Seek and Ye Shall Find

By P. M. Alfred

It's the information age, you know... it has been for a while. You hear people say that you can find anything on the Internet. What they don't tell you though, is how. Sure, there are search engines and there are SEARCH engines, but nobody tells you how to use them properly. Well, this is about how to make the most of search engines. While this article is written with a focus on Google (www.google.com), the principles can be applied to other search engines as well. 

Google uses a combination of hardware (PCs networked together) and software (PageRank) to let you to search the Internet almost instantly. Since this article is about how to use the search engine and not about the search engine, this is all the introduction you're going to get. However, if you want to find out more about the technology behind the search engine, check out the following links:

• Why use Google - www.google.com/technology/index.html

• Benefits of Google - www.google.com/technology/whyuse.html

Getting your feet wet...

The easiest way to search for something in Google is to type the search string (what you're searching for) in the Search box (the text box on the Google page) and press the Enter (in most browsers) or Search (or equivalent) button.

Say you're looking for information about RoboHelp. You could type roBoHElp (the search is not case-sensitive) and press Enter or click the Google Search button, and voila! in about 0.11 seconds (give or take a few anxious moments) you'll get a whole bunch of results.

However, the problem with the previous search is that the search string was too general. That's fine if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Most of the time though, you do have a general idea. Your boss might say, "Find out if RoboHelp can do single sourcing." 

TIP: Google's search is inclusive, which means that all the words (except really common ones like: is, for, and) that you type in the search box are included in the search. Most search engines require you to either enclose the search string in quotes or to use 'AND' to achieve this kind of search.

Paring the fat

So, instead of just 'RoboHelp', you can type 'RoboHelp Single Sourcing' or 'Single Sourcing with RoboHelp' and you will find that the number of results will reduce, but you'll be able to focus on a well-directed search. 

TIP: Deciding on the search string is almost like indexing. You need to be able to use synonyms and similar words to find what you want.

You can also search within the results of a previous search by clicking the Search Within Results link next to the Google Search button.

Since Google is an intelligent search engine, if you mistype words, Google searches using your string, but will also ask you if you meant to type something else (most likely the version you were aiming for). Try searching for RobHelp and you will see for yourself.

I'm in, I'm out

Sometimes you will need to search for a word that is commonly used, like 'the'. Google, the intelligent being, removes such common words from its search. If you want to include words like 'in', 'to', 'is', and so on, all you have to do put a '+' sign before the word and then type the word (without any space in between the plus and the word). 

Google will then know that you want that word included in your search. If you want a word removed, just put a '-' sign before the word, and Poof! it's gone! 

For more on the basic search techniques see www.google.com/help/basics.html.

Advanced Googling

If you’ve tried your luck with different combinations of words and you’re still not getting the results you want, you may need to use Google’s advanced features. The neat thing about Google is that you can either use the GUI for the options or use the equivalent keyword to do your searching. 

To access Google’s advanced features, click the Advanced Search hyperlink beside the Google text box. Google gives you the following options for your search string:

• Include all the words in the search

• Search using the exact phrase (Google will search for the occurrence of the phrase in a document)

• Use at least one of the words in the search (Useful if you want to try a less restrictive search)

• Without the words (Use this in conjunction with the search string to restrict certain words from your search). For example, if you want to search for FrameMaker but don’t want any information related to WebWorks, you can type FrameMaker as your search string and WebWorks in the ‘Without the words’ text box. (The easiest way to do this though is to use “FrameMaker –Webworks” as the search string)

You can also tinker with other options like searching for particular file formats (PDF, PS, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), searching within a site (only for sites indexed by Google, so it doesn’t work for TWIN), page-specific search, etc. Read what Google’s technical writers have to say about the advanced features, at www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html.

Google Tabs

By default, Google searches the Web for all sorts of documents. Google also gives you the option of searching for images (Images tab), searching within Usenet (discussion) groups (Groups tab) and searching within topics organised by directories (Directory tab). You can access these tabs by clicking the hyperlinked tab on the Google home page.
Google Toolbar.

If you like Google a lot and want to access it directly instead of accessing the site every time, you can download and install the Google toolbar for Internet Explorer (toolbar.google.com). You can then type your search query directly in the toolbar, and use the different options to search for what you want.

TIP:  Opera (the fastest browser in the world) comes with the Google (and AlltheWeb) toolbar packaged with the browser.

Other Search Engines

While Google is arguably the “best” search engine on the web, you might want to try other search engines as well. While you can always go to Yahoo, MSN, AOL, or AskJeeves, some of the other popular search engines, here are some search engines you could try as well.

• Teoma – www.teoma.com

• Ixquick Metasearch Engine - www.ixquick.com

• Alltheweb – www.alltheweb.com

I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…

Searching on Google or any other search engine is a matter of trial and error. Like all other things in life, the more you use a search engine, the better you’ll get at figuring out how to make it give you the information YOU want. Remember that a search engine is (mostly) only as intelligent as the query (search string) you feed it. Hopefully, this article has opened the door to the magical kingdom of Search Engines.

Resources

Search Tips - www.google.com/help

Simple search - www.google.com/help/basics.html 

Google FAQ - www.google.com/help/faq.html 

Advanced Features - www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html

Customise/Preferences - www.google.com/help/customize.html

Google Toolbar - toolbar.google.com

Interpreting Google’s results - www.google.com/help/interpret.html 

Google Features - www.google.com/help/features.html

Google’s Technology - www.google.com/technology/index.html

Life of a query - www.google.com/press/query.html 

The Company - www.google.com/corporate/index.html

(Alfred P. M. is a technical writer based in Bangalore. His other writing interests include humour, poetry, and fiction. He is a regular contributor to Computers@Home, India’s most widely read computer magazine. You can contact Alfred at pmalfred@fastmail.fm.)

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