Google Guide 03 - Services, Features, Advanced Operators

March 21, 2008 · Filed Under Internet

Google Services and Features - PART 3

Ok. Here is Part 3 of the “Google Rules, Secrets and Easter Eggs” guide. This is long over due so I have finally gotten around to posting it. For the third part of the guide we are going to focus on additional features that Google provides to users.

First let’s take a look at the additional search categories within Google and give a brief explanation of what each one is.

You will notice when you are on the Google search page that there are a couple links at the top of the page. Traditionally these categories are WEB, IMAGES, MAPS, NEWS, SHOPPING, GMAIL and MORE.

Web
Images
Maps
News
Shopping
Gmail
More

These categories can be just as useful as the search operators we discussed earlier as they allow you to refine your searches to specific criteria. Using search operators along with these categories can allow you to find very specific information much quicker than with most search engines.

Let’s take a look at each of these seven categories and see what they are all about.

The first category on the menu is “Web“. By default this is where the page will start. Any searches you perform while you are on the Web tab are obviously going to bring back web pages for search results. This is the service you will use most often when searching through Google. The results are general, but the power of Google’s web crawling will usually bring back very accurate results.

The next category is “Images“. The Images tab allows you to search for pictures on web pages. This is a very specific category as all the search results that are displayed are pictures of your search term. Let’s do an example search for the word “Coffee”. This will give you a better idea of how Google image search works. As you can see all the results that are displayed are specific to your search term. From here you can click on an image and it will take you to the webpage that the image is displayed on. You’ll notice when the webpage loads that Google has a white menu bar at the top of the page. You can click on the thumbnail in this menu bar to get a full size version of the image or browse the page that has loaded to see the image in context. Using Google image search is a good way to find specific images quickly.

The following section is Google “Maps“. Google maps is a very powerful location, and direction search utility. It can be used to find a location, get directions, view satellite images of earth, and view elevations. New features include Google Street View and Traffic. You really need to use Google maps to understand why it is such a powerful and useful utility. There are so many useful features in maps that I have covered it in detail in the “Google Rules, Secrets and Easter Eggs - PART 2″. Please refer to this blog post for additional information on all the features available in Google maps.

Another useful service in Google is the “News” feature. Google news provides up to date information on current happenings around the world. Utilizing news sources from around the country Google has compiled a very thorough news source to bring you your daily news. It is laid out in a very organized manner, sorted by category to make headlines easy to find. Each article listed has a standard news headline, a thumbnail image for the article, the news source it was used from, and a time stamp so you can tell how current the article is. You can then click on the head line to be taken to the original source to read the entire article if you would like more information.

The nicest feature in the news section is the ability to search through articles using the power of the Google search engine. For an example let’s search for “Britney Spears”. [Ah Britney... are you ever not in the news you crazy psycho.] As you can see from the results the main page contains articles that are the most current along with a left hand navigation panel. The navigation panel allows you to sort articles by date to ensure relevant results. A new feature in the left panel is “blogs” which will allow you to search for terms in people’s blogs which can be useful for word of mouth news or other perspectives than those offered by the mainstream media.

You will also notice a feature below blogs called “News Alerts“. [Or "Blog Alerts" depending on the page you are on.] Alerts are basically a way to have Google send you updates on news articles you are potentially interested in. The Alerts will allow you to specify the keywords, the type of results [News. Blogs, Web, Video, Group] and how often you receive alerts. I will go into alerts in a little more detail below.

The next interesting service offered by Google is the “Shopping” link. Google shopping or “Froogle” [Which is now apparently "Google Product Search"] is a search utility that allows sellers to list items in a manner similar to eBay. Unlike eBay there is no auction process involved. You simply list your items so that potential buyers can browse through results using the search power of Google. Unlike a standard web search all the results that come back give users the option to go to a page where they can purchase the item.

One thing you will notice here is how the results are laid out very similar to that of the Google News results. Google uses a standard format for most of it’s search results that enables users to browse topics quickly once they have become familiar with it.

Let’s do an example search for “Nintendo Wii”. As you can see there are almost 90,000 results returned. Keep in mind that unlike the standard web search all of these are potential things to buy. You can see that each result has a thumbnail picture of the item, an item heading or title, the price it is being sold for, the vendor that is selling the item, a review rating on the item, and the option to add the item to your shopping cart. Some search results will give you the option to purchase the item directly through Google while others require that you go through the website of the seller that listed the item.

[As with any purchases on the internet be careful and always double check the source of your purchase. Always make smart decisions to protect you credit cards and your identity from theft.]

The next valuable service offered through Google is “Gmail“. If you are not already a member you have probably at least heard of Gmail. Gmail is Google’s free email offering similar to Microsoft’s Hotmail service. Unlike Hotmail Google provides users with seemingly unlimited storage space in their account. As of this guide the current storage capacity of a Gmail account is 6.5gb! That’s incredible! As someone that frequently uses and send email I can guarantee that you will never run out of space in a Gmail account.

Another great feature about this service is that it is free to sign up and there are no limitations on the number of accounts you can have. [Just availability of names.] The service offers POP services free of charge allowing you to setup your Gmail account on mobile devices like the Black Berry or iPhone.

It also gives you access to another great feature in Google called Google Documents. Google Documents allows you to create and store files online. The current version has the ability to create Microsoft Word and Excel compatible documents, along with Google’s version of Power Point. This is a great free web based alternative to Microsoft Office. It is similar to other free office projects like Open Office. [OpenOffice.org]

In addition to creating these files you can store them online so you have access to them on any computer that has internet access. Another nice feature of these stored documents is the ability to share them with anyone else that has a Gmail account. I have found that this is very useful for planning things with my fiancée like our house budget, monthly budget, bills, vacation plans, party plans, etc. The more you use these features the more uses you will find for them in your daily routine.

That covers the major sections on the Google search page. The last section is “More” which gives you access to additional services and features through Google. I have outlined the sections listed under More and will give a brief explanation of each.

Video
Groups
Books Scholar
Finance
Blogs
YouTube
Calendar
Reader

Video - Video specific search offered through Google. Gives users the ability to search Google Video and YouTube for keyword specific results.

Groups - Searches through online news groups for information pertaining to your keywords. I have found Groups searches to be useful in finding information that is specifically in a forum format. For example “computer troubleshooting” will return results specific to how to fix computers.

Books Scholar - Book information search through Google. Will bring up information specific to almost any book you search for. This does not allow users to read these books but will give them titles, print dates, authors, publishers, summary, number of pages, links to buy, ISBN numbers, web references, etc. This is a great resource for citing sources on papers for projects.

Finance - The Charles Schwab of the Google’s free online services. While it does not give you the option to invest the main page of Google’s finance page gives users a general summary everything going on with the market and stocks. Information is laid out in six main categories.

Recent Quotes
Top Movers
Related News
Today’s News
Market Summary
Sector Summary.

Another useful feature of finance is that it allows you to search for financial information by company. For an example let’s do a search for “Samsung”.

This brings up a list with all the companies that match this name. Each company displays a Name, the Exchange it is listed on, the stock Symbol, the Last Trade price, any Change, and Market Cap [Mkt Cap].

You can see how this can be a valuable to market analysts, potential traders and anyone keeping an eye on the market.

Blogs - The Google Blogs search feature allows you to search online Blogs for topic specific content. As with other Google search features this utilizes the power of the Google web crawler to create an extensive pool of topics. For an example let’s search for “Pseudo Rant”. You can see how many results come up in your search. Unfortunately none of them are my blog yet because I have not received any hits. 

YouTube - The Google search feature for YouTube allows users to browses all video offered on the YouTube website. While owned by Google, YouTube still maintains it’s own identity separate from “Google Videos”. The YouTube feature is very similar to the Google Videos feature in that it lets you search for videos by specific keyword. Google Videos seems to be a little more powerful in my opinion as it searches Google Videos and YouTube and will return results from both. This may be a good option if you are looking for a video that you saw specifically on YouTube.

Calander - The Google Calendar is yet another free MS Office type feature available in Google. This feature is similar to Google documents in that it is accessible via your Gmail account. You can add events to your Calendar and use it for scheduling. You can even synchronize it with the Microsoft Outlook calendar and Share events.

Like Google Documents the sharing feature lets you to share information with other Gmail users which allows you to collaborate and work on projects together. The Google Calendar takes this one step further by allowing users to collaborate on scheduling.

Alerts - Google alerts is a service through Google that gives you updates about news, current events, blogs, video and keywords as you see fit. As mentioned above you can setup the alerts to meet specific criteria and times so you do not get inundated with notices in your email. The first page is “Google Alert.com” which is a third party service that is not maintained by Google. I put this on the list because many users feel this alert service is more powerful than the Google news alerts.

The second page is “Google News Alerts” which you can setup for updates on Google News. Another useful alert service that users feel could be expanded upon in the future.

As mentioned before the information I have listed on these services is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to everything you can do with Google. You will remember there “More” function that allows you to view other services within Google. There is also an “Even More” link under the “More” section which gives you access to even more great services. [No Pun intended].

As with everything in Google you will get the most out of it by exploring and getting used to it yourself. Although it never hurts to have a good reference guide to help get your feet wet in the process. Please feel free to link to my guides and share them with your family and friends.

I think a lot of people out there don’t realize how many features they are missing out when they use Google. Just writing this guide has taught me numerous things about the search engine that I didn’t even realize were there.

Below is an extended reference of operators and functions that are also available through Google. These were not listed in previous tables and are another good example of power operators that can be used in your daily routine.

OPERATORS - EXTENDED REFERENCE

OPERATOR & DESCRIPTION

Example: “time in Mexico”
Time In - The “time in” designation allows you to search for the current time in any city in the world based on location. Simply type “time in” followed by the City name you would like to know the current time for.

Example: “$9.99 USD in GBP”
Currency Converter - The currency converter function will allow you to convert one common currency to another. Simply type in the amount to convert [Example $9.99] the currency symbol [USD = US Dollars] then “in” and the currency symbol you would like to convert to “GBP” [Great Brittan Pounds].

Example: “Weather in Madison”
Weather in - The “Weather in” designation allows you to get the current weather forecast for any region in the world. In the example “Weather in Madison” it will sure you that we are currently experiencing a warm 39 degree day!

Intext:
Will only search the text in a webpage. The operator will ignore titles and links found in the page. Useful for ruling out information on a page that is not context specific. [Example: You are looking for the word “Link” as a Zelda reference and want to search to exclude any occurrence of an HTTP “link”.

daterange:
The daterange operator will search for pages that were modified within a specific time frame to help bring back current news and results.