How to Better Utilize Google

Since 1980 the population of Vermont has increased by 100,000 people and has surpassed the population of the District of Columbia, which has declined over the same period. How do I know? By entering the word 'population' followed by a state, in this case VT, in the Google search bar; hit enter and there is a nice graphic to illustrate the population trend over the past 30 years. Down the side are the fifty states, click on as many as you like and the graph is populated by colored lines. I find this fascinating, I am a statistician by trade and inclination, but the broader point is this is immediately available through Google.

Recent search engine releases have been extolled for their intelligence, type in a question and you will get the answer. Unfortunately this approach relies on the interpretation of the question. Google, on the other hand, have quietly built a library of tools with which to mine the internet. First let us look at the basic search engine. As most of you know, to locate a page with the information you require all you have to do is type your query in the search bar and, hey presto, there's a list of pages in order of relevance. Well, not quite. You are looking for a night of blues in Hartford; you come up with the history of a defunct NFL team. How about the new Terminator movie, type in salvation and that's probably what you won't get. The point is you have to know how to ask. Looking for salsa but not the dance then type in salsa -dance, if you want a specific phrase, who said "come up and see me sometime", then put it in single quotes 'come up and see me sometime' . Typing electric cars means that both words have to be on the site suggested whereas electric OR car will give you any site with electric or car on it. Only trust information from university sites? then type Ulysses Grant site:edu.

In fact there is a whole host of qualifiers you can use to narrow down your search. Google recognizes categories, well, the most common search categories anyway. To go back to our night at the movies, simply type in movie:Salvation or maybe movie:20001 if you want a listing in your zip code. There are plenty of other qualifiers; music:pink floyd or book:frankenstein. I find this very useful, now I do not have to remember umpteen web-sites or scan down a list of bookmarks longer than an Egyptian scroll. Next to the computer I have a page of reference commands, like a cheat-sheet, for IBM share quotes type in stocks:IBM or for the weather in Boston type weather:Boston MA or just the zip.

And all those numbers; luckily numbers are a computers bread and butter. Type in the VIN number from a car (useful when you are buying a used vehicle and you want to check the provenance) and Google recognizes it and displays the info. Just sent Aunt Joan a package and you want to know where it is, enter the tracking number and bingo! Just received an annoying call, type in the number 2125551234 and it will tell you that is a number used in the movies (the 555 exchange is never used except for information. Conversely, if you are interested in news in general from Iceland then type location:Iceland or source:Reykjavik Grapevine, and yes there is a newspaper with that title. I hope the above will allow you to focus more on the content and less on the often frustrating process of getting the information you want!

Sources : google.com
googleguide.com