Google search
Encyclopedia
Google or Google Web Search is a web search engine
owned by Google Inc. Google Search is the most-used search engine on the World Wide Web
, receiving several hundred million queries each day through its various services.
The order of search results on Google's search-results pages is based, in part, on a priority rank called a "PageRank
". Google Search provides many options for customized search, using Boolean
operators such as: exclusion ("-xx"), alternatives ("xx OR yy"), and wildcard ("x * x").
The main purpose of Google Search is to hunt for text in Web pages, as opposed to other data, such as with Google Image Search
. Google Search was originally developed by Larry Page
and Sergey Brin
in 1997. Google Search provides at least 22 special features beyond the original word-search capability. These include synonyms, weather forecasts, time zones, stock quotes, maps, earthquake data, movie showtimes, airports, home listings, and sports scores. There are special features for numbers, including ranges (70..73), prices, temperatures, money/unit conversions ("10.5 cm in inches"), calculations , package tracking, patents, area codes, and language translation of displayed pages. In June 2011, Google introduced "Google Voice Search" and "Search by Image" features for allowing the users to search words by speaking and by giving images.
The frequency of use of many search terms have reached a volume that they may indicate broader economic, social and health trends. Data about the frequency of use of search terms on Google (available through Google Adwords, Google Trends, and Google Insights for Search) have been shown to correlate with flu outbreaks and unemployment levels and provide the information faster than traditional reporting methods and government surveys.
ed algorithm
called PageRank
that helps rank web pages that match a given search string. When Google was a Stanford research project, it was nicknamed BackRub because the technology checks backlinks to determine a site's importance. Previous keyword-based methods of ranking search results, used by many search engines that were once more popular than Google, would rank pages by how often the search terms occurred in the page, or how strongly associated the search terms were within each resulting page. The PageRank algorithm instead analyzes human-generated links
assuming that web pages linked from many important pages are themselves likely to be important. The algorithm computes a recursive
score for pages, based on the weighted sum of the PageRanks of the pages linking to them. PageRank is thought to correlate
well with human concepts of importance. In addition to PageRank, Google, over the years, has added many other secret criteria for determining the ranking of pages on result lists, reported to be over 200 different indicators.Wired.com The specifics of which are kept secret to keep spammers at bay and help Google maintain an edge over its competitors globally.
is not known, as it is very difficult to accurately calculate. Google not only indexes and caches web pages, but also takes "snapshots" of other file types, which include PDF
, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Flash SWF, plain text files, and so on.Except in the case of text and SWF
files, the cached version is a conversion to (X)HTML, allowing those without the corresponding viewer application to read the file. Users can customize the search engine, by setting a default language, using the "SafeSearch" filtering technology and set the number of results shown on each page. Google has been criticized for placing long-term cookies
on users' machines to store these preferences, a tactic which also enables them to track a user's search terms and retain the data for more than a year. For any query, up to the first 1000 results can be shown with a maximum of 100 displayed per page. The ability to specify the number of results is available only if "Instant Search" is not enabled. If "Instant Search" is enabled, only 10 results are displayed, regardless of this setting.
is minimally covered by Google and other search engines. The deep Web contains library catalog
s, official legislative documents of governments, phone books, and other content which is dynamically prepared to respond to a query.
s have become eager to influence their website's Google rankings. An industry of consultants has arisen to help websites increase their rankings on Google and on other search engines. This field, called search engine optimization
, attempts to discern patterns in search engine listings, and then develop a methodology for improving rankings to draw more searchers to their client's sites. Search engine optimization encompasses both "on page" factors (like body copy, title elements, H1 heading elements and image alt attribute
values) and Off Page Optimization factors (like anchor text
and PageRank). The general idea is to affect Google's relevance algorithm by incorporating the keywords being targeted in various places "on page", in particular the title element and the body copy (note: the higher up in the page, presumably the better its keyword prominence and thus the ranking). Too many occurrences of the keyword, however, cause the page to look suspect to Google's spam checking algorithms. Google has published guidelines for website owners who would like to raise their rankings when using legitimate optimization consultants. It has been hypothesized, and, allegedly, is the opinion of the owner of one business about which there has been numerous complaints, that negative publicity, for example, numerous consumer complaints, may serve as well to elevate page rank on Google Search as favorable comments. The particular problem addressed in The New York Times
article, which involved DecorMyEyes
, was addressed shortly thereafter by an undisclosed fix in the Google algorithm. According to Google, it was not the frequently published consumer complaints about DecorMyEyes which resulted in the high ranking but mentions on news websites of events which affected the firm such as legal actions against it.Blogspot.com
Google search consists of a series of localized websites. The largest of those, the google.com site, is the top most-visited website in the world. Some of its features include a definition link for most searches including dictionary words, the number of results you got on your search, links to other searches (e.g. for words that Google believes to be misspelled, it provides a link to the search results using its proposed spelling), and many more.
operators, such as: quotations marks (") for a phrase, a prefix such as "+" , "-" for qualified terms (no longer valid, the '+' was removed from google on 10/19/11), or one of several advanced operators, such as "site:". The webpages of "Google Search Basics" describe each of these additional queries and options (see below: Search options).
Google's Advanced Search web form gives several additional fields which may be used to qualify searches by such criteria as date of first retrieval. All advanced queries transform to regular queries, usually with additional qualified term.
to the submitted search query, transforming it into the query that will actually be used to retrieve results. As with page ranking, the exact details of the algorithm Google uses are deliberately obscure, but certainly the following transformations are among those that occur:
. The thought is that if a user is "feeling lucky", the search engine will return the perfect match the first time without having to page through the search results. However, with the introduction of Google Instant, it is not possible to use the button properly unless the Google Instant function is switched off. According to a study by Tom Chavez of "Rapt", this feature costs Google $110 million a year as 1% of all searches use this feature and bypass all advertising.
On October 30, 2009, for some users, the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button was removed from Google's main page, along with the regular search button. Both buttons were replaced with a field that reads, "This space intentionally left blank." This text faded out when the mouse was moved on the page, and normal search functionality is achieved by filling in the search field with the desired terms and pressing enter. A Google spokesperson explains, "This is just a test, and a way for us to gauge whether our users will like an even simpler search interface." Personalized Google homepages retained both buttons and their normal functions.
On May 21, 2010, the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man
, the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button was replaced with a button reading the words "Insert Coin". After pressing the button, the user would begin a Google-themed game of Pac-Man in the area where the Google logo would normally be. Pressing the button a second time would begin a two-player version of the same game that includes Ms. Pacman for player 2. This version can be accessed at
, hReview
, and hProduct
microformat
s and using them to populate search result pages with what they called "Rich Snippets".
The Google operators:
Some of the query options are as follows:
The page-display options (or query types) are:
sometimes followed by a CAPTCHA
prompt.
The screen was first reported in 2005, and was a response to the heavy use of Google by search engine optimization
companies to check on ranks of sites they were optimizing. The message is triggered by high volumes of requests from a single IP address. Google apparently uses the Google cookie as part of its determination of refusing service.
In June 2009, after the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson
, this message appeared to many internet users who were searching Google for news stories related to the singer, and was assumed by Google to be a DDoS attack
, although many queries were submitted by legitimate searchers.
Google flags search results with the message "This site may harm your computer" if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. Google does this to protect users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. For approximately 40 minutes on January 31, 2009, all search results were mistakenly classified as malware
and could therefore not be clicked; instead a warning message was displayed and the user was required to enter the requested URL manually. The bug was caused by human error. The URL of "/" (which expands to all URLs) was mistakenly added to the malware patterns file.
on Google's webpage will change to a special version, known as a "Google Doodle". Clicking on the Doodle links to a string of Google search results about the topic. The first was a reference to the Burning Man Festival in 1998, and others have been produced for the birthdays of notable people like Albert Einstein
, historical events like the interlocking Lego
block's 50th anniversary and holidays like Valentine's Day
.
The new architecture was designed to return results faster and to better deal with rapidly updated information from services including Facebook
and Twitter
.
Google developers noted that most users would notice little immediate change, but invited developers to test the new search in its sandbox
.
Differences noted for their impact upon search engine optimization
included heavier keyword weighting and the importance of the domain's age.
The move was interpreted in some quarters as a response to Microsoft's recent release of an upgraded version of its own search service, renamed Bing
.
Google announced completion of Caffeine on 8 June 2010, claiming 50% fresher results due to continuous updating of its index.
With Caffeine, Google moved its back-end indexing system away from MapReduce
and onto BigTable
, the company's distributed database platform. Caffeine is also based on Colossus, or GFS2, an overhaul of the GFS
distributed file system.
In concert with the Google Instant launch, Google disabled the ability of users to choose to see more than 10 search results per page. Instant Search can be disabled via Google's "preferences" menu, but autocomplete
-style search suggestions now cannot be disabled. A Google representative stated, "It's in keeping with our vision of a unified Google search experience to make popular, useful features part of the default experience, rather than maintain different versions of Google. As Autocomplete quality has improved, we felt it was appropriate to have it always on for all of our users."
The publication 2600: The Hacker Quarterly
has compiled a list of words that are restricted by Google Instant. These are terms the web giant's new instant search feature will not search. Most terms are often vulgar and derogatory in nature, but some apparently irrelevant searches including "Myleak" are removed.
One of the major changes was replacing the classic navigation bar with a black one. Google's digital creative director Chris Wiggins explains: "We're working on a project to bring you a new and improved Google experience, and over the next few months, you'll continue to see more updates to our look and feel." The new navigation bar has been negatively received by a vocal minority.
The interface has also been made available in some languages for humorous purpose:
In addition to the main URL Google.com, Google Inc. owns 160 domain names for each of the countries/regions in which it has been localized.
, Usenet
newsgroup
s, news websites, videos
, searching by locality, maps, and items for sale online. In 2006, Google has indexed over 25 billion web pages, 400 million queries per day, 1.3 billion images, and over one billion Usenet messages. It also cache
s much of the content that it indexes
. Google operates other tools and services including Google News
, Google Suggest, Google Product Search, Google Maps
, Google Co-op
, Google Earth
, Google Docs, Picasa
, Panoramio
, YouTube
, Google Translate
, Google Blog Search and Google Desktop
Search.
There are also products available from Google that are not directly search-related. Gmail
, for example, is a webmail application, but still includes search features; Google Browser Sync
does not offer any search facilities, although it aims to organize your browsing time.
Also Google starts many new beta products, like Google Social Search or Google Image Swirl
.
or 0.0003 kW·h.
Web search engine
A web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and FTP servers. The search results are generally presented in a list of results often referred to as SERPS, or "search engine results pages". The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other...
owned by Google Inc. Google Search is the most-used search engine on the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
, receiving several hundred million queries each day through its various services.
The order of search results on Google's search-results pages is based, in part, on a priority rank called a "PageRank
PageRank
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page and used by the Google Internet search engine, that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set...
". Google Search provides many options for customized search, using Boolean
Boolean logic
Boolean algebra is a logical calculus of truth values, developed by George Boole in the 1840s. It resembles the algebra of real numbers, but with the numeric operations of multiplication xy, addition x + y, and negation −x replaced by the respective logical operations of...
operators such as: exclusion ("-xx"), alternatives ("xx OR yy"), and wildcard ("x * x").
The main purpose of Google Search is to hunt for text in Web pages, as opposed to other data, such as with Google Image Search
Google Image Search
Google Images is a search service created by Google that allows users to search the Web for image content. The feature was introduced in July 2001. The keywords for the image search are based on the filename of the image, the link text pointing to the image, and text adjacent to the image. When...
. Google Search was originally developed by Larry Page
Larry Page
Lawrence "Larry" Page is an American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Sergey Brin, is best known as the co-founder of Google. As of April 4, 2011, he is also the chief executive of Google, as announced on January 20, 2011...
and Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin
Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin is a Russian-born American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the largest internet companies. , his personal wealth is estimated to be $16.7 billion....
in 1997. Google Search provides at least 22 special features beyond the original word-search capability. These include synonyms, weather forecasts, time zones, stock quotes, maps, earthquake data, movie showtimes, airports, home listings, and sports scores. There are special features for numbers, including ranges (70..73), prices, temperatures, money/unit conversions ("10.5 cm in inches"), calculations , package tracking, patents, area codes, and language translation of displayed pages. In June 2011, Google introduced "Google Voice Search" and "Search by Image" features for allowing the users to search words by speaking and by giving images.
The frequency of use of many search terms have reached a volume that they may indicate broader economic, social and health trends. Data about the frequency of use of search terms on Google (available through Google Adwords, Google Trends, and Google Insights for Search) have been shown to correlate with flu outbreaks and unemployment levels and provide the information faster than traditional reporting methods and government surveys.
PageRank
Google's rise to success was in large part due to a patentPatent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
called PageRank
PageRank
PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page and used by the Google Internet search engine, that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set...
that helps rank web pages that match a given search string. When Google was a Stanford research project, it was nicknamed BackRub because the technology checks backlinks to determine a site's importance. Previous keyword-based methods of ranking search results, used by many search engines that were once more popular than Google, would rank pages by how often the search terms occurred in the page, or how strongly associated the search terms were within each resulting page. The PageRank algorithm instead analyzes human-generated links
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
assuming that web pages linked from many important pages are themselves likely to be important. The algorithm computes a recursive
Recursion
Recursion is the process of repeating items in a self-similar way. For instance, when the surfaces of two mirrors are exactly parallel with each other the nested images that occur are a form of infinite recursion. The term has a variety of meanings specific to a variety of disciplines ranging from...
score for pages, based on the weighted sum of the PageRanks of the pages linking to them. PageRank is thought to correlate
Correlation
In statistics, dependence refers to any statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. Correlation refers to any of a broad class of statistical relationships involving dependence....
well with human concepts of importance. In addition to PageRank, Google, over the years, has added many other secret criteria for determining the ranking of pages on result lists, reported to be over 200 different indicators.Wired.com The specifics of which are kept secret to keep spammers at bay and help Google maintain an edge over its competitors globally.
Search results
The exact percentage of the total of web pages that Google indexesIndex (search engine)
Search engine indexing collects, parses, and stores data to facilitate fast and accurate information retrieval. Index design incorporates interdisciplinary concepts from linguistics, cognitive psychology, mathematics, informatics, physics, and computer science...
is not known, as it is very difficult to accurately calculate. Google not only indexes and caches web pages, but also takes "snapshots" of other file types, which include PDF
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Flash SWF, plain text files, and so on.Except in the case of text and SWF
SWF
SWF is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript. Originating with FutureWave Software, then transferred to Macromedia, and then coming under the control of Adobe, SWF files can contain animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function.,...
files, the cached version is a conversion to (X)HTML, allowing those without the corresponding viewer application to read the file. Users can customize the search engine, by setting a default language, using the "SafeSearch" filtering technology and set the number of results shown on each page. Google has been criticized for placing long-term cookies
HTTP cookie
A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is used for an origin website to send state information to a user's browser and for the browser to return the state information to the origin site...
on users' machines to store these preferences, a tactic which also enables them to track a user's search terms and retain the data for more than a year. For any query, up to the first 1000 results can be shown with a maximum of 100 displayed per page. The ability to specify the number of results is available only if "Instant Search" is not enabled. If "Instant Search" is enabled, only 10 results are displayed, regardless of this setting.
Non-indexable data
Despite its immense index, there is also a considerable amount of data available in online databases which are accessible by means of queries but not by links. This so-called invisible or deep WebDeep web
The Deep Web refers to World Wide Web content that is not part of the Surface Web, which is indexed by standard search engines....
is minimally covered by Google and other search engines. The deep Web contains library catalog
Library catalog
A library catalog is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations...
s, official legislative documents of governments, phone books, and other content which is dynamically prepared to respond to a query.
Google optimization
Since Google is the most popular search engine, many webmasterWebmaster
A webmaster , also called a web architect, web developer, site author, or website administrator is a person responsible for maintaining one or many websites...
s have become eager to influence their website's Google rankings. An industry of consultants has arisen to help websites increase their rankings on Google and on other search engines. This field, called search engine optimization
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
, attempts to discern patterns in search engine listings, and then develop a methodology for improving rankings to draw more searchers to their client's sites. Search engine optimization encompasses both "on page" factors (like body copy, title elements, H1 heading elements and image alt attribute
Alt attribute
The alt attribute is used in HTML and XHTML documents to specify alternative text that is to be rendered when the element to which it is applied cannot be rendered. In HTML 4.01, the attribute is required for the img and area tags...
values) and Off Page Optimization factors (like anchor text
Anchor text
The anchor text, link label or link text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines. Since 1998, some web browsers have added the ability to show a tooltip for a hyperlink before it is...
and PageRank). The general idea is to affect Google's relevance algorithm by incorporating the keywords being targeted in various places "on page", in particular the title element and the body copy (note: the higher up in the page, presumably the better its keyword prominence and thus the ranking). Too many occurrences of the keyword, however, cause the page to look suspect to Google's spam checking algorithms. Google has published guidelines for website owners who would like to raise their rankings when using legitimate optimization consultants. It has been hypothesized, and, allegedly, is the opinion of the owner of one business about which there has been numerous complaints, that negative publicity, for example, numerous consumer complaints, may serve as well to elevate page rank on Google Search as favorable comments. The particular problem addressed in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
article, which involved DecorMyEyes
DecorMyEyes
DecorMyEyes is an online retailer specializing in designer eyeglasses. The site is owned by Vitaly Borker, a Russian-born resident of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, who used the pseudonyms "Tony Russo" and "Stanley Bolds"...
, was addressed shortly thereafter by an undisclosed fix in the Google algorithm. According to Google, it was not the frequently published consumer complaints about DecorMyEyes which resulted in the high ranking but mentions on news websites of events which affected the firm such as legal actions against it.Blogspot.com
Functionality
Search syntax
Google's search engine normally accepts queries as a simple text, and breaks up the user's text into a sequence of search terms, which will usually be words that are to occur in the results, but one can also use BooleanBoolean logic
Boolean algebra is a logical calculus of truth values, developed by George Boole in the 1840s. It resembles the algebra of real numbers, but with the numeric operations of multiplication xy, addition x + y, and negation −x replaced by the respective logical operations of...
operators, such as: quotations marks (") for a phrase, a prefix such as "+" , "-" for qualified terms (no longer valid, the '+' was removed from google on 10/19/11), or one of several advanced operators, such as "site:". The webpages of "Google Search Basics" describe each of these additional queries and options (see below: Search options).
Google's Advanced Search web form gives several additional fields which may be used to qualify searches by such criteria as date of first retrieval. All advanced queries transform to regular queries, usually with additional qualified term.
Query expansion
Google applies query expansionQuery expansion
Query expansion is the process of reformulating a seed query to improve retrieval performance in information retrieval operations.In the context of web search engines, query expansion involves evaluating a user's input and expanding the search query to match additional documents...
to the submitted search query, transforming it into the query that will actually be used to retrieve results. As with page ranking, the exact details of the algorithm Google uses are deliberately obscure, but certainly the following transformations are among those that occur:
- Term reordering: in information retrievalInformation retrievalInformation retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
this is a standard technique to reduce the work involved in retrieving results. This transformation is invisible to the user, since the results ordering uses the original query order to determine relevance. - StemmingStemmingIn linguistic morphology and information retrieval, stemming is the process for reducing inflected words to their stem, base or root form—generally a written word form. The stem need not be identical to the morphological root of the word; it is usually sufficient that related words map to the same...
is used to increase search quality by keeping small syntactic variants of search terms. - There is a limited facility to fix possible misspellings in queries.
"I'm Feeling Lucky"
Google's homepage includes a button labelled "I'm Feeling Lucky". When a user types in a search and clicks on the button the user will be taken directly to the first search result, bypassing the search engine results pageSearch engine results page
A search engine results page , is the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of web pages with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the Keywords have matched content within the page...
. The thought is that if a user is "feeling lucky", the search engine will return the perfect match the first time without having to page through the search results. However, with the introduction of Google Instant, it is not possible to use the button properly unless the Google Instant function is switched off. According to a study by Tom Chavez of "Rapt", this feature costs Google $110 million a year as 1% of all searches use this feature and bypass all advertising.
On October 30, 2009, for some users, the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button was removed from Google's main page, along with the regular search button. Both buttons were replaced with a field that reads, "This space intentionally left blank." This text faded out when the mouse was moved on the page, and normal search functionality is achieved by filling in the search field with the desired terms and pressing enter. A Google spokesperson explains, "This is just a test, and a way for us to gauge whether our users will like an even simpler search interface." Personalized Google homepages retained both buttons and their normal functions.
On May 21, 2010, the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man
Pac-Man
is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
, the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button was replaced with a button reading the words "Insert Coin". After pressing the button, the user would begin a Google-themed game of Pac-Man in the area where the Google logo would normally be. Pressing the button a second time would begin a two-player version of the same game that includes Ms. Pacman for player 2. This version can be accessed at
www.google.com/pacman/ as a permanent link to the page.Rich Snippets
On 12 May 2009, Google announced that they would be parsing the hCardHCard
hCard is a microformat for publishing the contact details of people, companies, organizations, and places, in HTML, Atom, RSS, or arbitrary XML...
, hReview
HReview
hReview is a microformat for publishing reviews of books, music, films, restaurants, businesses, holidays, etc. using HTML on web pages, using HTML classes and rel attributes.....
, and hProduct
HProduct
hProduct is a microformat for publishing details of products, on web pages, using HTML classes and rel attributes..On 12 May 2009, Google announced that they would be parsing the hProduct, hCard and hReview microformats, and using them to populate search result pages....
microformat
Microformat
A microformat is a web-based approach to semantic markup which seeks to re-use existing HTML/XHTML tags to convey metadata and other attributes in web pages and other contexts that support HTML, such as RSS...
s and using them to populate search result pages with what they called "Rich Snippets".
Special features
Besides the main search-engine feature of searching for text, Google Search has more than 22 "special features" (activated by entering any of dozens of trigger words) when searching:- weather – The weather conditions, temperature, wind, humidity, and forecast, for many cities, can be viewed by typing "weather" along with a city for larger cities or city and state, U.S. zip code, or city and country for smaller cities (such as: weather Lawrence, KansasLawrence, KansasLawrence is the sixth largest city in the U.S. State of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County. Located in northeastern Kansas, Lawrence is the anchor city of the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County...
; weather Paris; weather Bremen, Germany). - stock quotes – The market data for a specific company or fund can be viewed, by typing the ticker symbolTicker symbolA stock symbol or ticker symbol is a short abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. A stock symbol may consist of letters, numbers or a combination of both. "Ticker symbol" refers to the symbols that were printed on the ticker...
(or include "stock"), such as: CSCOCisco SystemsCisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
; MSFTMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
; IBM stock; F stock (lists Ford Motor Co.Ford Motor CompanyFord Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
); or AIVSX (fund). Results show inter-day changes, or 5-year graph, etc. This does not work for stock names which are one letter long, such as Citigroup (C) or Macy's (M) (Ford being an exception), or are common words, such as Diamond Offshore (DO) or Majesco (COOL). - time – The current time in many cities (worldwide), can be viewed by typing "time" and the name of the city (such as: time Cairo; time Pratt, KS).
- sports scores – The scores and schedules, for sports teams, can be displayed by typing the team name or league name into the search box.
- unit conversion – Measurements can be converted, by entering each phrase, such as: 10.5 cm in inches; or 90 km in miles
- currency conversion – A money or currency converter can be selected, by typing the names or currency codes (listed by ISO 4217ISO 4217ISO 4217 is a standard published by the International Standards Organization, which delineates currency designators, country codes , and references to minor units in three tables:* Table A.1 – Current currency & funds code list...
): 6789 EuroEuroThe euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
in USD; 150 GBP in USD; 5000 Yen in USD; 5000 YuanChinese yuanThe yuan is the base unit of a number of modern Chinese currencies. The yuan is the primary unit of account of the Renminbi.A yuán is also known colloquially as a kuài . One yuán is divided into 10 jiǎo or colloquially máo...
in liraLiraLira is the name of the monetary unit of a number of countries, as well as the former currency of Italy, Malta, San Marino and the Vatican City and Israel. The term originates from the value of a Troy pound of high purity silver. The libra was the basis of the monetary system of the Roman Empire...
(the U.S. dollar can be USD or "US$" or "$", while Canadian is CAD, etc.).calculator – CalculationCalculationA calculation is a deliberate process for transforming one or more inputs into one or more results, with variable change.The term is used in a variety of senses, from the very definite arithmetical calculation of using an algorithm to the vague heuristics of calculating a strategy in a competition...
results can be determined, as calculated live, by entering a formula in numbers or words, such as: 6*77 +pi +sqrt(e^3)/888 plus 0.45. The user is given the option to search for the formula, after calculation. The calculator also uses the unit and currency conversion functions to allow unit-aware calculations. For example, "(3 EUR/liter) / (40 miles/gallon) in USD / mile" calculates the dollar cost per mile for a 40 mpg car with gas costing 3 euros a liter. The caret "^" raises a number to an exponent power, and percentages are allowed ("40% of 300"). There is also some debate as to Google's calculation of 0^0. Many mathematicians believe that 0^0 is undefined but Google's calculator shows the result as 1. - numeric ranges – A set of numbers can be matched by using a double-dot between range numbers (70..73 or 90..100) to match any positive number in the range, inclusive. Negative numbers are treated as using exclusion-dash to not match the number.
- dictionary lookup – A definition for a word or phrase can be found, by entering "define" followed by a colon and the word(s) to lookup (such as, "define:philosophy")
- maps – Some related maps can be displayed, by typing in the name or U.S. ZIP codeZIP CodeZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
of a location and the word "map" (such as: New York map; Kansas map; or Paris map). - movie showtimes – Reviews or filmFilmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
showtimes can be listed for any movies playing nearby, by typing "movies" or the name of any current film into the search box. If a specific location was saved on a previous search, the top search result will display showtimes for nearby theaters for that movie. - public data – Trends for population (or unemployment rates) can be found for U.S. states & counties, by typing "population" or "unemployment rate" followed by a state or county name.
- real estate and housing – Home listings in a given area can be displayed, using the trigger words "housing", "home", or "real estate" followed by the name of a city or U.S. zip code.
- travel data/airports – The flight status for arriving or departing U.S. flights can be displayed, by typing in the name of the airlineAirlineAn airline provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines lease or own their aircraft with which to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for mutual benefit...
and the flight number into the search box (such as: American airlinesAmerican AirlinesAmerican Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...
18). Delays at a specific airport can also be viewed (by typing the name of the city or three-letter airport code plus word "airport"). - package tracking – Package mail can be tracked by typing the tracking number of a Royal MailRoyal MailRoyal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...
, UPSUnited Parcel ServiceUnited Parcel Service, Inc. , typically referred to by the acronym UPS, is a package delivery company. Headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, UPS delivers more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 220 countries and territories around the...
, FedExFedExFedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee...
or USPSUnited States Postal ServiceThe United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
package directly into the search box. Results will include quick links to track the status of each shipment. - patent numbers – U.S. patents can be searched by entering the word "patent" followed by the patent number into the search box (such as: Patent 5123123).
- area code – The geographical location (for any U.S. telephone area code) can be displayed by typing a 3-digit area code (such as: 650).
- synonym search – A search can match words similar to those specified, by placing the tilde sign (~) immediately in front of a search term, such as: ~fast food.
Search options
The webpages maintained by the Google Help Center have text describing more than 15 various search options.The Google operators:
- OR – Search for either one, such as "price high OR low" searches for "price" with "high" or "low".
- "-" – Search while excluding a word, such as "apple -tree" searches where word "tree" is not used.
- "+" – (Removed on 10/19/11) Force inclusion of a word, such as "Name +of +the Game" to require the words "of" & "the" to appear on a matching page.
- "*" – Wildcard operator to match any words between other specific words.
Some of the query options are as follows:
- define: – The query prefix "define:" will provide a definition of the words listed after it.
- stocks: – After "stocks:" the query terms are treated as stock ticker symbols for lookup.
- site: – Restrict the results to those websites in the given domain, such as, site:www.acmeacme.com. The option "site:com" will search all domain URLs named with ".com" (no space after "site:").
- allintitle: – Only the page titles are searched (not the remaining text on each webpage).
- intitle: – Prefix to search in a webpage title, such as "intitle:google search" will list pages with word "google" in title, and word "search" anywhere (no space after "intitle:").
- allinurl: – Only the page URL address lines are searched (not the text inside each webpage).
- inurl: – Prefix for each word to be found in the URL; others words are matched anywhere, such as "inurl:acme search" matches "acme" in a URL, but matches "search" anywhere (no space after "inurl:").
The page-display options (or query types) are:
- cache: – Highlights the search-words within the cached document, such as "cache:www.google.com xxx" shows cached content with word "xxx" highlighted.
- link: – The prefix "link:" will list webpages that have links to the specified webpage, such as "link:www.google.com" lists webpages linking to the Google homepage.
- related: – The prefix "related:" will list webpages that are "similar" to a specified web page.
- info: – The prefix "info:" will display some background information about one specified webpage, such as, info:www.google.com. Typically, the info is the first text (160 bytes, about 23 words) contained in the page, displayed in the style of a results entry (for just the 1 page as matching the search).
- filetype: – results will only show files of the desired type (ex filetype:pdf will return pdf files)
Error messages
Some searches will give a 403 Forbidden error with the text
"We're sorry...
... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.
We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google."
sometimes followed by a CAPTCHA
CAPTCHA
A CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing as an attempt to ensure that the response is generated by a person. The process usually involves one computer asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade...
prompt.
The screen was first reported in 2005, and was a response to the heavy use of Google by search engine optimization
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
companies to check on ranks of sites they were optimizing. The message is triggered by high volumes of requests from a single IP address. Google apparently uses the Google cookie as part of its determination of refusing service.
In June 2009, after the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
, this message appeared to many internet users who were searching Google for news stories related to the singer, and was assumed by Google to be a DDoS attack
Denial-of-service attack
A denial-of-service attack or distributed denial-of-service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users...
, although many queries were submitted by legitimate searchers.
January 2009 malware bug
Malware
Malware, short for malicious software, consists of programming that is designed to disrupt or deny operation, gather information that leads to loss of privacy or exploitation, or gain unauthorized access to system resources, or that otherwise exhibits abusive behavior...
and could therefore not be clicked; instead a warning message was displayed and the user was required to enter the requested URL manually. The bug was caused by human error. The URL of "/" (which expands to all URLs) was mistakenly added to the malware patterns file.
Google Doodles
On certain occasions, the logoGoogle logo
Google has had several logos since its renaming from BackRub. The current official Google logo was designed by Ruth Kedar, and is a wordmark based on the Catull typeface....
on Google's webpage will change to a special version, known as a "Google Doodle". Clicking on the Doodle links to a string of Google search results about the topic. The first was a reference to the Burning Man Festival in 1998, and others have been produced for the birthdays of notable people like Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, historical events like the interlocking Lego
Lego
Lego is a line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts...
block's 50th anniversary and holidays like Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day
Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496...
.
Google Caffeine
In August 2009, Google announced the rollout of a new search architecture, codenamed "Caffeine".The new architecture was designed to return results faster and to better deal with rapidly updated information from services including Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
.
Google developers noted that most users would notice little immediate change, but invited developers to test the new search in its sandbox
Sandbox (computer security)
In computer security, a sandbox is a security mechanism for separating running programs. It is often used to execute untested code, or untrusted programs from unverified third-parties, suppliers, untrusted users and untrusted websites....
.
Differences noted for their impact upon search engine optimization
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
included heavier keyword weighting and the importance of the domain's age.
The move was interpreted in some quarters as a response to Microsoft's recent release of an upgraded version of its own search service, renamed Bing
Bing
Bing is a web search engine from Microsoft.Bing may also refer to:* An onomatopœia of a bell sound* Bing cherry, a variety of cherry* Bing , Chinese flatbread* Bing , a German company that manufactured toys and kitchen utensils...
.
Google announced completion of Caffeine on 8 June 2010, claiming 50% fresher results due to continuous updating of its index.
With Caffeine, Google moved its back-end indexing system away from MapReduce
MapReduce
MapReduce is a software framework introduced by Google in 2004 to support distributed computing on large data sets on clusters of computers. Parts of the framework are patented in some countries....
and onto BigTable
BigTable
BigTable is a compressed, high performance, and proprietary database system built on Google File System , Chubby Lock Service, SSTable and a few other Google technologies; it is currently not distributed nor is it used outside of Google, although Google offers access to it as part of their Google...
, the company's distributed database platform. Caffeine is also based on Colossus, or GFS2, an overhaul of the GFS
Google File System
Google File System is a proprietary distributed file system developed by Google Inc. for its own use. It is designed to provide efficient, reliable access to data using large clusters of commodity hardware...
distributed file system.
Encrypted Search
In May 2010 Google rolled out SSL-encrypted web search. The encrypted search can be accessed atencrypted.google.comInstant Search
Google Instant, a feature that displays suggested results while the user types, was introduced on September 8, 2010. Google expects Google Instant to save users 2 to 5 seconds in every search, which they say will be collectively 11 million seconds per hour. Search engine marketing pundits speculate that Google Instant will have a great impact on local and paid search.In concert with the Google Instant launch, Google disabled the ability of users to choose to see more than 10 search results per page. Instant Search can be disabled via Google's "preferences" menu, but autocomplete
Autocomplete
Autocomplete is a feature provided by many web browsers, e-mail programs, search engine interfaces, source code editors, database query tools, word processors, and command line interpreters. Autocomplete involves the program predicting a word or phrase that the user wants to type in without the...
-style search suggestions now cannot be disabled. A Google representative stated, "It's in keeping with our vision of a unified Google search experience to make popular, useful features part of the default experience, rather than maintain different versions of Google. As Autocomplete quality has improved, we felt it was appropriate to have it always on for all of our users."
The publication 2600: The Hacker Quarterly
2600: The Hacker Quarterly
2600: The Hacker Quarterly is an American publication that specializes in publishing technical information on a variety of subjects including telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer "underground" and left wing, and sometimes ,...
has compiled a list of words that are restricted by Google Instant. These are terms the web giant's new instant search feature will not search. Most terms are often vulgar and derogatory in nature, but some apparently irrelevant searches including "Myleak" are removed.
Redesign
In late June 2011, Google introduced a new look to the Google home page in order to boost the use of the Google+ social tools.One of the major changes was replacing the classic navigation bar with a black one. Google's digital creative director Chris Wiggins explains: "We're working on a project to bring you a new and improved Google experience, and over the next few months, you'll continue to see more updates to our look and feel." The new navigation bar has been negatively received by a vocal minority.
International
Google is available in many languages and has been localized completely or partly for many countries.The interface has also been made available in some languages for humorous purpose:
- Bork, bork, bork!Swedish ChefThe Swedish Chef is a Muppet that appeared on The Muppet Show. He was operated by Jim Henson and Frank Oz simultaneously and is now puppeteered by Bill Barretta.-Character:...
- Elmer FuddElmer FuddElmer J. Fudd/Egghead is a fictional cartoon character and one of the most famous Looney Tunes characters, and the de facto archenemy of Bugs Bunny. He has one of the more disputed origins in the Warner Bros. cartoon pantheon . His aim is to hunt Bugs, but he usually ends up seriously injuring...
- Leetspeak
- KlingonKlingon languageThe Klingon language is the constructed language spoken by the fictional Klingons in the Star Trek universe....
- Pig LatinPig LatinPig Latin is a language game of alterations played in English. To form the Pig Latin form of an English word the first consonant is moved to the end of the word and an ay is affixed . The object is to conceal the meaning of the words from others not familiar with the rules...
- Pirate
In addition to the main URL Google.com, Google Inc. owns 160 domain names for each of the countries/regions in which it has been localized.
Search products
In addition to its tool for searching webpages, Google also provides services for searching imagesRaster graphics
In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
, Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
newsgroup
Newsgroup
A usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
s, news websites, videos
Google Video
Google Videos is a video search engine, and formerly a free video sharing website, from Google Inc. Before removing user-uploaded content, the service allowed selected videos to be remotely embedded on other websites and provided the necessary HTML code alongside the media, similar to YouTube...
, searching by locality, maps, and items for sale online. In 2006, Google has indexed over 25 billion web pages, 400 million queries per day, 1.3 billion images, and over one billion Usenet messages. It also cache
Cache
In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
s much of the content that it indexes
Web indexing
Web indexing includes back-of-book-style indexes to individual websites or an intranet, and the creation of keyword metadata to provide a more useful vocabulary for Internet or onsite search engines...
. Google operates other tools and services including Google News
Google News
Google News is a free news aggregator provided by Google Inc, selecting recent items from thousands of publications by an automatic aggregation algorithm....
, Google Suggest, Google Product Search, Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
, Google Co-op
Google Co-op
Google Custom Search is a platform provided by Google that allows web developers to feature specialized information in web searches, refine and categorize queries and create customized search engines, based on Google Web Search...
, Google Earth
Google Earth
Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...
, Google Docs, Picasa
Picasa
Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website, originally created by Idealab in 2002 and owned by Google since 2004. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for "my...
, Panoramio
Panoramio
Panoramio is a geolocation-oriented photo sharing website. Accepted photos uploaded to the site can be accessed as a layer in Google Earth and Google Maps, with new photos being added at the end of every month. The site's goal is to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by...
, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, Google Translate
Google Translate
Google Translate is a free statistical machine translation service provided by Google Inc. to translate a section of text, document or webpage, into another language.The service was introduced in April 28, 2006 for the Arabic language...
, Google Blog Search and Google Desktop
Google Desktop
Google Desktop is desktop search software made by Google for Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. The program allows text searches of a user's e-mails, computer files, music, photos, chats, Web pages viewed, and other "Google Gadgets"....
Search.
There are also products available from Google that are not directly search-related. Gmail
Gmail
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Users may access Gmail as secure webmail, as well via POP3 or IMAP protocols. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though...
, for example, is a webmail application, but still includes search features; Google Browser Sync
Google Browser Sync
Google Browser Sync is a software application released as freeware from Google. It debuted in Google Labs on 8 June 2006, and as of June 2008 has been discontinued. It allows users of Mozilla Firefox up to versions 2.x to synchronize their web browser settings across multiple computers via the...
does not offer any search facilities, although it aims to organize your browsing time.
Also Google starts many new beta products, like Google Social Search or Google Image Swirl
Google Image Swirl
Google Image Swirl, launched on November 17, 2009, was a visualization tool that organized image search results into a hierarchy of groups and sub-groups based on visual and semantic similarity...
.
Energy consumption
Google claims that a search query requires altogether about 1 kJJoule
The joule ; symbol J) is a derived unit of energy or work in the International System of Units. It is equal to the energy expended in applying a force of one newton through a distance of one metre , or in passing an electric current of one ampere through a resistance of one ohm for one second...
or 0.0003 kW·h.
See also
- Google search featuresGoogle search featuresThe Google search features include more than 40 options or keywords to modify the type of search. Google Web Search is a web search engine owned by Google, Inc., and is the most-used search engine on the Web...
- Google SearchologyGoogle SearchologyGoogle Searchology 2009 witnessed several novel changes in the Google search options. In previous years Google has used this platform to showcase two significant improvements in its search: Universal Search and Personalized Search...
- History of GoogleHistory of GoogleThis article covers the history of Google, the most widely used web-based search engine in the world.-Early history:Google began in March 1998 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Ph.D. students at Stanford working on the Stanford Digital Library Project...
- List of Google domains
- List of search engines
- List of Google products
- Criticism of GoogleCriticism of GoogleCriticism of Google includes possible misuse and manipulation of search results, its use of others' intellectual property, concerns that its compilation of data may violate people's privacy, possible censorship of search results and content, and the energy consumption of its servers as well as...
- GooglewhackGooglewhackA Googlewhack is a type of a contest for finding a Google search query consisting of exactly two words without quotation marks, that returns exactly one hit. A Googlewhack must consist of two actual words found in a dictionary...
- Social graphSocial graphThe social graph is a term coined by scientists working in the social areas of graph theory. It has been described as "the global mapping of everybody and how they're related"...
Further reading
- Google HacksGoogle HacksGoogle Hacks: Tips & Tools for Smarter Searching is a book of tips about Google, a popular Internet search engine, by Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest. The book was published by O'Reilly in February 2002 . It covers tips of all kinds, from usage hints for the novice just using Google, to advice...
from O'ReillyO'Reilly MediaO'Reilly Media is an American media company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books and Web sites and produces conferences on computer technology topics...
is a book containing tips about using Google effectively. Now in its third edition. ISBN 0-596-52706-3. - Google: The Missing Manual by Sarah Milstein and Rael Dornfest (O'Reilly, 2004). ISBN 0-596-00613-6
- How to Do Everything with Google by Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, and Eric Fredricksen (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2003). ISBN 0-07-223174-2
- Google Power by Chris Sherman (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2005). ISBN 0-07-225787-3