Chapter 1: Searching the Web

In This Chapter

• Searching the Web

• How Google searches the Web

• Using Keywords

• The Search Result Page

• Using the I’m Feeling Lucky Button

• Getting the Right Pages

• Setting Search Preferences

Web searching has become a part of the day-to-day life of any person who has a computer. Searches vary from words, phrases, products, people, images, and many other forms. Today, when you want to know something you simply do a Web search. There are many search engines but none, according to searchengineshowdown.com, quite as large due to Google’s inclusion of file types such as PDF, DOC and PS, not indexed by other search engines. What makes Google so powerful is not just the sheer number of files it has indexed, but the tools that make arriving at the answer to your question simple and straightforward.

This chapter helps you learn to better form your queries and introduce you to the basic Google search. Even the basic Google search is powerful and gives you an amazing amount of control over how you view your results and how to best focus your search so that you arrive quickly and easily at the results you seek.