Get better results with Google
If it's on the web, Google can find it, but can you find it in Google? We explain how
Like all internet search engines, Google indexes billions of web pages to make it easier for surfers to find the ones they want. There are two reasons why Google is by far the most popular search engine: one is that it's easy to use, and the other is that if it finds what you're looking for, there's a good chance it will appear in the first three pages of results. Most users never look beyond three pages anyway. Google's weakness is not that it doesn't find enough answers, but that it finds too many. This Workshop shows how to bring the searched-for site onto Google's first page of results, without going through the tedium of clicking through the Advanced Search form. Step 1: introducing Google
Just in case there is anybody reading this who has never used Google, the UK version of Google can be started by typing www.google.co.uk into the address or location bar of any web browser. Google UK is geared to British English and favours UK sites, but it also provides access to websites from anywhere in the world. The most basic search (let's say you've just spilled some red wine) involves nothing more than typing a few key words, such as RED WINE STAIN REMOVAL, into Google's search panel, and then clicking on the Google Search button. Step 2: how Google interprets your search
This is a typical Google results screen in which the main results are listed on the left of the screen and the sponsored links (that's tailored advertisements) are listed on the right. While the ads may be only vaguely related to the search words, every page listed on the left will contain all of them. In fact, when searching with Google it inserts an imaginary 'and' between every word, so logically speaking RED WINE STAIN REMOVAL is interpreted as RED AND WINE AND STAIN AND REMOVAL. Step 3: word order
We've used capital letters to make our searches stand out from the rest of our instructions, but capitalisation is ignored by Google so 'RED', 'red' and 'rEd' are all acceptable. What does make a difference is the order of the words, with those at the beginning of the search being given higher priority than those following on. Changing the order of the current search to STAIN REMOVAL RED WINE produces a slightly different set of results, and also generates additional sponsored links at the top of the right-hand column. These are coloured pale blue to distinguish them from Google's 'real' results. Step 4: tailor Google
Before getting down to some practical examples, tailor Google by clicking on the Preferences link, which is just to the right of the Search button. The language used by Google to display tips and messages is already set to English, but you'll need to manually configure the Search Language option to restrict Google's searching to pages written in English (and optionally in any other languages you're able to read). Step 5: filters The SafeSearch filtering of adult content has a default setting of 'moderate filtering'. This doesn't restrict text searches in any way but it will not display explicit pictures when executing searches for images. However, if the computer is used by minors it may be wise to enable 'strict filtering', though this will affect your own searches. Changing the number of results per page from 10 to 30 makes for easier perusal of Google's results and will have no discernible impact on search speed. Click on Save Preferences when done. Step 6: speech marks
If you're interested in pages relating to the writer Dylan Thomas, it's no good typing DYLAN THOMAS. This will find every Dylan and every Thomas appearing on the same page. The best way of searching for a named individual is to enclose the name in speech marks, as in 'DYLAN THOMAS'. Speech marks can be used around any phrase in which you want words to appear in a specific order, so it's also useful for book, song and film titles, and for phrases made up of very common words such as 'BIG BROTHER'. Step 7: targeting the search
If the core interest in Dylan Thomas is his plays, the word 'plays' could be added to the search Ð but what if the singular form 'play' or the word 'theatre' is used instead? Adding PLAY PLAYS THEATRE to 'DYLAN THOMAS' seems like a good idea, but will only find pages where all three words appear together. The correct form of search is 'DYLAN THOMAS' PLAY OR PLAYS OR THEATRE, which works fine because Google understands the word 'or' if you type it in capital letters. Step 8: eliminating unwanted variables In general, the more words included in a search the more focussed are the results, but sometimes it will be necessary to eliminate unwanted pages more explicitly. Let's say you're looking for information about the TV programme Big Brother, and because you know about the power of speech marks you type 'BIG BROTHER'. Unfortunately, this search also finds sites about George Orwell, so to eliminate these add -ORWELL-1984; the minus signs tell Google to ignore all pages containing Orwell or 1984. Step 9: narrowing the search
Even with exclusions, the BIG BROTHER search finds over 50 million pages. A sure way of whittling this down is to add 'CHANNEL 4' to the search; but rather than adding this to the existing search, scroll down to the bottom of the Google results page and click on the 'Search within results' link. This produces a new search box where anything typed will be used to narrow the current search without having to retype any of the existing search terms. This process of searching within results can be repeated as often as needed. Step 10: intitle
Another way of focusing a search more closely is to hunt for words that appear only in the title of a web page and not anywhere else on the page. To do this, the search must be preceded by the word intitle: (in lower-case letters and with no space before the colon). A search for intitle:'VICTORIA FALLS', for example, returns around 100,000 pages whereas 'VICTORIA FALLS' by itself yields over 3 million. Step 11: search images
A Google search is either of the whole web or limited to pages from the UK, according to what is selected beneath the main search panel. It is also possible to search only for images, or within newsgroups, or only for current news items by using the Images, Groups and News links that appear above the search panel. What may not be so obvious is that if you click on Images, Groups or News after making a word search, the same search is automatically applied to the chosen link, as demonstrated here in Google Images. Step 12: ~ using the tilde It's not possible to know exactly what words might appear on a page, which can make searching difficult. For example, if you're looking for information on the design of the Tower of London, a search for 'TOWER OF LONDON' DESIGN yields half a million pages, but 'TOWER OF LONDON' ~DESIGN finds twice as many. This is because placing a tilde (the character that looks like a squiggly line) before a word tells Google to look for similar words, which in this case means 'designs', 'designers', 'construction' and 'architecture'. On standard PC keyboards, the tilde symbol is on the same key as the hash (#) symbol, just to the left of the Enter or Return key hold down shift while pressing this to get a tilde. Step 13: related words
A quick way of defining any word or phrase in Google is to type define: followed by the word or phrase, such as define: SPECIFIC GRAVITY. This will find and list definitions from both general and specialised web dictionaries. A similar query format can be used to find information about movies, actors, directors, plots and anything to do with the silver screen. Use movie: followed by a few key words, such as movie: CARY GRANT CROP DUSTING will find Hitchcock's North by Northwest. Confirmed Anglophiles may use film: instead of movie. Step 14: advanced search
The great thing about the search techniques described so far is their speed and simplicity: all they involve is typing an appropriate expression into Google's search pane. However, if you're having problems finding the information needed, fall back on Google's form-based search facility by clicking on the Advanced Search link on Google's front page. It offers nothing that can't be achieved by a suitable query on the Google main screen, and requires a fair amount of mouse-clicking or tabbing, but it can be used without having to remember a host of specialist search terms that are hardly ever needed.
This article was created: 28 November 2006.
This article was last edited: 21 December 2006.
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