Google Search 

 Advanced Google Search Box 

 How Google Works

Default search:

All keywords as if connected by AND. If all the words occur as a phrase, that page will rank higher.

Search options:

Understands Boolean + - and OR. Cannot be nested using ()

Use the * (Asterisk) as a Wildcard in a Phrase Search, such as:
"Lord * * Flies"
"George * Bush"
(cannot be used for part of a word, such as "George Bu*")

To search within a site, use site: ie admission site:www.stanford.edu

To find out who links to a site, use link:www.sitename.com

Title search allintitle:searchenginez , with the only variation allowed is the minus symbol, i.e. allintitle:searchenginez -redesigned

URL search is the same, with minus symbols allowed: allinurl:yahoo -shopping

File Type - to search for specific file types, use filetype:pdf or filetype:txt etc after your keyword(s).

Results:

Google ignores capitalization. Any page larger than 101k will be listed as 101k (Google only indexes the first 100k of any page).

Google indexes Acrobat (pdf), Microsoft Word (doc), Rich Text (rtf), Text (txt), Excel (xls), Postscript (ps) and PowerPoint (ppt) files.

Fresh: 3 million sites that Google deems to be important are indexed on a daily basis - they have today's (or yesterday's) date alongside them.

searchenginewatch.com/ - 24k - 12 Dec 2001

Cached results: Google stores a copy of each page, as it was when it was last indexed. This is extremely useful for when a site is down. For web sites with fast-changing content, such as news sites, the current contents might be irrelevant. The page is rated on when it was cached.

Extras: Google will respond with USA phone directory listings when supplied with:

• first name (or first initial), last name, area code
• first name (or first initial), last name, zip code
• first name (or first initial), last name, city (state is optional)
• first name (or first initial), last name, state,
• phone number, including area code
• last name, city, state
• last name, zip

Google also responds to addresses with links to maps. More special features...

Stock market quotes and related info (via Yahoo) by typing in stock: and then the companies ticker symbol stocks:IBM

Google can't do everything:

Google ignores capitalization - which is such a shame for "jaws" and "Jaws" are such different things.

Google does not yet index Flash content.

Google doesn't have the Boolean NEAR syntax, but someone has made a Google tool that does, it's called the Google API Proximity Search

 Submit your Web URL to Google

 Useful Links

I love Google so much that I started working for them, and I made a website called Google Fan

Google Directory - it sorts Open Directory listings in order of Google relevance (as opposed to alphabetically)

Google Home Page

Google Help Central

Google Zeitgeist - lists, graphs, and other tidbits of information related to Google user search behavior.

Google - Stripped - the fastest version of Google, returns just page titles

Google for Palm - reduced results for reading on your Palm

Google Catalogs - browse mail-order catalogs online - fully indexed (broadband best for this)

Froogle - find products from online stores

Google Easter Suprise
Google Uncle Sam
Google Bork Bork Bork (Swedish Chef)
Google Hacker

Try all 4 Google-servers with one click - (www, www1, www2 and www3)

GoogleBot - the spider that finds the data

Google Guide - the best guide on how to use Google

Report Spam to Google

 History of Google

Google was founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, a result of three years of research at Stanford University (home of Yahoo and Excite).  At present they have not sold out to the big guns. They must be waiting for more money, or planning on a public listing. The site has been available to the public since February 1999.

Google reports these user demographics

Male (65%), female (35%)
High education (65% have at least a BA/BS)
Professional (73%)
High income (average income is $71,000)
Highly technical (71% report high/very high computer skills)
Online experience of 4+ years (58%)
Accessing the Internet from work (48%)
Using the web for work purposes (31%)


Feb 12, 2001 - Google bought Deja.com, and has made all it's archived Usenet discussions (700 million messages) searchable. This is excellent news for searchers - Usenet had previously removed most of the archives.

Full, official history is here