How To Google

Presented June 2003,
by John Maxwell

What is the Internet?

The internet is whole bunch of computers all over the world connected for communication with each other. Companies and individuals put web pages on these computers for anyone to view on the internet. These computers are located in the buildings of Internet Service Providers which you as a user, pay to provide access to the Internet. Examples of Internet Service Providers (ISP's) include Shaw Cable, Telus, Nanaimo Digital Ark, etc.

Finding Information on the Internet

Search Engines

Search engine companies like Google scan the Internet with a program that gathers information from the pages and indexes them into a huge database which you can search. Companies and people who want to be sure their information is included right away, pay to submit there information to the search engines and have it included almost immediately.

Each search engine has its own characteristics and if you don't find what you are looking for with one, then try another. There are thousands to choose from.

If trying to find info from another country, then try a search engine that is in that country, provided it is in a language you understand.

Directories

A directory is a smaller database of information organized much like the contents pages of a book. You can look for something by picking a subject area and break it down into sub-subject areas till you find a web site you are interested in. This is often a good place to start looking either to find the info itself or to gather clues as to what terms to use in a search engine to find the information.

Google as a Search Engine

Google is the best search engine there is. It does everything for you. If you misspell a word it tries to correct it and does a very good job of it. When you have completed your search, it lists the results in the most relevant order.

Search terms in Google

This is the hardest part of using any search engine, figuring out what to use as search terms. Think of what words you would use if you were writing the web page. Try to use specific terms; for example, if you want to see art by Picasso, then try Picasso Gallery, not art galleries. If you are getting an error message on your computer, and you want to find out what it means, try typing in the error message itself instead of typing computer error messages.

Accessing Info after Search

Once the search has completed, click on the underlined link in the results to go to the web site. The most relevant sites are listed first, so only try the first couple of pages of results, even though there may be several pages.

Google Cache

Sometimes the page you try is no longer available or has moved somewhere else. Google allows you to see the page anyway by clicking the cached version of the page. It warns you that this may be out of date, but maybe the information is useful anyway.

Advanced Search

From the main page of Google click on Advanced Search to go to a page where you can enter your search terms in with certain parameters that may or may not give you the information you want. By filling in the proper fields, Google creates the parameters for you so you don't have to remember what they are.

Search Parameters

Google allows you to use certain advanced operators to narrow down your search.

URL searching to find pages whose URL (i.e. internet address), contains the words you want. In the Advanced Search, click on Occurrences and choose where on the page the search term should occur. Also available here are title searching to find pages whose title contains the search parameters, in the text of the page, and in the links to other web sites on the page.

Searching for a specific type of document like a PDF file or a DOC file can speed up the search and make it more relevant if that is the type of document you need. This is also done in the Advanced Search by clicking on the File Format option. Placing a + or - before a word to ensure it appears or doesn't appear also helps narrow down the search.

Place the words in quotes when you want the words to appear as a group in order as a phrase. In Advanced Search you can also do this by entering the words in the exact phrase field.

If you know what you are looking for is at a specific domain, (web address) then you can limit your search to that domain to see if that helps find what your looking for. eg. Engines site: would be faster than going to the site and looking around on your own. In the Advanced Search screen, enter the web site in the Domain field.

There is another feature on the Advanced Search page that is sometimes useful at the bottom of the page. Search for all things MAC. Click on this and a new search page will display. Type in your search terms and the Macintosh related information will be listed.

Google as a Directory

Click on the Directory tab of the main Google page to go to the directory search page. Click on the main topic heading you are interested in, then click on the relevant sub-headings till you get to a list of web sites. Click on the web site you are interested in.

Google as a Newsgroup Reader

Go to the main Google page and click on the the Groups tab. Enter a search term and Google will take you to a list of groups that have the words in them. Pick a group that is related to the subject and click on it to read the group.

Newsgroups show e-mails on a particular subject; they are sent to the related group and anyone who subscribes to the group can read or send to the group. Google keeps an archive of all the text based groups back to 1995. If you join Google by entering an e-mail address and password, you can post (i.e. write) to the group and your message will show up with all the others.

Be sure and use a throw away e-mail address for this purpose and not your own home e-mail address or you will end up with a lot of spam in your e-mail. A throw away address can be obtained for free from places like Hotmail or Yahoo or Canada.com. When you do write to a group be sure and stay on topic or people will write back complaining to you; this is called flaming.

Google as a News source

Go to the main page of Google and click on the News tab. This will take you to a page showing headlines of news articles gathered from over 4000 news sources such as newspapers and TV stations. If you want to read news about a particular city then enter that city in the search field and press enter/return.

Other Search Engines

Of course Google is not the only search engine, although it is probably the only one you will ever need. Here is a list showing just a few of the many thousands of search engines that are available:

Canadian Search Engines: The Canadian Search Directory

Finding Information on the Internet: A Tutorial This tutorial presents the substance of the Internet Workshops offered year-round by the Teaching Library at the University of California at Berkeley. The content on this site has been updated to reflect the new "Research Quality Web Searching" class.

Finding Things on the Internet: Search engines and subject lists

Search Engines: What they Are, How They Work, and Practical Suggestions for Getting the Most Out of Them

Guides To Specialized Search Engines Complete list of guides (with descriptions) to thousands of search engines covering hundreds of subjects. Listed in approximate order of size, specificity of subject categories, and some aspects of search engine collection quality.

Yahoo Directory of Search Engines and Directories

Recommended Search Strategy UC Berkeley - Teaching Library Internet Workshops:The Five-Step Search Strategy We Recommend

Topic Worksheet Here is a form you can print out and fill in to help you determine what search terms to use. The document is in PDF format: first you download it; then you can read and print it with Adobe Acrobat Reader