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a presentation by Patrick Douglas Crispen NetSquirrel.com Google 301: Über Google a presentation by Patrick Douglas Crispen NetSquirrel.com

Information Please. Google’s goal is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Web searching [and advertising] comprises 70% of Google’s core business. Google 201 [available for download at netsquirrel.com] focuses on how to get the most out of that core 70%. Search engine math Advanced search operators Source: Google Factory Tour

Our Goals Answer the question “what else can I do with Google?” Discover the “core plus more.” Talk about some overlooked core search tools and services. Look at some of Google’s newest inventions, including a LOT of Google tools still in beta. Find out where to get more Google-related help and information. DO ALL OF THIS IN ENGLISH!

How Google Spends Its Time and Resources 70% Core: Search and Ads Examples: Crawling, Ranking, AdWords, Toolbar, AdSense 20% Related: Extensions of Core Search Examples: News, Froogle, GSA, Desktop, Local, Gmail and other communication projects 10% Exploratory Examples: Picasa, Keyhole, Orkut Source: Google Factory Tour

Part One: The Rest of the 70% Behind the Google homepage

Home Sweet Home

I’m Feeling Lucky

“Well, Do Ya … Punk?” The “I’m Feeling Lucky” button takes you directly to the first web page Google returns for your query. You won’t see any other search results. Source: http://www.google.com/help/features.html#lucky

Google bombing “Google bombing” is an attempt to influence a certain page’s Google ranking. If enough people create web pages that use the same anchor text to point to the same web page [for example, if several hundred web pages linked the phrase “cow poly” to www.auburn.edu], you can force that page to become Google’s first hit. And “I’m Feeling Lucky” automatically takes you to that first hit.

Examples of Google bombs Three examples: Failure Great President French Military Victories Is this Google’s fault? NO! Google bombs AREN’T editorial statements by Google. People are just “gaming” PageRank. “Fixing” this would be a slippery slope.

Google’s “Hidden” Search Options

Hiding in Plain Sight To the right of the search box are three links practically no one has never noticed: Advanced Search Preferences Language Tools

The Limitations of Advanced Search Advanced Search is a one-shot deal. You aren’t permanently changing any of your Google settings. “Search for this and then forget these settings the next time I come back.” With a few exceptions, the “advanced” stuff is just search engine math and advanced search operators.

Advanced Search: Find Results You [should] already know how do all of these on Google Homepage’s using search engine math [which is covered in Google 201.] The only new thing is the number of results pull-down list in the upper right corner.

Advanced Search: Other Options You [should] already know how to do file format, occurrences, and domain searches from the Google homepage. Most of the rest are self-explanatory.

Usage Rights – No Filter Aren’t filtered by license = “show me everything.” This is a default Google search.

Usage Rights – Reuse Filter Allow some form of reuse = “show me stuff I can reuse with restrictions.” You must attribute the work. You cannot use the work for commercial purposes. See http://tinyurl.com/b245b for more information.

Usage Rights – Freely Modify Can be freely modified, adapted, or built upon = “stuff I can reuse with attribution.” See http://tinyurl.com/ dtuu3 for more information.

Advanced Search v. Preferences Advanced Search = “search once using these settings.” Preferences = “Change the way Google works for me from here on out.” Changes every Google service you use, not just search.

Google Preferences When you change your Google preferences, Google writes a cookie to your hard drive. Your Google preferences are “permanent” until you: Change your preferences. Toss your cookies. In Internet Explorer: Tools > Options > Delete Cookies In Mozilla/Firefox: Tools > Options > Privacy > Clear Cookies. Go to http://www.google.com. The extra period at the end forces you to go to the English language version of Google. Source: Google Hacks 2nd Ed, p. 21

Interface Language Interface Language lets you change the default language used to display the interface of every Google page you visit. Change the Interface Language to Chinese (Traditional), save your preferences, and watch what happens…

Interface Language Limitations Notice the hits are still in English. Google doesn’t translate the hits to your default language. Yet. The only thing that’s changed is the default language of Google’s interface.

Using Interface Language This is great for foreign language immersion. This is also a WONDERFUL practical joke to play on a friend or colleague. “Hey, why is Google in PIG LATIN!?” Remember, your Google preferences are “permanent” until you: Change your preferences. Toss your cookies. Go to http://www.google.com.

Preferences: Search Language Using Preferences, you can also “permanently” force Google to search only pages written in a specific language or languages.

Preferences: SafeSearch Filtering Google's SafeSearch Filtering screens for sites that contain explicit sexual content and deletes them from your search results. By default, it only filters explicit images. To filter both images and text, choose “Use strict filtering.” Source: http://www.google.com/help/customize.html#safe

SafeSearch Minuses and Plusses No filter, even Google’s, is 100% perfect. An image search for the name of the wife of a well-known actor with SafeSearch set to moderate or strict still returns inappropriate images. Search for one of the “seven deadly words” with SafeSearch set to strict and it’s almost like searching for * * Google does block the word. But then Google returns way too many pages. PageRank becomes the filter. Still, SafeSearch eliminates most inappropriate material from your searches. Source: http://tinyurl.com/7resl

More Preferences Number of Results and Results Window are self-explanatory. Remember, your Google preferences are “permanent” until you: Change your preferences. Toss your cookies.

Wait. There’s More!

Language Tools Like Advanced Search, Language Tools is a one-shot deal. Use Language Tools if You don’t want to permanently change your Interface or Search languages. You want to translate text.

Google Translate Using Language Tools, you can Translate keyed in text from one language to another. Translate a web page’s text from one language to another. Be looking for even more robust translation tools from Google in the not-too-distant future.

Part One: In Summary The “I’m Feeling Lucky” button takes you directly to the first web page Google returns for your query. Advanced Search and Language Tools are one-shot deals. Preferences are permanent and global until you change them or delete your cookies.

Data mining for fun and profit Part Two: More Googles Data mining for fun and profit

Paging Miss Muffet In Google 201 you learned that when Google’s spiders report back, they send Google a complete copy of everything they find – HTML, text, images, etc. Google’s web search gets all of the attention – it consumes 70% of Google’s time and energy. But why not make the other stuff the spiders find searchable as well?

Google’s Goal, Restated Organize the world’s information – not just web pages – and make that information universally accessible and useful Adapted from Google Factory Tour

Google Image Search

Behind the Scenes “Hey, let’s take all these cached images and make them searchable.” Two ways to get to Google Image Search images.google.com Go to Google [or Google Groups, Google News, Froogle, or Google Local/Google Maps] and click on the “Images” link.

Using Google Image Search Search engine math works here as well. Check out Advanced Image Search [to the right of the search box] for special size, filetype, and coloration options. Beware of copyright! Google cannot grant you any rights to use the images you find for any purpose other than viewing them on the web. To reuse the images, contact the site owner and obtain the requisite permissions.

Fun with Google Image Search Guess the keyword[s] I used to find this picture. There is even a free “Guess the Google” Flash game at http://tinyurl.com/ a8zgs

Google Groups [Beta]

Behind the Scenes “Hey, let’s take the Deja News archive of over one billion Usenet postings since 1981 and make that searchable.” “And while we’re at it, let’s make it so people can create their own announcement lists, mailing lists, and public discussions as well.” Two ways to get to Google Groups groups.google.com Click on the “Groups” link on most Google sites.

Use-WHAT? Usenet Internet-based bulletin board Tens of thousands of theme-based, hierarchical newsgroups coving every topic imaginable Anyone can read, post, or reply. Huge collection of opinion, commentary, reviews, spam, and LOTS AND LOTS OF PORN!

How Google Groups Works Google took an archive of Usenet posts and slapped a Google search engine on top of it. Searching Google Groups is pretty much identical to searching Google. Check out Advanced Group Search for some Google Groups-specific search operators. Wait. There’s more.

The REALLY Cool Part Google Groups also lets you create your own [non-Usenet] groups. You can Create your own private listervs. Hold [and archive] your own online web- or email-based discussions. All you need is a free Google account. If you don’t have one already, go to groups.google.com and click on “Join.”

Signing up for a Google Account To create a Google Account: Key in your email address. Create a password. Key in the captcha word [the squiggly “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart” word that appears on the page.] Click on the “Create my account” button. Login to your email and verify your account. Then you can set up your first Google Group.

1. Click on Create a new group

2. Key in Your Group’s Information

3. Choose Who Can Participate

4. Add or Invite Members

5. Set the Default Subscription Type

6. PARTY!

Google Groups Tips Search for a topic in the search box or browse for topics at the bottom of the Google Groups homepage. Click on the “Groups Help” link to the right of the search box for instructions. Click on the “Learn More about Google Groups” link under the search box for a list of new features.

Google News [Beta]

Behind the Scenes “Hey, let’s take news articles from 4,500 online news sites and make them searchable.” Two ways to get to Google News news.google.com Go to Google [or Google Groups, Google News, Froogle, or Google Local/Google Maps] and click on the “News” link.

How Google News Works Every 15 minutes, Google gathers stories from more than 4,500 English-language news sites. A computer program automatically arranges the stories by relevance and popularity. Sound familiar? [*cough* PageRank *cough*] There are no editors or human intervention. Google’s algorithms run everything. And if you don’t want to browse the news, you can also search the news by keyword[s.] Source: http://news.google.com/intl/en_us/about_google_news.html

Google News Tips Click on “Customize this page” to change the default layout [via a cookie.] Google News archive only goes back 30 days. Use the regular Google for older searches. “Copyright * The Orange County Register” Disneyland Scroll to the bottom of the Google News homepage for links to international versions of Google News. Source: Google Hacks, 2nd Ed, p. 60-61

Froogle [Beta]

Behind the Scenes “Hey, let’s take all these cached web pages on which merchants are trying to sell stuff and make those pages searchable.” Three ways to get to Froogle froogle.com froogle.google.com Go to Google [or Google Groups, Google News, Froogle, or Google Local/Google Maps] and click on the “Froogle” link.

How Froogle Works Adapted from: http://froogle.google.com/froogle/tour/index.html?promo=help

Google Local

Hey, Wait a Minute! That’s Google MAPS, not Google LOCAL! Google Maps and Google Local merged in October 2005. “Hey, let’s take Telcontar’s NAVTEQ maps and the images we got when we bought Keyhole and make all of that searchable.” “And, while we’re at it, let’s throw in Google Local information as well.” There are several ways to get to Google Local: maps.google.com local.google.com Go to Google [or Google Groups, Google News, Froogle, or Google Local/Google Maps] and click on the “Local” link.

Search for an Address

Ooooh. Pretty. And Draggable.

Look! Up in the Sky!

The Best of Both Worlds

It’s a Small World After All.

More Uses for Google Local With Google Local, you can search for Addresses. Step-by-step driving directions. Businesses or services. In or Near searches ribs in anaheim free wifi near irvine ca

Set Your Default Location To set your default location: Search for your address. Click on “Set as start location” in the address balloon. Your default location is saved as a cookie.

Sharing Your Discoveries Find something neat in Google Local – like a bridge that doesn’t connect – and want to share it with others? Click on “Link to this page.” Copy the URL in your browser’s address box and share it with others.

googlesightseeing.com

Part Three: More>> We’re just getting started.

Even “More >>” Googles

The Hidden 20% [and 10% More]

A Quick Caveat There are simply too many Google tools and services! Imagine how many times you could say “Hey, let’s take ___ and make it searchable!” if you had Google’s bank account! Instead of talking about each of Google’s tools and services in-depth [which would take DAYS], let’s just take a quick tour of what’s available and point you to where you can get some more information.

Google Alerts [Beta] Choose a topic and Google will automatically send you an email when: New stories appear in the top ten results of a Google News search for your topic. New web pages appear in the top twenty results of a Google search for your topic. New posts appears in the top fifty results of a Google Groups search for your topic.

Google Answers answers.google.com Pay service [NOT free] Ask a question. Set a price you are willing to pay for the answer [starting at US$2.50.] If your price is right, professional researchers will find an answer for you, usually within 24 hours. Fun suggestion: browse the previously answered questions.

Blogger blogger.com “Hey, now that we bought this blogging company, let’s let everyone create their own blog for free.” Check out “Blogger Basics” at help.blogger.com for step-by-step instructions on how to get started.

What Is a Blog? A weblog, or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts on a common webpage. Blogs can be used as a Personal journal or diary. Class project page. Bookmarks or links page. Etc.

Why blogs are cool They’re web-based. They’re absurdly easy to use. There’s no client software to download and learn. You can update your blog from any Internet-connected computer. They’re absurdly easy to use. You DON’T have to know or use HTML. You DON’T have to know or use FTP. They’re not solitary. The community of blogs and bloggers make up a vast social network.

Why Blogger? If you are interested in joining the blogosphere, Blogger is a great place to start. It’s free. It’s pretty easy. You’ll be up an running in minutes and you’ll be an expert in a few hours.

Google Blog Search [Beta] blogsearch.google.com [or search.blogger.com] Google search for EVERY blog that publishes an RSS or Atom feed [not just Blogger blogs.] Pros: Updated much more frequently than Google’s regular search database. Cons: Blog contents are frequently more opinion than fact.

Google Catalogs [Beta] catalogs.google.com “Hey, let’s scan the full content of hundreds of mail order catalogs and make those pages searchable.” Key in a search term and Google’s search technology finds [and highlights] the search term[s] on the scanned catalog pages. Click on “Catalog Help” for more information.

Google Desktop [Beta] desktop.google.com “Hey, let’s give Windows XP users a way to search both the web and inside of the files on their computers at the same time.” Free 1.3 MB Windows XP file you download and install

How Google Desktop Works Google for your PC’s files Indexes and searches the contents of your Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, IE, AIM, PDF, and Netscape files. It’s private. Google doesn’t put your files on the internet or in their master database. If you often lose files on your computer, Google Desktop search is a godsend.

Google Directory directory.google.com Human-compiled directory of web pages organized by topic into categories [a la the old Yahoo directory.] Netscape Open Directory Project database with a Google front end. Human editors determine each page’s importance.

Google Earth [Beta] earth.google.com Processor- and video-card-intensive 11.2 MB Windows 2000 or XP program that lets you Zoom into a specific address or location from space. Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.

Using Google Earth Google Earth is a 3D Google Local/Google Maps with LOTS of extra features. But you can still use it to search for Addresses. Step-by-step driving directions. Businesses or services. In or Near searches.

Google Mail [Beta] gmail.com or mail.google.com “Hey, let’s give everyone a free email account with lots of storage and make that searchable.” 2,500+ megabytes of storage per account By invitation only Sign up via SMS Search Google for “free gmail invitations”

Gmail Benefits Gmail gives you so much storage space you may never need to delete any emails. Gmail automatically groups emails and their replies as threads. Gmail autosaves drafts every few minutes. You can import Outlook contacts into Gmail and output your Gmail contacts into other email programs and services. Check out http://mail.google.com/support for more information.

Google Mobile mobile.google.com Search Google on your web-enabled cell phone Search the web Search images Do a local search [maps, driving directions, businesses, and services] Search for web pages specifically designed to display on a cell phone. Visit Google Mobile for step-by-step instructions.

Google Short Message Service [Beta] sms.google.com Don’t have a cell phone with a built in web browser? If your cell phone can send and receive text messages, just send your queries as a text messages to 46645 [GOOGL] Scroll to the bottom of sms.google.com for an online demo, sample queries, and even a wallet-sized tip sheet.

Picasa picasa.google.com “Hey, let’s give everyone a way to organize and fix their digital images.” Kind of Google’s version of Adobe Photoshop Elements Free 4 MB Windows 2000 or XP file Click on “Take a tour of Picasa” for more information.

Google Book Search [Beta] books.google.com “Hey, let’s take a millions of books and make them searchable.” Google Publisher Program is digitizing books authorized by publishers. Google Library Project is digitizing the collections of several major libraries. Publishers have filed lawsuits to stop Google Book Search.

Why Cache? To understand the purpose of Google Book Search, you have to understand the purpose of Google’s cache. Google bots collect copies of “stuff” they find on the web: HTML, text, images, etc. That stuff is added to Google’s cache. Google indexes the cache of stuff to make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for.

Cache or Credit? When you search Google, Google searches through its cache looking for matches. BUT, when you click on a link, Google DOESN’T point you to their cached copy of the stuff, they point you back to the original. Exception: The cache: search operator which only works with HTML.

The Fine Print Google Book Search caches the contents of scanned books. In response to a search query, you can browse the full text of public domain materials. BUT, for books under copyright, you can only see a few sentences on either side of the search term [for context] with links on where you can locate the book in a library or bookstore. Source: http://www.policybandwidth.com/doc/googleprint.pdf

Books Still in Copyright Source: http://print.google.com/googleprint/screenshots.html

Public Domain Books Source: http://print.google.com/googleprint/screenshots.html

How Google Book Search Fits In Google’s goal is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” A lot of the world’s information—like the contents of books—aren’t universally accessible and useful, especially online. Google Book Search lets you search for terms inside of books and then points you to real-world locations like libraries and bookstores where you can view or purchase those books.

Using Google Book Search on Google Whenever books in Google Book Search contain content that matches your search terms, you'll see links to those books under Book Results at the top of your search results page. You can also use the books about search operator books about pirates books about google Source: http://www.google.com/help/features.html#book

Google Scholar [Beta] scholar.google.com Limits your searches to Peer-reviewed papers Theses Books Abstracts and articles A great tool to search for scholarly information from Academic publishers Professional societies Preprint repositories Universities and other scholarly organizations Source: http://scholar.google.com/scholar/about.html

Special Google Searches Topic or site-specific Google searches http://www.google.com/options/ specialsearches.html

Google Talk [Beta] talk.google.com Google instant messenger with built in voice-over-IP features Free 900 KB Windows 2000 or XP file Requirements: A Gmail account Microphone and speakers

Google Toolbar toolbar.google.com Free web-browser plug-in for Internet Explorer and Firefox on the PC Google search box Pop-up blocker Spellcheck PageRank display

Google University Search http://www.google.com/ options/universities.html Limits your search to a particular .edu domain Of course, you can always skip this and use site:schoolname.edu on Google’s homepage.

Google Video [Beta] video.google.com Lets you watch Flash-encoded material from archived TV programs, educational videos, personal productions and more. Recommended: a FAST internet connection

Not Quite Ready for Prime Time Still in beta Currently includes only a small amount of programming from a limited number of channels For educational movies, skip Google Video [for now] and go to the Moving Pictures archive at archive.org.

What’s Next? labs.google.com Google’s technology playground Great place to get a sneak peek of new Google technologies in the beginning stages of development

The Last Part: Google Resources Where to get more information

http://www.google.com/support Google Help Central Free guides and FAQs that tell you about Web searching in general and Google’s features in specific.

Google Support Newsgroup Google has a free Usenet newsgroup: google.public. support.general You may be able to access this newsgroup through your Usenet reader.

Google Support Newsgroup You can also search for the google. public.support. general newsgroup at news.google.com. The easiest way to access the newsgroup is to just click on the “user support discussion forum” link on the right side of the Google Help Central page.

Google Hacks Google Hacks, 2nd Edition by Calishain and Dornfest US$24.95 (ISBN 0596008570) This is an extremely advanced book written for Perl programmers, NOT you and me. But I still highly recommend it. Image source: Amazon.com

Official Google Blog googleblog.blogspot.com Where Google managers, engineers, and team members make official announcements Updated every day or so

Unofficial Google Blog blog.outer-court.com A great resource for unofficial Google updates, reviews, and product speculation Updated several times a day

Google’s Goal Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful Source: Google Factory Tour

How Google Spends Its Time and Resources 70% Core: Search and Ads Examples: Crawling, Ranking, AdWords, Toolbar, AdSense 20% Related: Extensions of Core Search Examples: News, Froogle, GSA, Desktop, Local, Gmail and other communication projects 10% Exploratory Examples: Picasa, Keyhole, Orkut Source: Google Factory Tour

The Google Bullseye Adapted from: Google Factory Tour

Our Goals Answer the question “what else can I do with Google?” Discover the “core plus more.” Talk about some overlooked core search tools and services. Look at some of Google’s newest inventions, including a LOT of Google tools still in beta. Find out where to get more Google-related help and information. DO ALL OF THIS IN ENGLISH!

Fair Use Disclaimer This presentation was created following the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia. Certain materials are included under the Fair Use exemption of the U.S. Copyright Law.  Further use of these materials and this presentation is restricted.

a presentation by Patrick Douglas Crispen NetSquirrel.com Google 301: Über Google a presentation by Patrick Douglas Crispen NetSquirrel.com