Maggie's Farm

 
Approaches

Depending upon what you're searching for, sometimes it works best to punch in just a few keywords, get the 8 zillion hits, then continue to add keywords and start whittling the list down.  Sometimes just the opposite approach works best, typing in every keyword you can think of, getting zero hits, then removing them until a few items start popping up.

Using specific keywords is the normal approach, but if you don't seem to be getting anywhere, sometimes it's better to pretend like you've never heard the word "keyword" and just type in the whole sentence.  "How do I find out how far it is between Los Angeles and London by boat?"  The idea is that it'll match up with something someone asked in a Web forum (and was hopefully answered), and that might be enough to pop it up near the top of the results page.
 

Lesser of Evils Dept.

When it comes to Google, I'd just love to use somebody else because of Google's nasty liberal bent, but the simple truth is that Google blows the doors off everybody.  Their 'bots (short for "robots"; programs that 'crawl' or 'spider' the Web in search of pages to add to the database) are unparalleled and my feeling is, if it's out there and available, it's on Google.

Geek Note:  The reason I say "and available" is because it's possible to block the site from being spidered by using a file called "robots.txt" placed on the root of the server.  You can block or allow certain search engines, and block or allow access to certain areas of the site.  So just cuz something doesn't pop up in a search engine doesn't mean it's not there.

Historical Note:  The first two big search sites were Lycos and Altavista.  They were both 'raw' search engines and they gave you absolutely everything, including tons of 404's ("Page not found").  One of the main reasons Google became so popular was because they improved the software to get rid of the 404's, and including the little sample text from the link was an outstanding move on Google's part.  If you're looking for something small, like a name or a date, you actually get extra points if you can find it in the bits of text and never leave the Google page.
 

Google Prefs

There's a 'Preferences' link on the Google page you should check over.  You'll probably want 20 listings per page (at least), and unfiltered results (unless there are kids around).  Whether or not you want the links to open a new browser window (or tab) is dealer's choice.  Personally, I think it's easier to just click on the 'Back' button (with the left or right mouse button, browser depending) and use the History menu to skip back to Google, rather than fumbling around closing a second window or tab.
 

Tricks of the Trade

Unquestionably, the most valuable 'trick' is putting things in quotes.

A search for "The Lefties took advantage of that loophole" without quotes yields 50,500 hits.  So, let's see.  At 20 hits per page times 30 seconds per page, that would mean it would only take you... (scribble-scribble, scribble-scribble) ...seven years to go through them all.

But with the quotes...

Point made?

Second up in importance is the minus sign.  Put directly in front of a word (no space), it will strike any page with that word on it from the results.  Let's say you're doing some research on that Edmund Hillary guy who climbed Everest but some lady with the same name keeps popping up.  Gathering from the little tidbits displayed by each Google listing that she's involved in some kind of local election, you wish to eliminate her from the search.  So you type in:

edmund hillary -clinton

and that'll do it.

The minus sign also works in front of quote marks:

chelsea clinton hot mink babe bikini -"hillary clinton"

Again, it's just a matter of using these tricks to your best advantage.

On the flip side (literally), the plus sign ensures that Google only responds to exactly what's after the plus character.  Google tends to overlook conjunctions ("and", "or", "but") and plurals in its search, so a plus sign tells it not to skip anything and search for exactly what you punched in.  It, too, can be used with quotes:

+"hot babes of berkeley" hillary ultra-mink whips chains leathers

You'll be amazed at what you'll find with these tricks!

Another useful feature is searching within a particular site, like so:

keyword1 keyword2 site:www.thedomainhere.com

Normally, we just search the whole shebang, but if you happen to know the site the info is on, that's the way to narrow things down quickly.
 

The basic rule of thumb when searching is "putting yourself in their shoes".  If you're looking to buy an item, think of what words the web site might use to describe it, and what keywords (unseen words in the page's header that are included in Google's results) the business would use to describe both itself and its location.

If you're looking for an answer to a general question, try to imitate how someone would ask it in a forum.  If you're looking for something kind of technical, like a particular JavaScript code, punch in a small fragment of the code in quotes as well as a description.
  

Image Files  

At the top of the Google page is an 'Images' link.  This area will really tax your search engine skills.  A big help is the 'Advanced Image Search' feature.  For example, if you're looking for a picture with any kind of decent quality, you can jack up the 'Size' setting to get rid of all the rubbish and small pictures, like icons.  A while back I was looking for a particular GIF animation and flipping the 'Filetypes' over to 'GIF' pulled it right up.  If a lot of black & white thumbnails are popping up, set the 'Coloration' to 'full color'.
 

Fair Warning Dept. 

In the introduction to this course, I mention that, yes, there'll be a test, and I note that not all of the answers will be included in these lessons.  Here's a hypothetical example:

Question 6: What does including an "OR" in a Google search do?

Real geeks aren't just readers, they're explorers, investigators, doers.  Someone aspiring to true geekdom would not only learn the above tricks, but go to the Google site, click on 'Advanced Search', then read over the 'Advanced Search Tips' page.  At which point he or she would learn that using an "OR" (must be caps) tells Google to search for one of two keywords rather than both keywords.  I didn't include it above because we never use it, but it illustrates the point as to what you have to do if you really want to become a computer expert.  You have to go that extra mile.
 

See y'all next week! 

Links of possible interest

Internet Movie Database — Your one-stop movie info center

Wikipedia — I don't trust a thing it says, but it sure is handy

Mark Steyn — Truly one of the great writers of our time

Neal Boortz — Curmudgeonly old fart that he is, I love this guy

Fark — Want to feel smart?  Just look at how dumb everybody else is

Junk Science — Worth dropping by occasionally

Uncle Jay — The greatest genius in Western Civilization

Doc Murky's Loony Bin — My own pitiful wreck of a website