How to Use Google to Search Effectively Technology Training February – March 2014
The Basics Every day Google answers more than one billion questions from people around the world in 181 countries and 146 languages 15% of the searches each day have never been searched before In 2011, Google’s search and advertising tools helped provide $80 billion of economic activity for over 1.8 million businesses. 94% of US teachers say their students equate “research” with using Google* *Pew Research Center: Internet & American Life Project
How Google Works The Spider The “spider” visits each website and takes a copy of each page multiple times a day so when you do a search, you are actually searching all the copies the spider has made, not the actual websites Spam Some websites pack a page full of keywords over and over again to try and get a search engine to think the page is especially relevant for that topic. Spammers might put the words “Sony Television” on their site when the page is really a Viagra advertisement Advertisements If you enter a question – answer sites will come up first If you enter “Wind Power” because you want to know the history, you will see Ads for Wind Power come up first
Synonyms Flash Drive = thumb drive Death tax = estate tax *Constantly changing
Before You Search – Stop & Think You want to search for your ANWSER – not your question
Real-Life Searches Predictive Search Method for drawing on what you already know about the subject Includes successful word choice and using Google’s filters to uncover information
Forget “The”, “My”, “A” Who v.The Whov.a Who A little word can make all the difference!
Capitalization & Punctuation Capitalization does not matter! The only punctuation that does matter: $, # (hashtag), C++ or Google+
Word Order grass snake vs. snake grass vs. snake in the grass
Word Choice When did the first basketball team play for money? vs. When did basketball become a professional sport?
Positive Narrowing Search Tools Time frame (most recent information) Compare how an event was viewed at the time and then later on Reading Level Results shown by basic, intermediate and advanced reading levels Verbatim Results shown include ALL the search words you entered
Detailed Searching Question I want to see samples of lesson plans on climate change that were created based on Understanding by Design Search climate change lesson plan Better Search climate change lesson plan essential questions
Geographical Targeting SearchEdward Snowden SearchSite:RU Edward Snowden Remember the authors – your search has to align itself with country The Iran Hostage Crisis would not be “Iran Hostage Crisis” in Iranian websites! List of Country Codes
Google Operators Search for an exact word or phrase Use quotes “imagine all the people” good for song lyrics or a line from literature Exclude a word Add a dash (-) before a word or site to exclude all results that include that word Site search To search within a certain website use site:website name (site:nytimes.com) To search everywhere but a certain website –site:Wikipedia.com
More Google Operators Number rage Separate numbers by two periods (..) to see results that contain numbers in a given range of things like dates, prices and measurements Related URL Find sites that are similar to a URL you already know (related:website address)
Make Searching Safer Google’s kid friendly search engine safesearchkids.com Filter explicit results google.com/preferences
Resources Google’s Education Site Google’s Advanced Search or access through pull down menu from gear icon Google Search Operators