Google
Written: Apr 17 '01
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The Bottom Line
Google rules.
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| Full Review |
Google.com definitely subscribes to the designer's credo of form follows function. Google may not be much to look at, but it works. Every time. In my quest for a decent search engine, I tried every one I could get my fingertips on: Lycos, Yahoo, Dogpile, Ask Jeeves, and so many more. No one can consistently return the correct results like Google can.
Google is a utilitarian search engine that searches 1,346,966,000 web pages to get the results you need. Your eyes do not deceive you, over a billion web pages. How can you go wrong?
Types of Searches
Search: Simple enough: Type in your word or phrase and click on "go." Take your pick from the numerous offerings!
Advanced Search: You can be a little more specific here to narrow down incorrect results. For instance, you may choose to find results with all of the words in your search field, an exact phrase, any of the words you've listed in your search box or you can exclude words. An example of this would be Search for "baskets" excluding "picnic"; your results would include no picnic baskets!
I'm Feeling Lucky: This is a neat little feature! You can type in a website's name and it will take you directly there without giving any search results. Epinions.com is simple to remember, but I have a recipe site in mind that has a long address. Simply type in Family Cooking, and it will shoot you right over, no memory required!
Other facets of the site
Preferences: You can set your preferences and a cookie will save them so you don't have to reset them with each visit. You may choose the language you want the results and web pages to be in, the number of results per page and Safe Search which eliminates all sexually explicit content. You also have the option of using a results window.
Cool Jobs: One would think that this would be a job search of sorts, but it is only a listing of jobs at Google.com.
Adwords: If you have a website that you'd like advertised, Google can make sure you are noticed! The rates seem cheap for what you get at a meager $8.00 per thousand search results. It seems easy to build your own advertisement with their help and you can even choose 3 keywords to help direct folks to your site.
Add Google to your site: You can add a Google search engine to your own website or a fully customizable Site Search which will help folks find what they are looking for only on your site.
Google Toolbar: A relatively new addition to this site, this toolbar, when installed, will appear along with your Internet Explorer Toolbar so that you can perform a Google Search at any time without having to go back to the homepage.
I invite you to take a challenge. Go to Google.com and pull yourself up. I was shocked at all of the places my name actually showed up on the internet! Of course, having a last name like "Zick" does help to narrow down the selections, but you will find yourself! If you have a quite common name, like Mary Smith, try typing in your epinions ID. My own name gave me a total of 419 results in just 3 seconds and nearly 20 of the ones I looked at were actually me!
This search engine is simply unbeatable!
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Member: Suzanne
Location: North Carolina
Reviews written: 207
Trusted by: 236 members
About Me: Real Estate Rock Star
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