Thanks to a unique algorithm that produces most relevant results
to any given query, Google has become, indisputably, the best
search engine on the Internet. On the last count, Google has
indexed over 4 billion pages and tackles around 200 million
searches a day! A cluster of 100 thousand servers are used to
store, crunch and spew out the query results with lightning
speed that you are so accustomed to see.
This phenomenal growth has made Google from a garage startup to
an Internet behemoth faster than any company has done before.
The prodigies behind this unique search engine, Larry Page and
Sergey Brin in the process already got enlisted themselves in
billionaire club.
Google is no longer a mere search engine! It is increasingly
broadening its offerings to include great new services and
excellent tools. Among these services, most notables are
News - a news aggregation and searching service,
Blogger - an online journal-keeping solution,
Froogle - a marketplace for comparison shopping,
Groups - online discussion groups, Answers - a place to get
hard-to-find information for a price, etc.
Google also recently unveiled two more programs.
Orkut - a social networking service and Gmail - a free web
mail service. Orkut is an online community, where a person
can participate in it by invitation from a member only.
If you constantly frown over limited space of your hotmail
or Yahoo accounts because they get filled up with junk mails
and force you to delete old messages frequently, you will
love Gmail with its 1 GB of storage capacity. There are
several great features available in Gmail system too.
One of them, dubbed as Conversations, allow you to view
all exchange mails with somebody, once you select one of
the mails. Sorting and searching emails also become much
easier with Gmail. The only catch is Gmail displays
relevant ads - based on the keywords found in your
email - on the right side of the screen when you view an
email, much like Google displays ads when you view search
results.
Although, Google is constantly adding new and extremely
useful features, most of us unfortunately do not use all the
capacities of the search engine itself. The following tips
will make your Internet browsing more effective if even
you are an avid net user.
Choose most specific search words
Google returns web pages that contain all the words in your
query. If you would like to see the most relevant pages on
the first page of your search result, be very specific with
your choice of words. For example: if you would like to
research on former NHL hockey player Makarov, you should
start your search with Makarov not hockey player. Even better
if you search for the words: hockey player Makarov. Because
just the word Makarov will show web pages on “Makarov” a
Russian-made handgun and numerous other people and products
with the name Makarov. Refining your query in Google means
adding more specific words to your initial search. In this
example you will hit the right web pages if your search
contains: NHL hockey player Makarov.
Sets - a new feature
What if you are looking for a pair of Valentino designer
jeans but can’t recall the name of the designer? Query on
Italian designer jeans may bring you the right result; however,
there is a better tool that Google is planning to implement
soon, called “Sets”.
Fill up the names of some designers that you remember in the
given form such as Levis, Wrangler, Versace and click either
of the two buttons and voila! You will get a list of
designers name and probably, Valentino will be there. But
bear in mind that this feature is still at Beta stage.
Calculator
The other day, I was sitting in a colleague’s office. She
needed to calculate some basic stuffs and looking for her
calculator on her desk. Much to her dismay, she could not
find the calculator and started to fumble through her
computer programs in her attempt to find Microsoft calculator.
I noticed that she was online and the browser was open.
I, politely, asked her whether she knew that Google could
actually calculate most common mathematical expressions.
It came out to be, she did not! She was just amazed after
trying it herself. Google is even capable of unit conversion!
Give it a try!
Definition
If you are looking for a definition of a particular word or
a phrase, Google is the best place to get it. In Google search
box, write “define: the word or phrase” without the quotation
marks and click search button. If there is a definition
available for your search term you will, most certainly,
get it. It’s a very useful feature for students and people,
those who write research papers.
Synonyms
You may think that search engines are too dumb to show
query results of the synonyms of your search term. It’s
not so! At least, in the case of Google! If you use tilde
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