Beyond Keywords

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The term search engine, so apt for the lumbering, early-generation monsters that crunched through the Web looking for sites, seems only fractionally fitting for Google. Rather, Google should be called an information engine. Or a knowledge life-form. The stuff you get from Google might come from its vast and smart index of Web pages, or it might come from other indices seamlessly woven into the core data dump. Some of the usefulness that you can pry out of Google, such as Weblogging, comes from autonomous companies that Google has acquired and put under its service umbrella. However you use Google, greater awareness of what’s under the hood is certain to make your online life easier, better informed, and more fluid.

The following sections furnish a quick survey of Google’s information engine, including and beyond general keyword searching.

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