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Searching the Web with
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"In my mind, the real test of
a search engine is the telepathy factor: how often does it give me what I
want on the first page of my search, when even I'm not really sure whatI'm
looking for? It's scary just how often Google gets it right the first time." |
-- Andrew Gore, Macworld
, February, 2001.
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Search
Tips
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- Default includes all search terms, "and" not needed
- Ignores common words, such as "where" and "how"
- Not case-sensitive
- Does not support stemming or wildcard searches
- Additional recommendations at
http://www.google.com/intl/en_extra/help/refinesearch.html
- Use "-baseball" to exclude the word "baseball"
from searches
- Surround phrases with quotes "William Jefferson
Clinton"
- Search any domain with words, and the "site"
modifier. For example, to find information on scholarships on NMSU's
Collegeof Agriculture and Home Economics (
http://www.cahe.nmsu.edu), use:
scholarship site:www.cahe.nmsu.edu
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Notable Features |
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- Highest ranked engine by ZD Net (as of February,
2001), defining it as best at broad searches.
- Directory listing at
http://directory.google.com.(where you can view sites listed by type,
like a catalog)
- Searches pages not directly submitted to it (means
more sites for you to choose from!)
- Caches 'dead' sites (don't you hate it when you
click on a page and it can no longer be found? With Google, click 'back'and
you can see the last cached version of it)
- Set general preferences at
http://www.google.com/preferences
- Set number of searches returned
- Specify all, any, exact phrase, or without words
- Specify safe search
- When ranking pages, reviews other sites links
- Find maps by typing address into search field
(cool!)
- Find stocks by typing ticker abbreviation into search
field
- Searches PDF content (this means it can find pages
that have been turned into PDFs, like brochures and forms)
- Privacy-guaranteed at
http://www.topclick.com
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Advanced Search |
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- Same options as in preferences, for one-time only search
- Page-specific search: find similar pages, or find pages
linking to one page
- Utilize topic searching
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