Because its design is simple and largely non-commercial, because it is so fast, and because it presents and organize the mountains of data available on the web, Google is almost universally loved. It regularly sweeps the Search Engine Watch awards, usually winning in every category for which it was nominated (see http://www.searchenginewatch.com/awards/article.php/2155921 for the 2002 awards).

Feeling Lucky

If you type in the name of a prominent organization, company, or agency and click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, Google will bring you right to the object of your search.

Google Preferences

http://www.google.com/preferences

Here you can indicate how you'd like results returned to you, such as the number of results per page (from 10-100) and in what language. Remember simple tips, such as using "quotation marks" around phrases and negative signs (-) before unwanted words/results.

Advanced Search

http://www.google.com/advanced_search

Here you can further limit and refine your search. By choosing http://www.google.com/univ/ucdavis, for instance, you can have Google search only UC Davis pages. By typing site:edu or site:gov in the search field, you will retrieve only educational/university or government results.

Image Search

http://images.google.com/images

Thumbnails allow one to view multiple images, as well as their sizes and locations. AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com/) also allows image searches.

Groups Search

http://www.google.com/grphp?hl=en

20 year archive of Usenet group messages. Good for researching the pre-web history of the Internet.

Google Directory

http://www.google.com/dirhp?hl=en

Analogous to the Yahoo directory, only the sites within subcategories are determined by the Google search engine. As with all directories, this one allows the discovery of sites you might have missed with a key word search.

 

Synonym Search

Now you can use Google to search for synonyms of a particular word.For instance, a search for shakespeare ~dictionary site:edu will find you The Comprehensive Shakespeare Dictionary, A bibliography called "Shakespeare Undone," and a Folger Theater Lesson plan on "The Language of the Undiscovered Country."

 

Google Phonebook

http://www.google.com/help/features.html#wp

Alternatively, from the Google page type in "phonebook: name city state"

For residential listings, you can also enter the following:

Google News Headlines

http://news.google.com/

Harness the power of Google to find multiple stories on the topics that matter most to you.

 

Google News Alerts

Let Google watch the newspapers for the topics that interest you: http://www.google.com/newsalerts.

Customizing Google

http://www.google.com/options/

This page shows you other ways to Google, such as by installing a Google Toolbar (for PC users) and/or Google buttons (see http://www.google.com/options/buttons.html for details).

Other web portals and search engines have hoped to take advantage of some of Google's weaknesses, such as its over-reliance on popularity as a means of organizing search results, and that it necessarily presents results as determined by search term matches rather than presenting the content that a user may really hope to find.

Take Teoma, for instance, which was officially launched only in April, 2002.

http://www.teoma.com/

As Chris Sherman explains in an edition of Search Engine Watch Newsletter (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/02/sd0402-teoma.html), even though Teoma will not be the "Google-Killer" some in the press have predicted, it still offers refreshingly logical ways of searching for information, ways that depend upon "associative logic." More specifically, Teoma allows users to refine their searches, and to depend upon the recommended links of (computer-generated) experts.

Directories are collections of subject categories that are organized and maintained by humans, rather than only by computer programs (sometimes called spiders). Yahoo is the most famous directory, while many prefer the simpler design of the volunteer-run Open Directory Project (which provides the categories also used by Google, Netscape, and others), or private companies like Looksmart (http://www.looksmart.com/) or About (http://home.about.com/).

Volunteers with Experience: AllExperts

http://www.allexperts.com/

The categories and subcategories of the AllExperts.Com directory eventually lead the searcher to the name of an actual expert, a person who agrees to answer questions from those of us who are unsatisfied with the "data" provided by search engines. Experts promise to respond to queries within three days, and most will answer questions by the next day.

Ask a Librarian: The Librarians' Index to the Internet

http://lii.org/

The Librarians' Index to the Internet is a directory which harnesses the knowledge and experience of Berkeley and California-based information specialists. Each suggested link is ranked and annotated. This is an excellent place to send students who seek responsible Internet resources.

Close to Home: Resources at U.C. Davis Libraries

http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/resources/refserv.html

This page connects one not only offers information about all the reference desks at UC Davis libraries, but also a link (http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/resources/colldevel.html) to all of our Librarian Subject Specialists. Nancy Kushigian, for instance, has collected some of the best online resources for those of us teaching and studying writing and literature, and has also offered an organized list of links to Literary Databases accessible to members of the UC Davis community: http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/hss/english/english.html.

Other libraries and librarians provide us with excellent tutorials on searching the web and evaluating web content. Visit the UC Berkeley site (http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html) and the University at Albany (NY) Libraries site (http://library.albany.edu/internet/second.html) for searching guides that are much more comprehensive than this one.