Searching for Language- and Country-Specific Pages

While many users may think of English as the default language of the Web, it isn't the only languagenot by any means. As the World Wide Web becomes more worldwide, more and more pages are posted in a variety of native languages. In fact, more than 30% of all web pages are in a language other than English, and that number is growing daily.

When you want access to all the information that's out there, you can't limit your search to just English-language pages; doing so leaves a third of the Web unsearched. For that reason, savvy searchers know how to open their Google searches to foreign-language pagesor restrict them to pages written in a specific language.

Note

Vilaweb reports that English remains the number-one language of the Web, used in 68.4% of all web pages. Japanese is number-two (5.8%), followed by German (5.7%), Chinese (3.8%), and French (2.9%).

Changing Your Default Language Search

By default, Google searches for pages written in any language. If you want to limit your search to pages written in a specific language, follow these steps:

1.	From Google's main search page, click the Preferences link.
2.	When the Preferences page appears, go to the Search Language section, as shown in Figure 13.1. Figure 13.1. Configuring Google's search language preferences.
3.	To search for pages in any language, check the Search for Pages Written in Any Language option. (This is the default Google search.)
4.	To restrict your search to pages written in one or more specific languages, check the Search Only for Pages Written in These Language(s) option, and then check the specific languages.
5.	Click the Save Preferences button.

Tip

To restrict your searches to English-language pages only, check the English option on the Preferences page.

Conducting a Language-Specific Search

Configuring your language preferences from the Preferences page affects all your searches, globally. When you want to conduct a one-off language-restricted search, you need to use the search option on Google's Language Tools page. Here's what to do:

1. From Google's main search page, click the Language Tools link.

2. When the Language Tools page appears, go to the Search Specific Languages or Countries section, as shown in Figure 13.2.

   Figure 13.2. Limiting your search to pages written in a specific language, or located in a specific country.

   

3. Pull down the Search Pages Written In list and select the specific language you want to search.

4. Enter your query into the Search For box.

5. Click the Google Search button.

Google now returns a list of pages that match your query, limited to those pages written in the language you selected.

Conducting a Country-Specific Search

Similarly, you can restrict your search to pages located in a specific countryno matter what language they're written in. Just follow these steps:

1.	From Google's main search page, click the Language Tools link.
2.	When the Language Tools page appears, go to the Search Specific Languages or Countries section.
3.	Pull down the Search Pages Located In list and select the specific country you want to search.
4.	Enter your query into the Search For box.
5.	Click the Google Search button.

Tip

You can also restrict your search to a specific language by using the Language option located on Google's Advanced Search page.