Seeing beyond the obvious at Google - Amazon Web Services



Seeing beyond the obvious at Google

By Michelle Johnson, 6/23/2003

How many times a day do you hit ? And what do you do once you get there? Type in a couple of keywords and hit the search button, right? Well, if that's the extent of your interaction with Google, you're missing out on some useful tools and cool features.

While it may not be apparent from the sparse-looking homepage, there's a lot more to Google than meets the eye. But let's start with the obvious.

There are five tabs on the Google homepage. The first one is labeled ''Web,'' which allows you to search billions of Web pages. You may know that you can enclose a term in quotes (example: ''cheap flights'') and Google will search for that exact phrase.

But did you know that you can type in someone's name and an area code or ZIP code and Google will spit back a phone number and address if it's a listed number? (Example: Bill Jones 617.) It works in the reverse, too. Type in a phone number and get back a name and address. (Tip: leave out the hyphens.) Type in a street address along with the city and state and Google will offer to call up a map of the location from Yahoo Maps or Mapquest.

If you're searching for multiple pieces of information, using ''OR'' can be a time saver. Google's help file (help) offers the following example: vacation London OR Paris will search for vacation information about both cities. Note that OR is capitalized.

Google also recognizes something called ''advanced operators.'' One that I use frequently is the ''site'' operator, which searches within a single website. If the search function on a site I'm perusing isn't very good, I go to Google and enter my keywords followed by ''site:'' and the name of the site I'd like to search. So entering alumni site:umd.edu returns pages with the word alumni from the site umd.edu. Note that there's no space between the colon and the address of the site.

Use ''allinurl'' and Google will find websites with a specific word in the address. If I wanted to find websites with ''boston'' in the address I'd enter allinurl:boston. For a list of Google's advanced operators, see help/operators.html .

Adding a ''-'' to your search query forces Google to ignore pages that include that word. Example: boston -fenway will overlook pages that contain both boston and fenway. A ''+'' does the opposite, requiring a word or phrase to be included.

You've probably noticed that when you misspell a word Google will ask ''Did you mean?'' and offer up an alternate spelling. In a pinch, you can use this feature as a quick spell checker. Even better: look at the top of any search results page for a line that says ''Searched the web for.'' Next to it the keywords you searched for will be underlined links. Click on one and it'll take you to the definition at .

See that ''Advanced Search'' link just to the right of the search box? Under there you'll find all kinds of ways to slice and dice a search, including by date, language, or file type (handy if you want to search just pdf files, for instance). Just below Advanced Search is ''Preferences.'' Here you can change Google to any one of a long list of languages from Afrikaans to Zulu. (Look closer and you'll see Google speaks Klingon, Hacker, and Elmer Fudd, too.)

Speaking of languages, just under Preferences is the ''Language Tools'' link where you can translate a phrase or an entire Web page or restrict your search to Web pages in a specific language.

Now, back to the tabs. The second one, ''Images,'' searches for photos and graphics. Say your kid's doing homework and needs a picture of a lion. Hunting one down here is a breeze. And of course you'll check to make sure it's not copyrighted before you, er, borrow it. Don't overlook the advanced search where you can specify that images be a certain size (icon, medium, large), full color, or black and white.

The next tab, ''Groups,'' will search discussion forums where people yak about every possible topic imaginable. I find this most useful when I'm researching a purchase and want to see if anyone's complained about the product. The advance Groups search lets you further refine by criteria such as author and date.

Next up is ''Directory,'' which presents you with a neatly categorized list of topics, such as Arts, Computers, and Shopping.

Even though the last tab, ''News,'' has been around for a while, it's a ''beta'' or test version of Google's news search. The best thing about this feature is freshness. Breaking news stories from around the world can appear here within minutes.

You may not have noticed the ''Services & Tools'' link at the bottom of the Google homepage. If not, click it and explore. Here you'll find a couple of my favorite shopping aids: , a comparison shopping tool and catalogs.. There's also answers. where researchers will answer a question for a fee, and don't overlook that link to ''Google Labs'' ( ). There's quirky stuff here that's still in development.

For truly quirky, take a look at some ''Google hacks,'' whipped up by folks not affiliated with Google who obviously have way too much time on their hands. What else could explain this Stupid Google Trick: geeky/elgoog ? Yes, it flips Google so that it reads backwards.

There's a great new book out called ''Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools.'' While a good portion of the book is devoted to technical information aimed at programmers and webmaster types, novices will find the clearly written explanations of various Google search techniques useful. For details see hacks published by .

Michelle Johnson is a freelance writer. She can be reached at mijohn@mail-.

This story ran on page C3 of the Boston Globe on 6/23/2003.

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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