More Random Searching

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Earlier in this chapter I describe Googlelaar, which randomly generates keywords and shows you Google's search results for those words. In this section, I introduce three engines that also randomly contrive keywords but take the happy meaninglessness of random searching to the next level by leaping directly to the first result site for those words.

Two main features distinguish the best of these sites from the not-as-good:

• Keyword customization: Even though it's the engine's job to generate random keywords, they all allow the user to specify the number of keywords used. Clearly, the greater flexibility in this department, the more fun the engine is. One of the sites described here even lets you set the maximum length of the keywords, by number of letters.

• Frames: Frames on Web pages can be a disagreeable design choice, but in this case they really help. Some sites throw the target page into your browser window without an anchor frame, forcing you to backtrack if you want to try a new random search. The better designs display the randomly found page below a horizontal frame containing the means to launch a new search.

  Warning 

  The danger of random searches - besides being a stultifying waste of time - is that you're likely to stumble into site types that you'd ordinarily avoid. If you don't like opening PDF files, for example, you might be upset when one comes screaming in, unannounced. Adult sites are not out of bounds, either, unless you click the Safesearch box - provided the search engine furnishes one.

Mangle

Mangle - nice name for a site, isn't it? And not really descriptive: Mangle doesn't destroy keywords; it invents them. First, go to the Mangle site:

www.mangle.ca

Hoping to please everyone, Mangle offers a choice of interfaces - frames or no frames. On the search page (see Figure 15-8), you can choose up to five keywords (the default setting is three). You can also select a country and language, or leave the gates wide open for everything. (Random searches become particularly useless if conducted in a language you don't understand.) The engine is naturally biased toward English, and generally delivers English-language sites in default mode.

Figure 15-8: Mangle in search mode, displaying the first search result of randomly chosen keywords.

Note a few features of the Mangle search frame:

• The keywords used by the engine are displayed just below the drop-down menus.

• The displayed page's link is below the keywords.

• Check the Safemode box to apply Google filtering to Mangle's search results.

• Use the drop-down menu to change the number of keywords. You may choose between one and five keywords.

• Click the cat picture (upper-right corner) to launch a search. Pressing the Enter key doesn't do it.

For truly empty-headed searching, click the archive search link on Mangle's home page. You get a random page from Mangle's storehouse of previously randomized results. So not only are you searching in the dark, you're taking random results from other people's blind searches. Good times!

Random Bounce Me

Like Mangle, Random Bounce Me provides a framed interface for easy multiple searches:

random.bounceme.net

Disconcertingly, the site presents you with your first result the moment you set foot on the home page. Don't be fooled - you haven't mistakenly clicked to the wrong site. (Or maybe you have; what do I know?) It just looks like an unrelated site because your first search result is displayed in most of the browser window. The engine's frame awaits your adjustment.

Interestingly, Random Bounce Me invites you to select a maximum word length in addition to the number of keywords. Use the drop-down menus for those settings. The Max word size menu is based on letters - up to 32 of them! The longer your words and the more keywords you allow, the fewer your results. It's easy to get zero results. Here are the keywords for three consecutive zero-results searches that this site delivered for four keywords with up to nine letters each:

grace overeye unpaper straitl

dachshund hypaspist freckling po

cockpit strial sleepward epigeal

That is one obscure dictionary being used to generate keywords. Anyway, shorten your words and ask for fewer of them to widen the results. The keywords chosen for your search are displayed in the left corner of the search frame. Click the Random Bounce Me button to request a new page.

Random Google page

One of the simplest random search pages is appropriately named the Random Google page and is located here:

www.bleb.org/random

Two distinguishing features mark this site. First, you can select up to ten keywords to be generated randomly. That many keywords, more often than not, leads to zero results, but what's more fun than trying over and over until you find a page that matches ten keywords? The second feature is a list of recent search results (including yours) at the bottom of the home page. Each link allows you to recreate the search, in the excitement of real time. Or click the Normal link to see Google search results instead of a random page from those results.

Random imagery

The Random Google Image Finder does to Google's Image index what the other randomizing engines to do the Web index. The site is located here:

ianwatt.dingojunction.com/ri/

The dead-simple interface offers a choice of one or two keywords and any of Google's three levels of image filtering (see Chapter 2). Click the Show me the pics! button to see results. The Random Google Image Finder doesn't skip to a single result as do other engines described here. You get a standard Google Image search results page.

Searching randomly for images is more rewarding, genuinely serendipitous, and even almost productive. The improvement over random Web searching is due to the generally poor labeling of image files on the Internet. Even when you're trying to find certain images, Google is often stumped or confused. So the difference between targeted and random searching is less significant.

I prefer searching with just one randomly generated keyword. And I've browsed through some terrific results - though I rue the day the Random Google Image Finder assigned me the keyword butt.

The ultimate random Web search page

If there's one site that puts together all the important features of the others, and adds some of its own, for a thoroughly time-wasting and gloriously unproductive Google experience, it's the Random Web Search page, at this location:

www.randomwebsearch.com

The figure shows the options available on the home page. This site can act as a standard Web-search interface to Google. Just type your keywords and click the Google Search button. For random searching, click the Generate Random Word(s) button. You get one word most of the time, but the engine will throw you a phrase when you least expect it. And you can add your own keywords to the randomly generated word. Click the Google Search button for standard results or the I'm Feeling Lucky button to see the first result site. Frames are not used when displaying target sites, so click the Back button to return for another search.

Click the Add Word tab to contribute a brilliant keyword to the site's archive. That word will begin appearing, randomly, on other people's screens.

Best of all, click the Found tab to see randomly found Web pages with short descriptions. This collection justifies the entire random-search movement. Maybe. At the very least, when using Random Web Search, you will be - as the site proclaims - 'Wasting your time more efficiently.'

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