Breaking Down Web Search Results

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Other elements on the search results page enable you to understand the result, continue the search, narrow the search, or avoid Internet traffic jams when seeing the target page. Some of these features are present on every search result, and some exist occasionally. Here they are.

Page description

Remember when I said that the search result text wasn’t composed by the Google staff? Well, sometimes part of the accompanying text is so composed. If the search result appears in Google Directory (which is built by humans), the brief description that appears in the directory is imported to the search result. It is set apart from the snippets of page text by the Description header.

Directory category

Again, when the target page appears in Google Directory, its directory category is presented. The category is a link, and you can proceed directly to that page of Google Directory by clicking the link. Figure 2-7 shows a search whose first result is a directory listing.

Figure 2-7: When a Web search result features a Google Directory listing, click the Category link to see that listing.

There’s little difference between this method and starting your search in Google Directory. But the Category link on the Web search results page is helpful in a surprising way: When you want to see pages similar to the target page, Google Directory is better than the Similar Pages feature (described shortly). If your experience mirrors mine, the more you try the Category link, the more you’ll come to rely on it for high-quality, related results. The hand-picked Google Directory houses more stable sites than an index search is likely to house.

The Google cache

A cache (pronounced “cash”) is a storage area for computer files. Google maintains an enormous cache of Web pages. Don’t confuse the cache with the index. Actually, for practical purposes, it doesn’t matter whether you confuse them or not, but they are different. The index is a database of Web-page content, stripped of its formatting. The cache contains the pages themselves. By and large, clicking the Cached link provides a quicker display of the target page because you’re getting it from Google’s computer instead of from the Internet at large.

Tip 

So why would you ever not use the Cached link instead of the main page title link? Mainly because the cached page is not necessarily up to the minute, especially with pages that change frequently (such as Weblogs). If you view the cached version of a page that you know is changed frequently and dated, such as the front page of a newspaper site, you can see that Google’s cache is about three days behind. For users without high-speed Internet access, it’s more convenient to pull from the cache when looking for a big page (about 50K or so) that doesn’t change much. Also, use the Cached link if the page title link refuses to display the page for some reason.

Remember 

One disadvantage to pulling up a cached search result is the Google notice that appears atop all cached pages (see Figure 2-8). That is one bulky notice, taking up about two vertical inches of screen space on a screen resolution of 800 x 600. Besides being an eyesore, the notice sometimes makes additional scrolling necessary if you want to see the entire page. If you get tired of the notice, click its link to the uncached page.

Figure 2-8: Viewing a Googlecached page. Google’s cache notice takes up a lot of screen space.

Similar pages

The Similar Pages link is interesting although not always tremendously useful. Clicking this link starts a new search for pages that somehow resemble the original search result. Sorry to be vague, but Google isn’t very talkative about its Similar Pages formula.

The results are interesting and more diverse than you might expect. You’d think the search would yield a narrowed set of results, but my experience is to the contrary. Search for Kelly Clarkson, for example, and you get a solid set of results including fan sites and official American Idol destinations. Click the Similar Pages link under kellyclarkson.com and you get a far-ranging assortment of pages including sites dedicated to other singers and bands.

Searching with Similar Pages is a bit of a crapshoot — or perhaps I should say it’s an adventure. Sometimes a pointless one. Let’s get back to the Kelly Clarkson search results page. If you click Similar Pages for a fan site hosted by the Angelfire service, the ensuing results page contains nothing but links to the home pages of other hosting services similar to Angelfire. At this point, Google has taken you far away from Kelly Clarkson, American Idol, and the crass personality-manufacturing machine that propels reality TV to its unseemly impact on our cultural sensibilities. (That uncalled-for editorial rant was brought to you free of charge. And I’m a helpless American Idol addict.)

Tip 

So when should you use Similar Pages? It’s useful to get a sense of the network lurking around a Web page. Part of what the engine does with Similar Pages is explore outgoing links from the target page. On my site, for example, if I have a link going to an article I wrote on another site, Similar Pages for bradhill.com will list that other site. Last time I checked, though, Similar Pages to my site also listed a Web page titled Amish Tech Support. There’s no connection that I can see, though I respect the Amish and some day would like to try plowing a field. So, whenever you use Similar Pages, do so with a sense of adventure.

Indented results

Some search results are offset from the main body of results with an indentation (look back to Figure 2-6). These indented sites are located in the same domain (such as bradhill.com or kellyclarkson.com) as the target page above them. They are indented to remind you that it might be redundant to click both.

Google refrains from listing all the pages in a single domain that match your keywords. But you can see more results from that domain by clicking the More results from www.domain.com link in any indented search result. Doing so is a great way to perform a minisearch within any domain that has already proved useful to you.

Tip 

Searching in a large Web site (also called a domain) can be accomplished another way: by using a special search operator called the site operator. This operator tells Google to apply your keywords to a specified domain. You type the site operator, the domain, and the keywords in a single glop of instructions. For example, if you want to search my site for the dummies keyword, you could do so with a single entry:
site:www.bradhill.com dummies

You can reverse the order of the syntax by placing the keyword(s) before the site operator and domain, without affecting the search results.

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