What Is Google? Google Search Explained

What is Google in simple words?

Google is a crawler-based search engine, meaning that it has software programmes designed to “crawl” information on the Web and index this information in Google’s database.

Google is the largest and most popular search engine on the Web today, and it has much to offer in addition to helping you search the Web.
If you’d like to learn more about Google, I invite you to read the following articles:

• Learn more about Google and why it’s one of the most popular search engines in the world today.
• Here are the top Google shortcuts that any savvy Googler should have under his or her belt. You’ll find that using these Google Search Shortcuts will greatly cut down on your Google search time, as well as make your Google searches more effective and more efficient.
• Ten Things You Didn’t Know the Google Search Engine Could Do:
  The Google search engine is arguably the most popular search engine on the Web today, but most people barely scratch the surface of what Google really does. Here are ten things you (might) not have known that Google can do.
• Here are my picks for the top ten most useful Google services: the products that consistently help people achieve ultimate productivity, demonstrate ease of use, and are viable for the long term.
• Top Ten Google Search Tricks:
  Google is the most popular search engine on the Web, but most people don’t realise how much more powerful they can make their Google searches with just a few simple tweaks.

An Introduction to Google In the last few years, Google has attained the ranking of the #1 search engine on the Web and has consistently stayed there.

How does Google’s search engine work?

Basically, Google is a crawler-based engine, meaning that it has software programmes designed to “crawl” information on the Net and add it to its sizeable database. Google has a great reputation for relevant and thorough search results and is a good first place to start when searching.

Google’s Search Engine Home Page

Google’s home page is extremely clean and simple, loads quickly, and delivers arguably the best results of any search engine out there, mostly due to its PageRank technology and massive listings (more than 8 billion at the time of this writing).

Google’s Search Engine Options

Searchers have more than one option on Google’s home page; there is the capacity to search for images, comments, UseNet discussion forums, Google’s unique news hub, and many more. Google’s own shopping search engine, Froogle, is also available for searchers to tap into.

Google’s sizable shopping listings

How to use Google’s search engine

• Be specific. Google is not an “intuitive” search engine (unfortunately, there aren’t any!), and therefore cannot read your mind. Try to be as concise as possible; instead of “jeans”, try “Levi 501 jeans”.
• Search for phrases. For example, if you’re searching for a specific quote, type in “to be or not to be.” Google will search for the entire phrase just like it appears in between the quotes. For more information on how to use phrases in your searches, check out Looking for a Specific Phrase.
• Be selective. Use “common words”, such as and, if, not, and numbers ONLY if you want them included in the search. Google excludes them otherwise. If you want them included, use a phrase search by putting quotations around your search query, or include the common word by putting a space and a plus sign right in front of it. For example, if you are looking for the season five DVD of “Sex and the City,” type in
  “Sex and the City dvd season +5”.
• Exclude any additional outcomes.If you want to narrow down your search even further, focus your search by placing a “-” (negative sign) in front of words you want to avoid. For example, if you’re researching for “coffee” and want to avoid Starbucks, you would type in “coffee-Starbucks” (without quotes). If you’d like to learn more about using the plus and minus symbols in your searches, read Basic Web Search Math.

Google’s Search Suggestions

All you need to do is just enter a word or phrase and hit “enter”.
So Google will only come up with results that contain all the words in the search word or phrase, so refining your search just means adding or subtracting words from the search terms you’ve already submitted.

Google’s search results can be easily narrowed down by using phrases rather than just one word. For example, instead of searching for “coffee,” try “Starbucks coffee,” and you’ll get much better results.

Google doesn’t care about capitalised words and will even suggest correct spellings of words or phrases.
Google also excludes common words such as “where” and “how,” and since Google will return results that include all of the words you enter, there’s no need to include the word “and,” as in “coffee and Starbucks.”

Google Advanced Search

For more advanced Google search tips, you’ll definitely want to check out my Google Cheat Sheet. Google is just way too big for one article to cover all it has to offer in the way of search.

The Google Toolbar and Google Desktop Search

What else is great about Google? Personally, I’m a big fan of both the Google Toolbar and Google Desktop Search.
The best feature of the toolbar is that it blocks annoying pop-ups and offers instant access to Google’s search technology. The desktop search also has its critics, but I’ve had no problems with it. Both these downloads are free and take up very little space on your system; give them a try and see what you think.

Google’s Search Engine Extras

There are so many extra search options on Google that it’s difficult to find space to list them all. Here are a few special features:

• If you’re looking for text from a specific book, type in the name of the book (in quotes), or if you’re looking for books about a particular subject, type in “books about xxx”.
  Google will return results that contain content either in the book itself or will offer links to book results at the top of the search page.
• Use Google’s calculator by just typing in whatever calculation you’d like Google to figure out. For example,
  half a quart in tablespoons.
• Ask Google to define something by typing in to define (insert term).