
involving basic arithmetic,
more complicated math,
units of measure and
conversions, and physical
constants.
Source: http://www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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3+44
56*78
1.21 GW / 88 mph
100 miles in kilometers
sine(30 degrees)
G*(6e24 kg)/(4000 miles)^2
0x7d3 in roman numerals
For instructions on how to use the Google Calculator, see
http://www.google.com/help/calculator.html
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
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Advanced Operators
Query modifiers
• daterange:
• filetype:
• inanchor:
• intext:
• intitle:
• inurl:
• site:
Wed 18 Aug <Science Week>
Alternative query types
• cache:
• link:
• related:
• info:
Other information needs
• phonebook:
• stocks:
• define:
• Google Calculator
S. Dekeyser