In this course segment you’ll learn how to take advantage of Google’s specialized search services.

Google started by providing generalized web search. It also offers specialized searches that are accessible by clicking on the links at the top of many Google pages — e.g., the results page (which we show just after this paragraph) and the Google home page. Each menu link, except the last, represents a separate search service. Click on any of the following links to learn more about the corresponding specialized search service(s) — or simply follow this course, from page to page, to learn all of these and more.

Google displays the current service link (the kind of search that the current page will perform) in black. Links for other services are blue.

After running a search on one service, you can click on another service’s link to run a search on that service using the same terms. For example, when you click on the News link, your search will be repeated on Google’s News service.

Some specialized searches are performed automatically as part of a standard Google Web search, but are also available directly from the Advanced Search form. These include Book Search, which finds content inside published (paper) books.

Other topic-specific searches are accessible from the Advanced Search form.

• Apple Macintosh - Search for all things Mac
• BSD Unix - Search web pages about the BSD operating systems
• Linux - Search all Linux-friendly pages
• Microsoft - Search Microsoft-related pages

• U.S. Government - Search all .gov and .mil sites
• Universities: Narrow your search to a specific school’s website, such as Stanford, Brown, BYU, etc.
• Google Scholar - Search scholarly literature (peer-reviewed papers, theses, …)

The word “Beta” beside the name of a service means that Google is testing and refining the service. Use the service, and if you are so inclined, provide feedback to Google on how the service can be improved.

Next, we’ll look at many of the special search tools listed above, as well as:

• Directory
• Technology Playground: Google Labs

The search tips and behaviors described in Part I, “Query Input” of Google Guide work with Google’s special search tools, except that the synonym operator (~) currently works only on Web and Directory searches.

For more information on Google special services and tools, visit www.google.com/options/.

tags (keywords): services, summary

Looking for an image, map, graphic, photo, design or drawing? Try Google’s Image Search by clicking on the Images link above Google’s search box

or visiting images.google.com.

Enter your query and click on the Google Search button. Alternatively, enter your query and then click on the Images link above the search box. Google Image Search works best when there are many images available to choose from, e.g., photos of Anna Kournikova, the most photographed tennis player.

Click on the image that interests you. You’ll go to a framed page with two parts. On top, you’ll see Google’s image thumbnail. On the bottom, you’ll see the full page on which the image appears.

Clicking on the thumbnail image or on the “See full-size image” link that appears just below the thumbnail image will display the full-size image.

Save the image to your hard disk by either selecting Save As or Save Page As from the File menu of your browser or by clicking the mouse’s right button and selecting Save As or Save Page As from the pop-up menu.

To view the page containing the image without the thumbnail image on top, click on the page’s URL, which appears between the thumbnail image and the page itself following the text “Below is the image in its original context on the page.”

1. How Does Google Image Search Work?

Notice that when you search for images of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Image Search returns some photographs of Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

The words “Larry Page” and “Sergey Brin” appear near images of Eric Schmidt, or in image captions, or in links to those images. Google makes a guess that the words are related to the image. Google technology isn’t yet to the point where it can tell what’s in an image by looking at it directly.

2. Focusing Your Image Search

As with text searches, you can focus your search when it finds too many images. Restrict your results to images that are large, medium, or small by clicking on one of the links that is in the upper right corner on the Images results page.

Alternatively, narrow your query by using Google’s Advanced Image Search form. To get there, either click on the Advanced Image Search link or go to images.google.com/advanced_image_search.

You can specify:

The Size restriction refers to the height and width of the image in pixels. The following table lists the approximate dimensions for each relative size specification.

For more information on Google’s Image Search visit images.google.com/help/faq_images.html.

Exercises

These problems give you practice with finding images. For hints and answers to selected problems, see the Solutions page.

1. I used a color chart to select colors for this tutorial. Find some color charts that show the HTML input to render at least 100 colors.
2. Google displays special logos on its home page on holidays and birthdays. Find some of these logos. Click on the link “repeat the search with the omitted results included” to view more amusing logos.
3. Find a photograph of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain to see whether you want to take a vacation and visit the Alhambra.
4. Obtain a map of the London Underground.

tags (keywords): images, safe search, services

Want advice, opinions, and recommendations that haven’t necessarily been edited?

Then consider using Google Groups, which provides access (posting and reading) to thousands of discussion forums — an enormous storehouse of discourse, including

• Forums on practically everything from aviation to zymurgy (brewing beer)
• Opinions, advice, and resource information, e.g.,
  • Opinions on laser eye surgery
  • Reviews for small OR compact digital cameras
  • Travel tips from nonprofessionals
  • Security fixes for Windows 2000
  • New digital scanner setup files
• Annoying posts
  • Spam (widely distributed junk messages)
  • Gripes
  • Flames (insulting criticism or remarks meant to incite anger)

The Internet connects people from all over the world. When the Internet was initially established, people used it to send email messages to each other. As with physical mail, email must have the address of the recipient. In 1979-1980, Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill implemented a distributed bulletin board system supported mainly by UNIX computers. It became known as Usenet, which was short for Users Network, and, because it was free and non-proprietary, it swiftly became international in scope. Usenet discussion forums became popular in the 1980s before the birth of the World Wide Web. In 1995, a company named DejaNews began archiving Usenet. In 1999, during the .com boom, DejaNews changed its name to Deja.com. Like many .com companies, Deja.com didn’t do well financially. In February of 2001, Deja.com sold its Usenet archives to Google for an undisclosed amount.

Google has Deja’s entire archive (dating back to 1995), as well as lots of material posted earlier, available from the Google Groups home page. Google Groups also tracks recent postings on Usenet and non-Usenet groups. Finally, Google allows you to post messages to these forums by signing up for a free account.

Click on the more » link above, then choose Groups

or visit groups.google.com to access this comprehensive archive of human conversation, dating back to 1981.

Note: Particularly in the latter part of the 1980s, there are some significant gaps in the archive. As traffic expanded, volunteers who had been saving Usenet traffic at their own expense were overwhelmed, and stopped archiving some groups. While the Google Groups archive is the most complete Usenet Archive known to exist, it is not a complete archive prior to the 1990s.

You can search and read public groups without identifying yourself to Google. To access private groups or to post a message to any group, you’ll need a Google Account. (You may also be able to post to public Usenet groups through your Internet provider’s own news server — without needing a Google Account. If this seems useful, ask your ISP whether they provide Usenet access.)

For a listing of groups organized by topic, region, language, activity level, and (for non-Usenet groups) the number of people who belong to the group, see the Group Directory.

Many of the Google Groups are part of Usenet. Usenet newsgroups (forums) are grouped into several large areas, each of which is broken into subareas. The different parts are always separated by a “.” (period or dot). The first part of a name is called its hierarchy. Consider, for instance, the name rec.sport.tennis. The newsgroup is in the rec or recreation area, in the sports subarea. Within each newsgroup, there are messages (also referred to as articles or postings) that look like email from one user to another. But instead of just being exchanged between two people, these messages are available to everyone who accesses the Usenet or Google Groups. The top level Usenet hierarchies are:

Below are some examples of Usenet newsgroup names.

Discussion groups can be unmoderated (anyone can post) or moderated (submissions are automatically directed to a moderator, who edits and filters out inappropriate and irrelevant material). Some discussion groups have parallel mailing lists, with postings to a group automatically propagated to its mailing list and vice versa. Some moderated groups are even distributed as digests, groups of postings periodically being collected into a single large posting with an index. The names of some moderated groups include the suffix .moderated, e.g., rec.martial-arts.moderated.

Click on a topic (hierarchy) or enter your query.

Note that the results are sorted by relevance — that is, how closely they match your query — rather than by the date they were posted. Each result includes the date it was posted, shown in green next to the group name. To sort results by date, click “Sort by date” above the Sponsored Links.

Click the title to view the original article with your search terms highlighted. The article may be part of a discussion thread or topic — the original article together with any preceding and followup articles — as this example shows.

Want to participate in a discussion? For information on how to post messages, click on the “Groups Help” link above or to the right of the Google Groups’ search box or visit the Google Groups Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about posting at groups.google.com/googlegroups/posting_faq.html. Also be sure to read the first answer in Google Groups Posting Style Guide. Usenet has a very strong culture, and well-established ways of doing things. In order to get the best responses to your post, you should try to conform to Usenet standards.

If you post to Usenet via Google Groups, your email address will be distributed widely and you may receive lots of spam as a result. (Google Groups will make your email address difficult for spammers to find, but other Usenet servers may not.) Consider getting another email address from Gmail, Yahoo, or some other free service to use for your public postings. If you get a separate email address, though, do remember to check it periodically: some Usenet readers may send you a question or other private reply.

Want to search for a specific message or those written by a certain person? Click on the Advanced Groups Search link or visit www.google.com/advanced_group_search.

For more information on Google Groups visit groups.google.com/support.

Exercises

These problems give you practice in searching Google Groups. For hints and answers to selected problems, see the Solutions page.

1. Find recommendations for sites for booking flights online.
2. Find travel tips for places to stay and visit in central London.
3. Find reviews of online banking services.
4. What are some ways to automatically block spam?
5. How can you remove varnish from a maple coffee table?
6. Click on the link “rec.” and browse the names of the recreational subgroups.
7. Find the list of especially memorable articles and threads from Usenet that Google has compiled.

tags (keywords): discussions, services

After the tragedies of September 11, 2001, Krishna Bharat, a Google engineer, built a tool to crawl news sites and organize news into ranked clusters. Because of its popularity, Google expanded the demo into Google News.

Google News:

• Presents information culled from thousands of news sources worldwide.
• Updates entries continuously throughout the day.
• Groups together related headlines and photos.
• By default, automatically displays the latest headlines.

Click on the News link above Google’s search box

or visit news.google.com.

Google news indicates how fresh a story is by listing how long ago it was posted, e.g., 30 minutes ago for the top story on the left in the screen shot above. Click on the title to display the article. Notice the “and 1007 related” link at the bottom of the entry of the story on the left of the above screen shot. If you click an entry’s “and XXX related” link, you’ll see a page listing all articles related to the same topic.

Search news by entering your query and clicking on the Google Search button.

By default, results are sorted by relevance to your search terms. When you wish to see articles ordered chronologically, click on the “Sort by date” link, located in the upper right corner of the results window.

Advanced News Search, accessible from the Advanced Search link on the News page, lets you search by news source, location, date range, and other criteria. It’s also available at news.google.com/advanced_news_search.

International versions of Google News are available for countries including Australia, Canada (English and French), France, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, and the U.K.

Making Google News Your Home Page

If you like keeping up with the latest news, consider making Google News your home page and/or setting up Google Alerts.

Make Google News your home page by following the instructions listed on www.google.com/options/defaults.html, changing http://www.google.com/ to http://news.google.com/ (or copying the URL from one of the non-US versions that we just mentioned). If these instructions don’t work for your browser, check your Options or Preferences settings for a “home page” box; paste the URL into that box.

For more information on Google News visit news.google.com/help/about_news_search.html.

If you’re a news junkie, check out Topix.net, which you can find at http://www.topix.net/ and Columbia Newsblaster, which you can find at http://newsblaster.cs.columbia.edu/. Like Google News, Topix.net and Newsblaster are systems that automatically track the day’s news. Why are we including non-Google sites in a tutorial on Google? To make you aware of sites offering capabilities different from Google News’s and to publicize a friend’s site.

According to the About Columbia Newsblaster page, which you can find at http://newsblaster.cs.columbia.edu/faq.html, “There are no human editors involved — everything you see on the Newsblaster main page is generated automatically, drawing on the sources listed on the left side of the screen.” Unlike Google News, Newsblaster summarizes clusters of articles about the same topic. “The end result is a Web page that gives you a sense of what the major stories of the day are, so you don’t have to visit the pages of dozens of publications,” according to About Newsblaster page.

Exercises

This problem set gives you practice with using Google News. For hints and answers to selected problems, see the Solutions page.

1. Find today’s current top stories listed on Google News.
2. Find the latest news about Google.

tags (keywords): advanced search, news, services

In February of 2003, Google engineer Naga Sridhar got tired of regularly visiting Google News to check for developments in the imminent US war with Iraq. So he put together an application that would email him when a news story broke that matched a specified query. Naga demonstrated his prototype to co-founder Sergey Brin, who set up a news alert for “google.” With encouragement from both Sergey and Marissa Mayer (Google’s Director of Consumer Products), Naga began working full-time on what has become News Alerts. Six months later, links to News Alerts were added to Google Labs’ home page and to Google News.

Google then added Web Alerts to track changes to web pages. Now both News Alerts and Web Alerts have been merged into a single service: Google Alerts. An Alert can watch the news, the web, or both. It can also watch Google Groups.

How does an Alert work? You specify the query or queries you’d like Google to monitor. As Google searches the Internet, if it finds a change that you’ve asked to be notified about — that is, one of your Alerts — you’ll get an email message. Google will tell you about new results once a week, once a day, or as soon as they’re found. (You won’t necessarily get a message every day or week. Google only sends email if there’s something new to report.)

Google Alerts are useful to:

• monitor a developing news story
• keep current on a competitor or industry
• learn where you or your company is cited or quoted
• get the latest on a celebrity or event
• keep tabs on your favorite sports teams
• find when people link to your site
• discover new websites on a certain topic

and more.

Note: Google Alerts is just one of several different services that will email you Google search results. Google Alert, a similarly-named third-party service available at www.googlealert.com, is one of those services.

To set up Google Alerts, go to www.google.com/alerts. What happens next will depend on whether you have a Google Account or not:

• If you have a Google Account, you’ll be working with the Manage Your Alerts page. Here you can create, edit, and delete alerts.
• If you don’t have a Google Account, you’ll use the Google Alerts home page. You’ll create your alerts from this page and manage them via email. This isn’t as convenient as the Manage Your Alerts page, but it’s useful if you don’t want a Google Account.

We’ll start by discussing the Google Alerts home page. Later we’ll cover the Manage Your Alerts page.

1. The Google Alerts Home Page

If you have a Google Account, skip ahead to Section 2, “The Manage Your Alerts Page”.

When you want to create an alert, first you’ll need to have a query in mind. This query takes the same form as a query that you’d type into a Google search box. For instance, if you wanted to know what’s new with Google Guide, you could use the query [ “Google Guide” ] — including the quotes.

Tip: If you’ve just done a search from some other Google pages — especially a News page — look for an “Alerts” link on that page. Clicking it takes you straight to the Alerts page with the query already filled in.

When you go to the Google Alerts page www.google.com/alerts your screen should look something like this:

The “Search terms:” box has the query you’d like Google to monitor.

To search news sources — online newspapers, for instance — choose “News” from the “Type:” drop-down. To search general web pages, choose “Web” instead. Choose “News & Web” to search both. To search Google Groups, choose “Groups.”

On the “How often:” drop-down, set how often Google should tell you about new results.

Put your email address in the “Your email:” box. This is the address where Google will send Alerts. Click the Create Alert button.

Now Google will send a confirmation message by email to be sure your address is correct. The confirmation message will have links to click to confirm or cancel the Alert. (If you can’t click the links, copy the web address into a web browser.)

Once the alert is verified, you should see a Google Alert Verified screen.

Sometime in the future you’ll receive an email message from Google Alerts, like the one shown below, to tell you about new search results for this query. Click on the title (here, “IRS Freedom of Information”) to see the page. You’ll get email about this query from time to time until you cancel the Alert. You can cancel an Alert by clicking the link at the end of an Alert email message.

(To edit an alert, cancel it and create a new one.)

2. The Manage Your Alerts Page

(If you don’t have a Google Account, the previous section describes how to manage your alerts.) Google Account holders use the Manage Your Alerts window to create, edit, and delete Alerts.

You’ll need to be signed in to your Google Account, too. If you aren’t, after you go to the Google Alerts page www.google.com/alerts, click the “Sign in” link.

This is the Manage Your Alerts window:

To create a new Alert, enter a query in the Search Terms box — just as you would for a standard Google search. (If you’ve come to the Manage Your Alerts page from another Google Search page, your last query may be filled in for you. You can edit it if you want to.)

To search news sources, choose “News” from the “Type:” drop-down. Choosing “Web” searches general web pages, Choose “News & Web” to search both. Choosing “Groups” searches Google Groups.

On the “How often:” drop-down, set how often Google should tell you about new results.

Click the Create Alert button. This new alert should move to the list of Your Google Alerts.

To edit or delete any of your existing Alerts, simply click “edit” or “delete” at the right end of its line.

Exercises

This problem set gives you practice with Google Alerts. For hints and answers to selected problems, see the Solutions page.

1. Set up a Google Alert to automatically email you about new pages in Google Guide.

tags (keywords): accounts, alerts, news, services, URLs

Google Product Search (formerly called Froogle) is a searchable and browsable shopping index tuned to finding products for sale online. Click on the Shopping link at the top left corner of Google’s window:

or visit www.google.com/products. Search results include price, brand, description, and, if available, a photograph. Note that unlike other online shopping services, Product Search doesn’t actually sell things.

Product Search obtains listings for products from vendors and by scouring the web. When Google finds a page that appears to sell something, it feeds the information it collects to Froogle. Vendors don’t pay to have their products included in Froogle’s search results. However, they can purchase sponsored links, which appear along the right side of the Product Search results pages.

You can browse products by clicking on a category or you can search by entering your query in the Product Search search box. Interested in buying a watch for a child? Look in Product Search for [ watches children ].

The results included several different meanings of the word “watch”, pages selling children’s jewelry and an LP record. Study results to get ideas for more effective search terms. Consider searching for specific brands.

Near the top is a drop-down box that lets you sort the results by relevance, by price, by reputation of seller, and more. You can also click “Show grid view” to see the results in a more compact format:

Search for specific types of watches — for instance, [ watches children timex ].

or [ watches children teacher ]:

Product Search also shows a link with the seller’s name (in the previous example, both watches came from Amazon.com) and, if available, the average seller’s rating that other Google Product Search users gave the seller. Click on the rating to read detailed reviews and ratings of this seller.

Want products with prices in a specified range or more control over your search? Fill in the Advanced Product Search form. Access the form by clicking on its link to the right side of the search box on a Product Search page or visiting www.google.com/advanced_product_search.

For more information on Product Search click the “Help” link near the bottom of Product Search pages or visit www.google.com/products/about.html.

Exercises

These problems give you practice with shopping on Google Product Searche. For hints and answers to selected problems, see the Solutions page.

1. Find 100% cotton comforter covers with Product Search.
2. Find unbreakable 8 oz. drinking glasses in the price range $10 - $30.
3. Tired of putting on sun screen? Find sun-protective clothing with Product Search.
4. Find heated toilet seats with Product Search.

tags (keywords): froogle, prices, products, services

The last choice in the menu at the top-left corner of the Google window is more ▼. Holding your mouse over that word makes a menu drop down. (This only happens if JavaScript is enabled in your browser.)

You can choose one of the services on the drop-down menu. Or you can click on even more », at the end of that menu, to learn about many of Google’s search services and tools.

In Google Guide, click on any of the following images or links to learn more about these services and tools.

1. Google Services

Alerts	Answers	Blog Search	Book Search	Catalogs	Directory
Groups	Images	Google Labs	Maps	Mobile	News Search
Product Search	Scholar	SMS	Special Searches	University Search	Video
Web Search

2. Google Tools

Blogger	Browser Buttons	Code	Desktop	Earth	Gmail
Google in your Language	Local for mobile	Pack	Picasa	Talk	Google Toolbar
Translate Tool

tags (keywords): services, summary, tools

NOTE: Google no longer supports the Catalog service.

After acquiring a fancy scanner, Larry Page, co-founder of Google, encouraged engineers to come up with a search service that would take advantage of its speed and flexibility. Lauren Baptist started by developing a service around mail-order catalogs because they posed the least copyright issues. Some vendors have better pictures in their catalogs than on the websites. Now you can throw out your mail-order catalogs and browse or search for their contents online, even if the company hasn’t listed them on the web. Visit catalogs.google.com/. But, if you don’t have a high speed connection, the catalog pages load slowwwwwly.

Google tries a lot of things. Some projects succeed and are supported; others fade away. As of this writing (mid-2008), Google Catalogs seems to be one that may fade away. For instance, some catalogs in the Computer category are from 2002 or 2003 — an eternity in that fast-paced market.

Another interesting point about a not-so-developed service like Catalogs is that not all search features may be supported. For instance, searching by price with the numeric range operator, like $250..$1000, would be useful in a catalog search. But that operator was developed after Catalogs, which may explain why it doesn’t work.

Still, the service is interesting — and some of the catalogs are fairly up-to-date. Since IKEA gives out their catalogs sparingly, check out their catalog online.

Like Google Product Search, Catalogs doesn’t sell things. Instead, use this service to browse and/or search print page catalogs. For example, search for a sun hat.

As with other Google services, the Advanced Catalog Search gives you more search choices. Advanced search lets you choose the latest issue of a catalog or all issues. You can also name a certain merchant.

For more information on Google Catalogs visit catalogs.google.com/googlecatalogs/help.html.

Exercises

These problems give you practice with shopping with Google Catalogs. For hints and answers to selected problems, see the Solutions page.

1. Find 100% cotton comforter covers.
2. Find radios at a consumer electronics store. Then try a general search and notice that merchants in other categories may also have radios.
3. Tired of putting on sun screen? Find sun-protective clothing.

tags (keywords): prices, services

There are two basic ways to find information systematically on the Web: browsing and searching. Chris Sherman and Gary Price offer the following description of browsing versus searching in their book The Invisible Web.

Up until now, we’ve shown you how to choose search terms and craft your queries to locate the information you seek. This chapter describes how to browse by following links on Google’s Directory.

Google organizes the Directory into categories that are classifications of pages by subjects. The Directory is similar to the table of contents in a book. Browsing a book’s table of contents, which includes the titles of chapters and sections, allows a reader to quickly find interesting sections of the book. Similarly, browsing a subject-oriented directory, enables a user to quickly locate categories containing related documents. However, there’s no assurance that what you’re seeking will be in the book or web page.

See the top level classifications by visiting directory.google.com.

Google’s web-search index is built automatically by computers that crawl the web. On the other hand, Google’s Directory is created by volunteer human-subject matter experts who contribute to the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org). The raw open-source directory is used not just by Google, but also by Netscape Search, AOL Search, Lycos, HotBot, and DirectHit. The volunteers evaluate, classify, and annotate each entry. The entries are then ranked by Google’s PageRank algorithms.

(If you sort the results by their PageRank, you’ll notice a bar scale to the left of each result. The wider the bar, the higher the PageRank. See the next screen shot for two examples.)

Consider using the Directory instead of Google’s web search whenever you want to:

• Familiarize yourself with a topic.
• Get suggestions for ways to narrow your search.
• Find ideas for query terms.
• Figure out the scope of a given category, e.g., the number of newspapers in California.
• View only pages that have been evaluated by a human editor.

Fewer sites are included in the Directory than in Google’s web search but those that are included tend to be of high quality.

Use Google’s Directory when you want to explore by clicking on topics, i.e., browse. For example, learn about travel by clicking on the Travel category, which is included in the top-level category Recreation, which in the future we’ll abbreviate as Recreation > Travel.

To broaden your search, consider browsing subcategories or related categories, which the Directory includes on your results page. Next to each subcategory is a number in parentheses (), which is the number of links included in that category. Names of categories with lots of entries are shown in boldface.

With Google’s Directory, you can browse and/or search to find pages of interest to you. If you’re unfamiliar with a topic, browse through a few levels of categories and then restrict your search to a particular branch of the Directory by selecting the “Search only in …” radio button before entering your query in the search box. If you’re familiar with a topic, search the Directory by entering your query and clicking on the Google Search button. Then you can either refine your search by changing your search query or entering additional terms or browse by clicking on a subcategory or a related category.

Directory drawbacks include size, timeliness, and coverage. Since computers can crawl the web and add index entries much faster than humans can travel the web and evaluate pages, most directories, including Google’s, have significantly fewer entries than searchable indices. Since directory links are maintained by hand, upkeep and maintenance are time-consuming. It’s difficult for editors to keep up with the dynamic nature of the web. Because different people edit, annotate, and add entries, some categories in a directory are well-populated and others are sparse.

For more information on Google Directory visit www.google.com/dirhelp.html.

Exercises

This problem set gives you practice in using the Google Directory.

1. Find bed and breakfast sites in Florence, Italy.
2. Find sites that focus on changing careers.
3. What are the names of the California state parks and their points of interest?
4. List categories where you can find lawn furniture.

tags (keywords): directory, services

Looking for an easier way to find information on a specific topic or at a specific website?

Google provides the following specialized search engines:

	Apple Macintosh - www.google.com/mac Search for Mac & Apple things
	BSD - www.google.com/bsd Search for the BSD operating systems
	Linux - www.google.com/linux Search for the Linux operating system
	Microsoft - www.google.com/microsoft Search Microsoft-related pages
	U.S. Government and state governments - www.google.com/unclesam Search .gov, .mil and state sites
	Universities - www.google.com/options/universities.html Narrow your search to a specific institution’s website

The specialized searches let you find information about a topic without getting completely unrelated results. For instance, if you want only official information from US governments about taxes, you can search all federal and state government websites from this one search box.

Why these topics? Early on in Google history, some engineers created these specialized search engines to serve their own interests. They’ve remained part of the site though Google has turned its attention to other types of search services and features.

You can find links to these specialized search engines, as well as Google Book Search and Google Scholar, on the Advanced Web Search form.

Exercises

This problem set gives you practice in using Google’s specialized search engines.

1. What was special about the Apple Lisa computer, and why did it fail?
2. What are the advantages of Linux over Windows and vice versa?

tags (keywords): queries, services

Note: As of late 2006, Google Answers isn’t accepting new questions. You can still browse and search existing questions and answers. A similar service, Yahoo! Answers, is available at answers.yahoo.com.

Unlike Google Answers, the Yahoo! service is free of charge. Questions are answered by unpaid volunteers who may not have any qualifications or experience.

Having trouble creating a query to find the information you seek? Don’t have time to research the topic yourself? Consider asking a reference librarian, an experienced online researcher, or Google Answers, which, for a fee of your choosing, provides assistance from researchers with expertise in online searching.

If your query returns few results or none, there may be a link to Google Answers on the results page. Otherwise, visit answers.google.com.

Reluctant to use Google Answers? Think you can find the information you want if you search a bit longer? If you feel that way, you’re not alone. Nevertheless, many people who have asked questions of Google Answers are now fans of the service. Not only does it save them time, but the answers they get are packed with useful information and links. It’s a wonderful service that’s well worth your checking out, whether you’re a novice or an experienced searcher.

Here’s how it works:

• Enter a question.
• Specify an amount between US$2 and US$200 that you’re willing to pay for an answer. Google adds on a US$.50 listing fee, which you are charged regardless of whether your question is answered or not.
• A Google Answers researcher will search for the information you want and post an answer. The researchers are screened and approved independent contractors who get paid for posting “answers” to the site.
• You will be notified via email when any responses are posted to your question, unless you specify in your Google Answers’ Profile that you would rather not receive status information on your questions.

Before posting your first question, check out Google’s tips for getting a better answer to your question, which can be found on the web at answers.google.com/answers/help.html.

You’ll need a Google Answers Account to ask a question. (You can search previous questions and answers without an account.) Provide your email address, a password, and a nickname. (If you already have a Google Account — to use with Google Alerts, for instance — you’ll still need to choose a nickname, specify when Google Answers should send you email, and agree to the Terms of Service for Google Answers.) Your nickname will be shown on every Google Answers question, answer, or comment that you post.

Then enter the topic of your question, your question, the amount between US$2 and US$200 you’re willing to pay for an answer, and the category most appropriate for your question. For example:

Subject:

Enter the topic of your question for our researchers (e.g. “Hiking in New Mexico”).

Nina Totenberg, NPR legal affairs correspondent, birthday, education, and degree

Question:

The more details you provide, the better the results you’ll receive.

When was Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio's (NPR) legal affairs correspondent, born, where was she educated, and what degrees does she have? Did she attend law school?

Price:

Set a price between $2.00 and $200.00.

$2.00

(Google Answers bills your credit card this amount after a researcher answers your question.)

Category:

Select the category most appropriate for your question.

Reference, Education and News > General Reference

The more you’re willing to spend on an answer, the more likely a researcher will answer it and the more likely the answer will be comprehensive.

When a Google Answers researcher or anyone else writes a response to your question, the answer and/or comments will be posted to Google Answers. You may request in your Google Answers’ Profile to be notified by email either once a day or whenever there is new activity with any of your questions.

After a researcher has answered your question, you are given an opportunity to rate the answer from one star (very poor answer) to five stars (great answer), provide comments that anyone who uses Google Answers can access, and tip the researcher between US$1 and US$100, if you feel that you have received an exceptional answer.

Click on a researcher’s handle to see the ratings and comments that researcher has received from users who have posted questions. You may specify which researcher(s) should deal with your question when you submit it.

You can search or browse previously asked questions, both those that have been answered and those that haven’t. At the bottom of the Google Answers home page, find questions (some with answers) by either:

• Entering search terms.
• Clicking on one of the topic headings.
• Selecting a link to a recently asked question.
• Clicking on the view all the questions link.

By default, Google Answers displays questions, their associated comments, and their answers in reverse chronological order (most recently asked question is listed first). Click on either the Date or Price links just above all the questions to sort on that field. When you sort by date, a triangular icon indicates whether the field is sorted with the most recent listed first (triangle points down) or is sorted with the oldest listed first (triangle points up). Click on the triangle to reverse the order.

You’ll find answers there to many already asked questions, including

• How can I rid my apartment of ants?
• When did Title Insurance and Trust Company in Los Angeles go out of business?
• How can I get a divorce in the US? I was married in Brazil and I’m in the US on a student visa.
• Using Photoshop Elements 2, how can I eliminate moiré patterns from a scanned photo or page?
• What is the story of the diaper genie?

Answers to many questions can be found on the web. Users also seek and obtain answers to questions of a more personal nature,

• Please review Google Guide, and let me know ways in which I can improve its content, including but not limited to search tips, clearer explanations, inaccuracies, typos, omissions, better or additional exercises.
• How do I get www.ostrovcoaching.com to appear in Google search results using key phrases such as: “personal coaching” “life coaching” “executive coaching” “business coaching” “Tracy Ostrov” “Ostrov Coaching” “Denver” “Colorado” “Golden”?

Some of the answers are indexed by Google and then searchable through Google’s web search.

For more information on Google Answers visit answers.google.com/answers/help.html and answers.google.com/answers/faq.html. To see what users are saying about the service and how they are using it, visit answers.google.com/answers/testimonials.html.

Exercises

These problems give you practice in asking questions and in browsing those that have been posted to Google Answers.

1. View a recently asked question.
2. View a recently answered question.
3. Click on the “view all questions” link in the lower right corner of the Google Answers home page and browse some of the questions that have been answered.
4. Look up the answer to the question “How can I rid my apartment of ants?”
5. Look up in Google Answers whether clicking on an unsubscribe or remove link in a spam message does what it’s advertised to do.
6. Look up in Google Answers the recommended gratuity to give to the server when purchasing take-out food.
7. Review tips for great answers, which you can access by clicking on the “Tips for great results” link that appears in the border of the box for entering your question.
8. Find Jessamyn West’s article about her experience as a Google Answers researcher.

tags (keywords): services

Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” To this end, Google showcases some prototypes and products in development on the Google Labs, the web site of Google’s research group.

Visit Google Labs’ home page at labs.google.com.

Note: Google Labs updates its site periodically. So you may find prototypes or demos different from the ones shown here.

In the Parts Query Input and Understanding Results, we mention graduates of Google Labs, services and tools that have been refined and made available through Google’s home page.

•  Google Maps (Search by Location)
•  Google Alerts
•  Google Glossary

Google will likely refine some of these demos and make them available through Google’s home page. If you want to become part of Google’s development process, try out these prototypes and provide feedback to the engineers who developed them.

In this final page of Services, we describe a Google Labs’ prototype search tool:

Google Sets

Google Sets - labs.google.com/sets - automatically creates sets of items from a few examples.

Enter a few items from a set of things. Then press the Large Set button or the Small Set button and Google Sets will try to predict other items in the set. For example, if you enter Golden Gate Bridge, Palace of Fine Arts, and Coit Tower, Google Sets suggests other places worth visiting in San Francisco.

Use Google sets to suggest: people who might share interests with you, places to visit, books to read, movies to see, synonyms, food you might enjoy, stores where you can buy a particular type of item, etc.

Exercises

These problems give you practice in using Google Labs prototypes and demos.

1. Visit Google Labs. Try two of the prototypes and demos that are listed on the site.
2. Get suggestions for books by entering some of your favorite authors or titles and asking Google Sets to predict other members of the set.
3. Enter some of your favorite movies and see if Google Sets recommends either movies you haven’t seen or other of your favorite movies.

tags (keywords): google labs, new features, services