Google strives to make it easy to quickly find whatever you’re seeking, whether it’s a web page, a recent news story, a photograph, advice, or a present for a friend. Google Guide’s Cheat Sheet (www.googleguide.com/cheatsheet.html
), Google Guide’s Advanced Operator Quick Reference (www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
) Google Guide’s Calculator Cheatsheet (www.googleguide.com/help/calculator.html
) and Sacramento State’s Google QuikRef (available from www.googleguide.com/print/quick_ref.pdf), provide nice summaries of some of Google’s features and services.
The following table lists the major search services Google offers along with the URLs.
Search Service | Description | Website |
---|---|---|
Web | Search the web. This service includes shortcuts for finding commonly sought utilities and information, such as dictionary definitions, definitions on the web, news headlines, phone numbers, addresses, street maps, stock quotes, travel conditions, package tracking information, calculations of mathematical expressions, and translations of any text or web page. | www.google.com |
Images | Find images, graphics, photos, drawings, maps, etc. | images.google.com |
Groups | Search, browse, and participate in online discussions. This service is wonderful for finding advice, opinions, and recommendations that haven’t necessarily been edited. | groups.google.com |
News | Search and browse online news sources. | news.google.com |
Product Search | Find and browse products for sale from across the web. | www.google.com/products |
Catalogs | Discontinued: Find and browse mail-order catalogs online. | catalogs.google.com |
Directory | Discontinued: Browse web pages by category. | directory.google.com |
Google Labs | Discontinued: Try Google prototypes and demos. | labs.google.com |
When you forget where to find one of Google’s search tools or services, just look it up on Google. For example, if you don’t remember the name or web address of Google product shopping search service, search for [ Google product shopping ].
Query Input
- In Google’s search box, enter up to 32 descriptive words that are likely to appear on pages you’re seeking.
- Click on on Google’s home page to go directly to the first result.
- Be specific: Use more query terms to narrow your results.
- Evaluate carefully whatever you find.
- Understand how Google evaluates your query.
- Use special characters and operators to fine-tune your query and increase the accuracy of your searches:
- When you don’t find what you’re seeking, consider specifying more precisely what you want by using Google’s Advanced Search Form. Filling in the top portion of the Advanced Search form is an easy way to write restricted queries without having to use the basic operators, e.g.,
" "
,+
,–
, orOR
. - You can specify most of the Advanced-Search page options in a regular search box query by using search operators, i.e., query words that have special meaning for Google. The Google Guide Advanced Operator Quick Reference (
www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
) provides a nice summary of the search operators grouped by type. - If you don’t succeed, run another search.
Now that you’ve seen the versatility of the Google search engine, you’ll understand why many users rarely use bookmarks and either use the Google Deskbar, the Google Toolbar, or leave their browsers pointing to Google; they can find practically any site using Google’s many search services and features.
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