The Many Faces of Google

The Many Faces of Google

A Presentation by Joel May

Our Goals

•To Learn how Google works•To Discover some Google tricks•To Explore some advanced features

The Google Home Screenwww.google.com

The Google Home Screen

The Search Term Box

Search Term RulesRule #1 – Be Specific

(If you aren’t, you’ll end up with a lot of garbage)

Search for condominiums: 2,540,000 hits

Search for condominiums florida naples time-share: 1,920 hits

Search Term Rules

Rule #2 – Use Quotes to Search for Phrases

Search for joe montana: 1,080,000 hits

Search for “joe montana”: 159,000 hits

And, to demonstrate Rule #1 again:

Search for “joe montana” 1988 “san francisco”: 6,730 hits

Search Term Rules

Rule #3 – To Require Search Terms to be Included

Use the Plus Sign (+) or AND•Google ignores common words and characters such as “to” and “for” as well as single digits and single letters because they tend to slow down the search

•If a common word is essential to getting the results you want, you can include it by putting a “+” sign in front of it

Search Term Rules

Rule #3 – To Require Search Terms to be Included

Use the Plus Sign (+) or AND

•For Example: to search for Star Wars, Episode I, use

• star wars episode +i, or

• star wars episode AND i

• without the + or AND, the i will be ignored in the search

Search Term Rules

Rule #4 – To Exclude Search TermsUse the Minus Sign (-) or NOT

• Sometimes what you’re searching for has more than one meaning

• For example, “eagles” can refer to either a large diurnal bird of prey or a professional football team

• You can exclude a word from your search by putting a minus sign (-) immediately in front of the term you want to avoid

Search Term Rules

Rule #4 – To Exclude Search TermsUse the Minus Sign (-) or NOT

•For example, to find web pages about eagles that do not contain the words football or philadelphia, use

•eagles –football -philadelphia, or

•eagles NOT football NOT philadelphia

Search Term Rules

Rule #5 – To Find Pages Containing Either of Two or More Terms Use OR

•A search for lodging dining atlanta gets pages referring to BOTH lodging AND dining in Atlanta: 233,000 hits

•A search for lodging OR dining atlanta get pages referring to EITHER lodging OR dining in Atlanta: 2,990,000 hits

•Can you tell why there are more hits with OR than with AND?

Search Term Rules

Rule #6 – To Find Pages Containing either the Term

Or its Synonyms Use the Tilde (~)

•For example to search for healthy recipes as well as nutritional, low fat, diet, etc. recipes, use the tilde (~) before the term “healthy”

• healthy recipes results in 4,800,000 hits

• ~healthy recipes results in 137,000,000 hits

Search Term Rules

Rule #7 – To search for number in a specified range use n1 … n2

•For example, to search for a digital camera costing between $250 and $500:

•digital camera $250 … $500

•To search for Olympic Game records for the years 1950 to 1960:

•olympic game records 1950 … 1960

Search Term Rules

Rule #8: Use an asterisk (*) as a wild card representing one word

For example, google * my lifewill return (among others)

“Google changed my life,” “Google enhanced my life,” “Google ruined my life,” etc.

Search Term Rules

Rule #9: A term with an accent doesn’t match a term without an accent but the reverse is

not true

•For example mañana matches mañana but not manana

•But manana matches both manana and mañana

Search Term Rules

Rule #10 – Combine These Search Box Rules as Often as Possible

(see Rule #1)

The Action Buttons

The Action Buttons

Just what does Google do when you click on one of them?

The Action Buttons

Google Search

The Action Buttons(Google Search)

To identify the relevant pages, Google uses:–Word Hits (whether the search term appears on the page)–Adjacency Hits (how close together the search terms appear on the page)–Frequency Hits (how often the search terms appear on the page)–About 100 other secret variables–Page Rank (how “important” the page is)


For a search of disney fantasyland pirates

Google would use Word Hits:

It would identify all pages that contain disney AND fantasyland AND pirates



Google would then use Adjacency Hits:A page that contains:

“My favorite Disney attraction, outside of Fantasyland, is Pirates of the Caribbean”

Would receive a higher adjacency score than one that says:

“Walt Disney was both a genius and a taskmaster. The team at WDI spent many sleepless nights designing Fantasyland. But nothing could compare to the amount of imagineering work required to create Pirates of the Caribbean.”



Google would then use Frequency Hits:

A page that contains the word disney four times, fantasyland three times and pirates seven times would receive a higher frequency score than a page on which each of those words appeared only once



Google would then use

About 100 Secret VariablesAbout 100 Secret Variables

Which accounts, at least in part, for the fact that Google’s stock price which

opened at $85 is now over $400


Google applies its patented Page Page RankRank

–There is a premise in higher education that the importance of a research paper can be judged by the number of times it is cited or referenced in other papers

–Google applies this premise to the Web. The importance of a web page can be judged by the number of hyperlinks pointing to it from other pages

–A page with a lot of (incoming) links to it is judged to be more important than a page with only a few links to it

–A page with few (outgoing) links to other pages is judged to be more important than a page with links to a lot of other pages


The pages with the highest ranks appear first on the output list

The Action Buttons

I’m Feeling Lucky

The Action Buttons(I’m Feeling Lucky)

Directly displays the web page with the highest rank

The Results

The Results

Type of Search

Number of Hits

Length of Time

Sponsored Links

(Paid Advertisements)

Definition of the Term

The title of the pageA “snippet” of text containing the search term(s)

The URL of the page

A cached version of the page

Links to similar pages

At the top of every Google search results page, Google displays a diminutive, but fully featured version of its home page

And, if the search term appears on more than one page on the site, a link to a list of those additional pages

Extended Results

Spell Checker

News Headlines

Product Search

Refine Results I

Refine Results II

Translate

Translate

Translate

Special Web Search Featureswww.google.com/help/features.html

Special Web Search FeaturesCalculator and Unit Converter

•Google works as a calculator and as a unit converter

•Enter the calculation you’d like done into the search box and press the Enter key or click on the Google Search button

•The calculator can solve math problems involving basic arithmetic, more complicated math, units of measure and currency conversions

Special Web Search FeaturesCalculator and Unit Converter

Examples:

• (5+5)*2 returns 20

• 50/4 returns 12.5

• 2^3 returns 8

• 36 choose 6 returns 1,947,792

• half a cup in teaspoons returns 24 US teaspoons

• 120 acres in sq miles returns 0.1875 square miles

• 75 mph in kph returns 120.7008 kilometers/hour• 3.5$ in £ or 3.5$ in pounds returns 1.96662359 British

pounds • currency of brazil in malaysian money returns

1 Brazil real = 1.72481993 Malaysian ringgits

Special Web Search FeaturesDefinitions

•Google works as a dictionary

•Enter the word you’d like defined preceded by “define:” into the search box and press the Enter key or click on the Google Search button

•Example: define:grip returns several definitions of the word

Special Web Search FeaturesDefinitions

Special Web Search FeaturesFile Types

•Google will limit its search to certain types of documents rather than Web pages (or it can exclude certain types of documents from its search)

•Google recognizes pdf, Microsoft Office formats, PostScript, Corel WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and other file types

•Google also offers the user the ability to “View as HTML” so you can examine the contents of a file even if the corresponding application is not installed on your computer

Special Web Search FeaturesFile Types

•Example 1: budget filetype:xls would return all the Microsoft Excel spreadsheets on the Web which contained the word “budget”

•Example 2: spyware filetype:-pdf would return all the web sites containing the word “spyware” that were NOT in pdf format

Special Web Search FeaturesMovies

• To find reviews and showtimes for movies playing near you, type the search term movie: followed by movies or the name of a current film into the Google search box.

•If you've already saved your location by using Google Local, the top search result will display show times for nearby theaters for the movie you've chosen.


• Example 1: To find reviews and showtimes for the movies playing near you, type movie: movies


Movie:movies


• Example 2: To find reviews and showtimes for a particular movie playing near you, type movie: followed by the name of the movie



• Example 3: You can use the movie: operator to search for films related to a specific actor, director or plot detail.


Special Web Search FeaturesPhoneBook

•There are three types of phonebook commands available in Google:

•phonebook: searches all of Google’s listings•rphonebook: searches residential listings only•bphonebook: searches business listings only


•You can access the information by entering various combinations of information:

• LastName• FirstName• City • State • ZipCode• Phone Number (including area code) – this performs a “reverse search”


•Example 1: phonebook: jon corzine nj returns information on everyone with the name Jon Corzine living in the state of New Jersey

•There turns out to be only one:


•Example 2: bphonebook:auto glass trenton nj returns information on all furniture businesses in Trenton, NJ

Special Web Search FeaturesSearch By Number

•Parcel tracking ID’s, patent numbers and other specialized numbers can be entered into Google’s search box for quick access to information about them

•In most cases, Google can recognize the configuration of numbers and determine what kind of a number it is

Special Web Search FeaturesSearch By Number

•Examples:•UPS tracking numbers (e.g. enter 1Z9999X999999999)•FedEx tracking numbers (e.g. enter 999999999999)•USPS tracking numbers (e.g. enter 9999 9999 9999 99 9999) •Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers (e.g. enter AAAAA999A9AA99999)•UPC codes (e.g. enter 073333531084)•Telephone area codes (e.g. enter 609)•Patent numbers (e.g. enter patent 5123123) Note that the word “patent” is required as part of the search term•FAA airplane registration numbers (e.g. enter n199ua)•FCC equipment IDs (e.g. search fcc B47-34009-PIR) Note that the word “fcc” is required as part of the search term

Special Web Search FeaturesSpell Checker

•Google's spell checking software automatically looks at your query and checks to see if you are using the most common version of a word's spelling

•If it calculates that you're likely to generate more relevant search results with an alternative spelling, it will ask "Did you mean: (more common spelling)?“

•Clicking on the suggested spelling will launch a Google search for that term.



• At www.google.com/jobs/britney.html, Google has posted a number of ways Britney Spears’ name has been mispelled

Special Web Search FeaturesGoogle Financial

•Entering the query word stocks: along with selected stock symbols returns current prices along with much additional information on the stocks chosen

•Example: stocks:goog msft returns information on Google and Microsoft

Special Web Search FeaturesStock Quotes

Special Web Search FeaturesTravel Information

• Use Google to check the status (delays and weather conditions) at any US airport

Example 1: ewr airport will return the status of the Newark International Airport



• Use Google to check the status (delays and weather conditions) at any US airport

Example 1: ewr airport will return the status of the Newark International Airport

• You can also check the status of any domestic airline’s flight

Example 2: US Airways 11 will return the status of the US Airways flight 11 from Madrid, Spain to Philadelphia


Special Web Search FeaturesWeather

• Use Google to check the weather for any US city

• Example weather: naples fl will return the current conditions and the forecast for the next three days for Naples, FL

Special Web Search FeaturesWeather

Other Types of Searches

•Google provides many kinds of specialized or focused searches

•We’ll look carefully at the some of the most useful ones

•And we’ll also touch on some of the fun ones


Web Search


Image Search

Image Search

• Searches the Web for pictures related to the specified search term(s)

Image Search

Thumbnail of Picture

Name of Picture File

Size of picture file (in pixels and Kilobytes)

URL at which the picture can be found

Double-click on the Thumbnail to see the picture in its original web site context

Image SearchClick on “See Full Size Image” to (guess what?) see a full size image

Image Search

• Right-click on the picture and choose from a number of options:

Types of Searches

Types of Searches: Groups Search

Groups Search

• Searches news groups for specified search terms

• A news group is a forum for sharing information. Each one is an area on the Internet that allows users to post messages and reply to other users’ messages

• Thus, searches on news groups are more likely to return opinions and tips than is the case with standard web page searches

Groups Searchrestaurants princeton nj

Groups Search

Types of Searches

Types of Searches: News Searches

News Search

• Searches current news sources for the specified search terms

• Accesses many news sources (currently 4,500)

• Groups and summarizes the results for easy browsing

• Results can be sorted by relevance or by date

News Search

News Search: Alerts

Philadelphia Phillies

News Search: Alerts


News Search: Alerts


News Search: Alerts


[email protected]

News Search: Alerts

News Search

• You can also access the current news via Google.

• Click on “News” with nothing in the search box

News Search

Types of Searches

Types of Searches: Froogle

Froogle Search

• Searches for prices and product availability associated with the specified search term(s)

• Accesses product reviews and facilitates price comparisons

Froogle Search

Compare Prices

Sort by Price or Relevance

Set a price range

Refine the Search

Types of Searches

Types of Searches: Maps

Google Maps

•To use Google to find street maps, enter a U.S. street address, including zip code or city/state in the Google search box

•Example: 290 columbus avenue, new york, ny returns a map showing the location of the home of a friend of mine

Google Maps

Google Maps

Google Maps

Google Maps

•Find local businesses and services on the Web

•Enter the type of business and the city and state

Google Maps

Name, Address and Telephone Number

Distance and Driving

Directions

Map Showing Locations

Google Maps

Web Page Translation

Special Web Search Features

Google in your Language

Google in your Language

Google Language Tools

•Translate Text

•Lets you search for pages created in any of the available languages or registered in any of the available countries

•Lets you translate words, phrases or entire web pages to and from:•Englis

h

•French

•German

•Spanish

•Portuguese

•Italian




Types of Searches

More Types of Searches

More Types of Searches

Google Answers

• Ask a question

• Tell what you are willing to pay for an answer

• More than 500 carefully screened researchers are ready to answer your question for as little as $2.50 – usually within 24 hours

http://answers.google.com

Google Answershttp://answers.google.com

Google Catalogs

•Search through or browse mail order catalogs online

•Choose a catalog from the directory listing and view the pages in full color

Google Catalogs

Google Catalogs

Google Catalogs

Google Catalogs

• You can also search for specific items across all the available catalogs

Google Catalogs

Google Video

• CBS primetime TV (including CSI, Amazing Race, Survivors and NCIS)• NBA Games• Movie Trailers• Music Videos from Sony• Historic, News and Educational video• Cartoon Classics (Krazy Kat, Woody Woodpecker• User-submitted Videos• Specialty items (e.g. Superbowl Commercials)

Google Video

Google Mobile

•Google Mobile uses SMS (Short Message Service) to send queries as text messages over your mobile phone or device

•It provides precise answers to your queries in text form

Google Mobile

Dial 46645 (GOOGL) to access:

•Web Search

•Image Search

•Local Information and Maps

•Phone book listings

•Weather conditions

•Movie showtimes

•And More

Google Tools

Blogger

•“Blogger” is a word which combines two other words:

•Web and Log

•A “Blog” is a web site where you can post personal opinions about anything you want as often as you wish

•Readers of your opinions can visit the site and respond to your opinions

•Google provides the technology to enable you to create your own “Blog” at www.blogger.com/start

Blogger

Google Tools

Web API’s

•An API (Application Program Interface) allows you to develop your own search applications using Google’s technology

•With the Google Web API’s, software developers can query more than 4 billion Web documents directly from their own computer programs

•For more information on this and other advanced Google topics see “Google Hacks” by Tara Calashain and Rael Dornfest (O’Reilly and Associates, Inc. ISBN 059600478)

Google Tools

Google Desktop Search

• Google Desktop Search indexes files on your computer (similar to the ways in which it indexes web pages) and performs searches on them

• Find your email, files, web history and chats instantly

• View web pages you've seen, even when you're not online

• Google Desktop Search finds entries in:

• Outlook and Outlook Express• Internet Explorer• Word, Excel and Powerpoint• AOL Instant Messenger• Text files




When Google Desktop Search is installed on your computer, ordinary Google searches produce results from the desktop as well as from the Web

Google Tools

Google Hello

• Google Hello is an Instant Messaging program with a special flair for sharing photos

• Google acquired it as part of a package purchased from Pyra Labs that included Picasa (discussed shortly)

Google Tools

Google Earth

• Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.

• Fly from space to your neighborhood. Type in an address and zoom right in.

• Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels.

• Get driving directions.

• Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.

• Save and share your searches and favorites.

• Even add your own annotations.

• http://www.wikimapia.org/#y=40178873&x=-74674072&z=2&l=0&m=s

Google Earth

http://www.wilimapia.org/#y=40178873&x=74674072&z=2&l=0&m=s



Google Earth

• By combining Google Earth with API’s (application program interface), creative people have begun creating “mashups”

• Crime, air quality, income/wealth, restaurants, roads under construction, gasoline prices, apartments for rent, etc.

• Here’s an example showing contributions to political parties (http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~markane/i590/contributors.html):

Google Earth

Google Earth

•And here’s one showing the assessed value of each home on the map (www.zillow.com):

Google Earth

Google Earth

• You can find these and hundreds of others at

www.mashupfeed.com

Google Tools

Picasa

• Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC

• It automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize.

• Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips.

• And it makes it a snap to share your pictures – you can email, print photos home, make gift CDs, instantly share via IM, and even post pictures on your own blog.

Google Tools

Google Toolbar andBrowser Buttons

•If you use Internet Explorer as your browser, you can use the Google toolbar

•This toolbar is visible on your screen regardless of what Web site you are viewing

•It gives you direct access to many of the types of searches we’ve discussed

•It includes a pop-up blocker and automatic form completion

•It’s free

•It’s available in 13 languages

Google Toolbar andBrowser Buttons

GMail

• Search by sender, recipient, date, time, subject and content in exactly the same way you use Google to search the Web. Find the exact message you want, no matter when it was sent or received

•Keep it all in context. Each message is grouped with all its replies and displayed as a conversation.

•Don't throw anything away. 2 gigabytes of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message.

Gmail is a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail and you should always be able to find the message you want

GMail

• Anyone who already has a GMail address can provide you with an invitation

• You can buy invitations for around $10 on eBay

• You can get a free invitation by giving Google your cell phone number at https://www.google.com/accounts/SmsMailSignup1 (I don’t know what Google plans to do with your cell phone number)

You must be “invited” to get a GMail address

GMail

•Critics of Gmail have raised question of privacy.

•Since your e-mail is essentially around forever, given the large storage capacity and it has been indexed by Google, is there a risk that it could be disseminated inappropriately or without your permission?

•Google’s response to these criticisms can be found at http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/more.html.

Google Calendar• Calendar Sharing: share with friends and family so you can view each other's schedules side by side or set up a calendar for your group or team

• Invitations: Create event invitations, send them to friends, and keep track of people's responses and comments, all in one place.

• Quick Add: Click anywhere on your calendar where an event belongs and start typing.

• Gmail Integration: Add your friend's Super Bowl party to your calendar without ever leaving your Gmail inbox.

• Search: Find the date of the family BBQ (you knew it was sometime this summer); search public calendars to discover new events you're interested in and add them to your own calendar.

• Mobile Access: Receive event reminders and notifications on your mobile phone.

Google Calendar

Google Labs

•Google Labs (http://labs.google.com) is Google’s “technology playground”

• Every Google employee is given one day a week to work on a project of her/his choice

• Some of these ideas make their way into Google Labs where both Google technologists and general users can try them and comment on them

• Those that succeed in being useful are added to the Google product mix

Google Labs

Google Labs

And You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet

•Google continues to add and enhance features on almost a daily basis.

•To keep up with what’s happening,

•Use www.google.com/help/features.html to learn how to use the currently available features

•Use labs.google.com to see what the future may hold

The Many Faces of GoogleThis presentation is available on the Web at

http://snipurl.com/googlefaces

A full interactive Many Faces of Google tutorial is available on the Web at

http://snipurl.com/googlefacescourse

The End

A Google “Cheat Sheet” can be found at http://www.adelaider.com/google/

Links to all the features we’ve talked about can be found at

http://snipurl.com/googleref

Technology

The Many Faces of Google