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GOOGLE
About
Google
Google, according to its co-founder Larry Page is
something that "understands exactly what you mean and
gives you back exactly what you want." Google is a
search engine that has constantly sought innovation and
improvisation. As a result, Google developed its own
serving infrastructure and breakthrough PageRank™
technology that changed the way searches are conducted.
Google was the first general search engine that provides
access to pages at the time they were indexed,
designated as "cached" pages. Google is also the only
search engine that searches for some characters. As of
Sept. 2003, it would search for the ampersand & and the
underscore _ characters by themselves or as part of a
character string (Notess, 2004). Google handles numbers
in some special ways and can search for a range of
numbers. When it searches for numbers, it also finds
numbers with and without commas. Number searches and
number range searches can be combined with other terms
and can be included in phrase searching. A number range
search, like most other Google searches, will also find
pages that do not contain the number but are linked from
other pages that contain the number in the linking
anchor text.”
Most search engines utilized a handful of large servers
that often slowed under peak loads for the search
operations. Google employed linked PCs to quickly find
each query's answer. The innovation paid off in faster
response times, greater scalability and lower costs. The
software behind Google's search technology conducts a
series of simultaneous calculations requiring only a
fraction of a second (Nystedt, 2006). Google uses
PageRank™ to examine the entire link structure of the
web and determine which pages are most important. It
then conducts hypertext-matching analysis to determine
which pages are relevant to the specific search being
conducted. By combining overall importance and
query-specific relevance, Google is able to put the most
relevant and reliable results first. Google's search
engine also analyzes page content in fonts, subdivisions
and the precise location of each word. The speed with
which the results are returned is very impressive.
Though a basic Google search answers most questions, it
is possible to customize everything from the language of
the interface to the format of the pages Google returns
as results (Notess, 2004). Users can search for images,
multiple file types, pages in Czech or Turkish, posts to
Usenet, phone numbers, airline flight info or categories
in the Open Directory. By using the preferences page,
users can also select the number of results returned and
filter out adult content. There's much more to what
Google offers, from an amazing spell checker to tools
for translating web pages from one language to another
or from HTML to a format readable by most mobile
devices. To use Google's built-in calculator function,
one can simply enter the calculation into the search
box. These attributes make Google very special.
There are a few limitations in Google. There are limited
search features: no nesting, no truncation, does not
support full Boolean. Link searches must be exact and
are incomplete. Only indexes first 101 KB of a Web page
and about 120 KB of PDF. Google's top results are
claimed to be heavily skewed toward shopping sites, if
the user is looking for something that is sold online.
Multiple search terms are processed as an AND operation
by default. Phrase matches are ranked higher. It does
not yet support the AND operator, NOT operator, or full
Boolean searching with the ability to nest operators.
Google has no case sensitive searching. Google has
language, domain, date, file type, and adult content
limits. The date limit, added in July 2001, has only
three options are available: Past 3 Months, Past 6
Months, or Past Year. Google ignores frequent words.
Searching on the Google is easy and simple. Choose the
right search terms. Start with the obvious. Its
advisable to use multiple search terms. There is no need
to capitalize letters or use terms such as 'and, if, or"
etc. Phrase searches are effective when the user is
searching for proper names. Use of minus sign denotes a
meaning the user wants to avoid. The "I'm feeling lucky'
button takes the user to the most relevant website
Google has found for thee query.
Google will refresh its entire index approximately every
30 days. The ht:/Dig search engine is re-indexed twice a
week.
There are a variety of ways to access the Internet. Most
online services, such as America Online, offer access to
some Internet services. It is also possible to gain
access through a commercial Internet Service Provider
(ISP).
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