Notes from Web Search Garage.

1. Search Engines

Introduction

• Category
  • Full text engines: Try to index the entire contents of a Web page. Google is the standard example. (Note that the book refers to Teoma as an example of a full-text engine; it does not exist any more.) Good for when you’re looking for very specific information.
  • Searchable subject indexes: Provides a searchable, browsable list of categorized sites that contain the name, URL, and a description. Yahoo is the standard example. Good for when you’re looking for more general information.
• The major search engines (i.e., Google and Yahoo) each provide both a full-text engine and a searchable subject index.
• Search defaults: When you enter multiple words into a search engine, the search engine has a standard (default) way of joining those words together.
  • and: Each word has to be included in the target document.
  • or: At least one of the words has to be included in the target document.
• Boolean modifiers: These are terms or characters that you add to the query in order to explicitly tell the search engine that a search term must be included, must not be included, or should be ored with the other terms. These are specific to each search engine; you have to read the documentation.

Google

Limits

• Return up to 1000 results for a query
• Limits a search query to 10 words
• Indexes pages in HTML, PDF, DOC, PPT (any others?)
• Defaults to and

Query modifiers

• +—must include (example: “michigan +ross”)
• -—must not include (example: “michigan -ross”)
• |—or (example: “michigan | ross”)
• ˜—synonym (example: ”˜car”, includes “car”, “cars”)
• *—full word wildcard (example: “step * step”; finds documents with phrases such as “step by step”, “step over step”)

Special syntaxes

• site:—Restricts a search to a specific domain (or even a top-level domain). Example: “bba site:umich.edu”; explain.
• intitle:—Restricts the search to Web page titles. Example: “intitle:tigers”; explain.
• inurl:—Restricts the search to the Web page URL itself. Example: “Stanton MacDonald-Wright” inurl:library site:edu; explain.
• intext:—Returns pages if the query words are in the text of a Web page and not in the page’s HTML. Only useful when searching for words that are HTML markup terms (e.g., body or html). Example: “intext:body”; explain.
• inanchor:—Returns a page if the text in a link to it contains the text you specify. Example: ; explain.
• link:—Returns a page if it links to the page you specify. This cannot be mixed with other special syntaxes or special searches. Example: ; explain.
• cache:—Returns the Google cache of a page you specify. Not all pages indexed by Google are cached, and not all pages are cached to begin with. Example: ; explain.
• related:—In theory, this returns pages that are related (apparently, in some mysterious way) to the URL you specify. Example: related:http://www.amazon.com; this returns pages that are related to www.amazon.com. I defy you to define how Google has defined the term “related”.
• info:—Returns the information Google has about a URL. It also sets up queries for “cache:”, “related:”, “link:”, and “site:”. Example: info:http://www.amazon.com; the best way to understand what this query does is to look at the Google page for this example.
• daterange:—Searches for pages that were indexed by Google within a certain date range; note that this date range is not when the page was created or last modified, but when Google found and indexed the page; Must use Julian Date Converter (not very practical).

Commands for Special Searching

These cannot be mixed with each other or with special syntaxes.

• stocks:—To obtain financial/stock informaiton from a myriad of sources use this function. Example: stocks:c
• phonebook:—Used in two different ways…
  • phone number—perform a “reverse lookup” by using syntax “phonebook:” followed by a the number. Example (phonebook:734-225-2525)
  • directory listing—search for a directory listing by using the syntax “phonebook:” followed by the listing and city. Example (phonebook:pancheros Ann Arbor MI)
  • note: restrict your search to businesses or residents by using “bphonebook:” or “rphonebook:” respectively

Google’s Non-Web Search Properties

• Google News—Allows you to search through 4,500 news sources from around the world.
• Google Groups—Searches among tens of millions of messages from over twenty years ago; useful when searching for technical support or a game hint.
• Google Blogsearch—Allows you to search among many blogsites on the web.
• Google Images—Search within Google’s database of over 800 million images.
• Google Special Searches—Use this when searching for very specific topics within Microsoft, Linux, Apple, BSD, or the Government; there are special searches for many universities as well.
• Google Catalogs—For shoppers who want to search through paper catalogues.
• Froogle—For shoppers who want to search through online shopping sites.

Yahoo

Limits

• Charges business or profit-oriented sites for listings
• Defaults to and

Query modifiers

• +—must include (example: “detroit +tigers”)
• -—must not include (example: “detroit -tigers”)
• ””—gathers words into a phrase (example: “Just say no”)
• OR—to search for either of two items (example: “michigan OR detroit”)

Special syntaxes

Subject Index Syntaxes

• t:—Limits the search to the titles of items. Example: t:michigan; this will produce results with michigan in the title of the page
• u:—Limits the search to the URL: Example: u:michigan; this will collect results containing michigan anywhere in the url of a site
  • note the difference of results that comes up between t:michigan and u:michigan

Full-Text Search Engine Syntaxes

• site:—Finds results within a specified site and all its subdomains. Example: “football site:umich.edu” All pages related to umich.edu (including bus.umich.edu for example) containing football will come up
• hostname:—Finds results for a particular site only. Example: “football hostname:umich.edu” Only pages within umich.edu containing football will come up (sites like bus.umich.edu are excluded in this search)
• link:—Finds all pages that link to a specified URL. (must use the beginning of a URL —http://—) Example: “muscle link:http://www.med.umich.edu” will filter for all sites that link to the url http://www.med.umich.edu containing “muscle.”
• linkdomain:—This finds all pages that link to a particular domain (must notuse the beginning of a URL —http://—) Example: “muscle linkdomain:med.umich.edu” will bring up results that are linked to the domain med.umich.edu containing “muscle”
• url:—Searches for a particular URL in the Yahoo search database. Example: url:http://www.facebook.com
• inurl:—Searches page URLs fro a specified word. Example: “inurl:umich.edu” and all sites associated with umich.edu are displayed (for instance www.umich.edu/~archive, wwwllib.umich.edu/govdocs, etc…)
• intitle:—Searches page titles for a specified word. Example: intitle:universityofmichigan only pages with “universityofmichigan” are displayed.

Yahoo’s Shortcuts

• Encyclopedia Lookup: retrieve Columbia Encyclopedia information about topics by adding “facts” in the query (example: “George Washington” facts)
• Exchange Rate: lookup exchange rates between two currencies by using the word “convert” (example: convert yen euro)
• Stocks: retrieve charts and quotes for stocks by using the word “quote” (example: quote txu)
• Time Zone: to get local time as well as a location’s time zone use the word “time” (example: time Paris)

Yahoo’s Non-Web Search Properties

• Yahoo Daily News—Worldwide news in a huge number of categories, both searchable and browsable. Multimedia as well as text stories are included here.
• Yahoo Get Local—Browse by state or zip code to acquire maps, weather, places to dine and shop at U.S. cities.
• Yahooligans—Yahoo for kids. Culture , sites, and new, but no adult-oriented sites.
• Yahoo Reference—Ties together several reference materials (dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, and fact book) into one site. Plus, information on schools, degrees, and study guides are included.
• Yahoo Maps—Search for maps for places or driving directions.

Questions

1. Is Google a default and search engine or or? How about Yahoo? How can you determine this without reading any documentation?
2. What is the difference between a Full text engine and a searchable subject indexes? Which is better when searching for more general information?
3. If you wanted to find out a friend’s home phone number through Google would you use the special search syntax rphonebook or bphonebook?
4. If I wanted to seach for information on “BBA” but only within the University of Michigan’s website (www.umich.edu) what syntax would I use with Google? with Yahoo?
5. I want to find out information about a stock with the ticker “C.” What would I enter into the search bar using Google? Yahoo?
6. I want to find out the exchange between the Euro and the US dollar through Yahoo; what do I enter into the seach bar?
7. I am in West Palm Beach, Florida and would like to know where to go for a nice dinner. What search engine would be most appropriate for this type of information (hint: it’s within Yahoo).
8. I love to shop online, and I love Google, but when I search for items on Google I usually get a plethora of information on the product and very little results that allow me to purchase the product. Is there an easier way for me to shop online using Google?
9. True or False? You can enter as many items into Google’s search bar as you want?
10. My friend is studying abroad in Germany this semester, and I would like to call him. I do not want to wake him or his host family when I call him though and want to know what time it is in Berlin right now. How can I find this out using Google? Yahoo?