Beißen Gedanken: Constructing and refining searches in Google: Detailed Searching Instructions

20130929

Constructing and refining searches in Google: Detailed Searching Instructions

FEB	MAR	MAY
	2
1999	2000	2001

285 captures

2 Mar 00 - 22 Feb 12

Close Help

Constructing and refining searches in Google: Detailed Searching Instructions

Teaching Library Internet Workshops
University of California, Berkeley

Google is a fairly new Web searching database. It is distinguished by its powerful ranking algorithm based on how many good sites link to each site, along with other factors like the proximity of your search keywords or phrases in the documents.
Google lacks sub-searching, Boolean operators (except - to exclude), and other ways to refine results or focus on an aspect of a large topic. It always "ANDs" -- retrieving pages with ALL your search terms. If you have a fairly distinctive phrase in " " or keyword to use as a "hook" to search on, its ranking often leads you to what you want, because a lot of other folks have "voted" for it by linking to it in their pages.
One can question the validity of popularity (populism?) as a guide to the best pages: aren't your ideas and reasons to inquire different from anyone one else's? Google may be a way to help find out.

To get to Google :

In Netscape enter simply google. Netscape defaults should supply the rest of the URL.
In any browser's URL/Location/GoTo/Address box or OPEN box enter the URL: http://google.com

Detailed Google Instructions

Organized by the following Infoseek Features:

Phrase Searching (term definition)
NO Truncation & NO Stemming (term definition)
No Boolean OR (term definition)
- Excludes(term definition)
+ with stop words(term definition)
How to interpret Google search results display

Features/How to Invoke Them	Examples using Google
Phrase Searching	EXAMPLES
Enclose terms to be searched as a phrase in quotes.	`"American Medical Association" AMA "James K. Baldwin" "affirmative action" "whatever happened to Baby Jane"` `"world war II"`
NO Truncation	EXAMPLES
NO Right-hand truncation with *. No "stemming" - automatic searching plurals and other endings. You must perform a separate search with each variant or equivalent term and whatever other search terms you wish, including plurals	Separte searches for: `feminist journalism` `feminism journalism` `feminists journalism` `feminist "news anchor"` `feminist "news anchoring"`, etc.
NO Boolean OR	EXAMPLES
There is NO Boolean OR. Perform separate searches for equivalent terms and variant spellings. If you enter variants or equivalent terms in one search, ALL will be required in ALL documents. Default = Boolean AND.	Separate searches for: `"cold fusion" "zero point energy"` `"cold fusion" "alternative energy"` Equivalent of Boolean: "cold fusion" and ("zero point energy" or "alternative energy")
-Excludes	EXAMPLES
`-` immediately before a term or phrase in " " excludes it from results. `+` is extraneous, because all terms are always "ANDed" -- ALL ARE IN ALL RESULTS without the `+`.	To exclude documents containing `allaire`'s Cold Fusion product in a search for the energy source "cold fusion": `"cold fusion" -allaire`
+ with Stop Words	EXAMPLES
Google will not search on some very short and/or common words, called "stop words." Not even in a phrase in quotes. Google results will tell you if it has ignored any of your terms. For example, `and or of in a http`are ignored in searches. To make Google retrieve documents containing Stop Words (along with other search terms or phrases), precede immediately with `+`. It does not hurt to put a `+` before every word.	`"order +out +of chaos" effects "+on gravity" "shakespeare +in +love"` If you don't know whether a word is a stop word in Google, insert the `+`.
Using Google's results display	EXAMPLES
Title or URL of document. Text where one or more of your search terms appear (not the first lines of a document like most other search engines). URL of result if not given earlier. Link that says Cached if Google has indexed the page. What the page looked like when Google indexed it. May not = the current version you retrieve. May help resolve now missing pages. Number giving the size of the page, usually in kilobytes. Google Scout link retrieving pages like this one, based on terms in this page.	Clicking here will take you to Google's illustration and explanation.

LINKS to the rest of the UC Berkeley Teaching Library Internet Tutorial:

	About WWW, Internet, Netscape About Search Tools Recommended Search Strategy Tables Comparing Search Engine & Subject Directory Features Table Comparing Meta-Search Engines Beyond Searching: Finding Guides & Experts	Detailed Search Engine Instructions: Google Alta Vista Advanced Search Infoseek Northern Light FastSearch
	Return to the Tutorial Table of Contents	GLOSSARY & HELP