Powersearching Google

Precision and Recall(Library Jargon)

• Recall – Degree to which you got all of the pages that would have been useful.

• Precision – How much junk you also got.

• Is recall often a problem with Google?

(why or why not)

Main Search Box

Doing a good search

• Think about the words you want to see on the page• Try singulars and plurals both• 10 word limit (don’t bother with more)• Word order matters (Brown bear vs. bear brown)• Repetition matters (but only 2 times)

The Great Goodini

• Use the “wildcard” to fill in a word you don’t know.– An apple has * calories– The US has * states– Three * * see how they run

Advanced Search

Bool

What might happen if I say Eagles (not) Philadelphia?

And – Both conditions are present

Or- Either condition is present

Not – Remove if this condition is present

Operators in Google• And is automatic• “” phrases – “ucr library”• ~ synonyms• Ranges .. Between:100..500 ..before

after..• OR (must be caps) or “|”• - (not)

Tips for SearchingGoogle search results:

• widget parts 268,000

• “widget parts” 660

• “widget parts” green 56

• “widget parts” green -china 20

Advanced Search

Advanced Search Operators

• link: link:www.cnn.com• related: related:www.cnn.com

• define: define:ecommerce• stocks: stocks:msft

• site: widgets site:www.usda.gov• allintitle: allintitle:ecommerce payments

Extras from the Google Box:

• Calculator 5+2*2• Conversions

– Ounces in pounds (or grams)– Dollars in Pounds

• Phone book Bill Gates, WA• Street maps 3401 Watkins Dr. 92507• Air travel info

– e.g. ONT Airport -check airport conditions– e.g. United 1200 – check a flight

• Weather 92507

Number Searches• tracking numbers

– UPS

– Fedex

– USPS

• Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers

• UPC codes

• Telephone area codes

• Patent numbers: “patent 5123123”

Movies and music

• Type in a movie name for local showing

• Type in an album or musician for discography or album info

Results

• The URL has lots of interesting stuff

• Remember the cache

What if you get too much Junk?

• Remember the – and the “”

• Add more words to the box – When words are added with OR # goes up– When words are added with and # goes down

• Limit by domain or daterange

Daterange – Why/how

• Think about situations in which the date that pages were added to google would affect how useful the pages might be.

• Date limiter available in Advanced• Also works (sortof) in searchbox with

daterange:start-end, but requires bizarre julian date format

ImagesThere’s even an advanced search, where you can specify color/b&w and preferred file type (jpg, png, gif etc)

Note: Copyright is fuzzy, ask again later…You may want to try flickr or it’s ilk where copyright is clearly noted. Or limit to .gov

Language Tools

But Wait…There’s More

More

Google Alerts

Google Maps and Google Local• The one box philosophy brought to maps and yellow pages both.

If you like this, you will LOVE Google Earth

Google Scholar• Find journal articles in a wide variety of topics

(not quite as deep as our databases, but more broad)

• Once again, the single box• Remember to turn on your proxy or VPN if you

are not on campus• Click on the UC-eLinks link to get to the article (if

The Libraries license it)

Google Books

• The full text has been scanned or otherwise added from 1000’s of books.

• Search the full text

• Look at up to 7 sample pages

• If you like what you see check in Scotty

• Firefox script automatically checks Scotty

“Special” searches

• http://www.google.com/ucr– (searches UCR site)

a.k.a. http://www.google.com/unclesam

More Cool Google Tools

Includes a spell checker

Maybe the coolest thing in the whole world

What Google Can’t Do

• Provide you with copyrighted material which we haven’t licensed for you

• Search every database on the internet– Realtor.com– Sometimes you have to be more general, just to

get to the doorstep of the right database.

Want More?