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Garbage In, Garbage Out/Google In, Google Out by Jacob Hopkins

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GIGO

Garbage In, Garbage Out/Google In, Google Out
A presention to COLUG by Jacob Hopkins on April 27, 2002.

Introduction

Google, http://www.google.com is a powerful search engine. Primitive search criteria can return results of varying quality, but either overwhelming underwhelming in quanity. Google offers advanced critera to enhance searches. Advanced searches are also available through an HTML based interface, http://www.google.com/advanced_search.

Binary Operators

Include, exclude and or are binary search critera operators. Include and exclude are used as prefixes to search terms, or other operators. Include, indicated by a plus (+) sign, is the default operator, typically only needed when a common word is excluded by the search engine. Exclude is indicated by a minus (-) sign. Or is indicated to the search engine by the word OR, in all caps.

Enhanced Search Operators

Title content and URL makeup are accessable as search criteria through intitle: and inurl:. Both operatons are available in more encompassing versions, allintitle: and allinurl:. Searches are restricted by domain through the site: operator. site: operates on the domain portion, begining and only matching from the right. Certain file types are selectable with filetype:, including pdf, ps, txt and doc.

URL Operations

URL operations are more mining operations into Google's database than a web search, as such they cannot be combined with other search terms or enhanced operators. Pages linking to a specific HTTP URL are available through link:. related: returns pages Google determines are related to the specified page. While cache: returns the text content of the page as it was when it was spidered, offering insight into stale search results.

Disclaimers
This is not an official document from Google, it is a distillation of my experience using the Google search engine. My usage of the search engine is the only aspect of my relationship and involvement with Google. Google has documentation on this subject at http://www.google.com/help/faq_filetypes.html, http://www.google.com/help/basics.html and http://www.google.com/help/operators.html.

Copyright (C) 2002 J. Jacob Hopkins
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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