how to search effectively

Studio Visual Steps

How to Search more effectively with Google

This book has been written using the Visual Steps™ method. © 2011 Visual Steps B.V. Lay out and editing by Rilana Groot Translated by Irene Venditti, i-write translation services Editor in chief: Ria Beentjes Fifth printing: May 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this guide, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this guide and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. Trademarks: Visual Steps is a trademark of Visual Steps B.V. in the Netherlands. Windows is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Note: this guide contains names of registered trademarks. These names are not indicated by their trademark symbol, because they are solely used for the purpose of identifying the products which are mentioned in the text. In no way does this constitute an infringement on the rights of the trademark owners. Would you like additional information? www.visualsteps.com Do you have any questions or suggestions? E-mail: [email protected] Subscribe to the free Visual Steps Newsletter: www.visualsteps.com/newsletter

Table of Contents Foreword ....................................................................................... 4 Newsletter .................................................................................... 4 Introduction to Visual Steps™ ............................................... 5 What You Will Need ................................................................... 5 How to Use This Guide ............................................................. 6 The Screen Shots ....................................................................... 7 How to Search 8

Starting Google ............................................................................ 9 Opening a website in a new window .......................................... 12 Opening a website in a new tab ................................................. 13 Search results ............................................................................ 14 How to use search engines ........................................................ 16 Advanced searches ................................................................... 17 Searching by combining keywords ............................................. 19 Searching for images ................................................................. 21 Discussion groups ...................................................................... 22 The Google guide ...................................................................... 25 The Google Toolbar ................................................................... 26

Appendix How Do I Do That Again? ...................................................... 29

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© 2011 Visual Steps™ - www.visualsteps.com - This guide is a free publication. How to Search more effectively with Google.

Foreword The Internet has seen tremendous growth in recent years. An enormous amount of information is now available. Searching and finding the information you need however, can be quite a challenging and frustrating endeavor. Luckily for us, many companies have tackled this problem and have built search engines to help us search the Internet. In this guide we will teach you how to use today’s most popular search engine. People all over the world use Google on a daily basis to find information and new pages are added every minute. Good luck searching! Studio Visual Steps Newsletter All Visual Steps books follow the same methodology: each new concept is carefully explained in small steps and richly illustrated with screen shots. A listing of all available books can be found on our website www.visualsteps.com Visit our website and subscribe to the free Visual Steps Newsletter sent by e-mail. The Visual Steps Newsletter provides periodic information about: - the latest titles and previously released books; - special offers, free guides; - news about recent updates that may apply to a Visual Steps book. Our Newsletter subscribers have access to free information booklets, handy tips and guides which are listed on the web pages www.visualsteps.com/info_downloads and www.visualsteps.com/tips

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Introduction to Visual Steps™ The Visual Steps handbooks and manuals are the best instructional materials available for learning how to work with computers. Nowhere else can you find better support for getting to know the computer, the Internet, Windows and related software programs. Characteristics of the Visual Steps books: Comprehensible contents

Addresses the needs of the beginner or intermediate computer user for a manual written in simple, straight-forward language.

Clear structure Precise, easy to follow instructions. The material is broken down into small enough

segments to allow for easy absorption. Screen shots of every step

Quickly compare what you see on your screen with the screen shots in the book. Pointers and tips guide you when new windows are opened so you always know what to do next.

Get started right away All you have to do is turn on your computer, place the book next to your keyboard

so you can read it as you work, and begin at once. Format

The text is formatted to allow easy readability. In short, I believe these manuals will be excellent guides for you. dr. H. van der Meij Faculty of Applied Education, Department of Instruction Technology, University of Twente, the Netherlands What You Will Need In order to work through this guide, you will need a few things on your computer:

The primary requirement for working with this guide is having the US version of Windows 7 installed on your computer. If you have Windows XP or Windows Vista on your computer, you can still use this guide. The screen shots, however, will differ in some places.

A functioning Internet connection is needed. To establish your Internet connection, please see the software and information supplied by your Internet provider.

In order to work with the Internet, you will need Internet Explorer 8 or 9 installed on your computer.

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How to Use This Guide This guide has been written using the Visual Steps™- method. The method is simple: have the guide near you as you work on your computer, read the relevant section and perform the tasks as described. The concise instructions with screen shots to visualize each step tell you exactly what to do. By performing the tasks right away, you will quickly learn how to work with the applications described in this guide. In this Visual Steps™ guide you will see various icons. This is what they mean: Techniques These icons indicate an action to be carried out:

The mouse icon means you should do something with the mouse.

The keyboard icon means you should type something on the keyboard.

The hand icon means you should do something else, for example insert a CD-ROM in the computer. It is also used to remind you of something you learned before.

In addition to these techniques, sometimes extra help is given to assist you in working through this guide more effectively. Help These icons indicate that extra help is available:

The arrow icon warns you about something.

The bandage icon will help you if something has gone wrong.

1 Have you forgotten how to do something? The number next to the footsteps tells you where to look it up in Appendix How Do I Do That Again?

In separate boxes you find tips or additional, background information. Extra information Information boxes are denoted by these icons:

The book icon gives you extra background information that you can read at your convenience. This extra information is not necessary for working through the guide.

The light bulb icon indicates an extra tip for using the program.

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The Screen Shots The screen shots in this book were made on a computer running Windows 7. The screen shots used in this guide indicate which button, folder, file or hyperlink you need to click on your computer screen. In the instruction text (in bold letters) you will see a small image of the item you need to click. The black line will point you to the right place on your screen. The small screen shots that are printed in this guide are not meant to be completely legible all the time. This is not necessary, as you will see these images on your own computer screen in real size and fully legible. Here you see an example of an instruction text and a screen shot. The black line indicates where to find this item on your own computer screen:

Click

Sometimes the screen shot shows only a portion of a window. Here is an example: Top right of the window:

Click

It really will not be necessary for you to read all the information in the screen shots in this guide. Always use the screen shots in combination with the image you see on your own computer screen.

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How to Search

Some people compare the Internet to an enormous library filled with millions of books. This library, however, does not employ a librarian and all the books are in disarray. This is a good comparison. On the Internet, there is no central institution that organizes the information. There are countless ways of publishing new content to the Internet and millions of new pages are added each day. This can make searching the Internet quite a difficult task. There are many companies and organizations that try to help the users of the Internet by indexing and arranging this mass amount of information. This can be done in several different ways. For a start, you can use a so-called search engine. This is a computer program that searches (or crawls) through web pages and indexes the words that are found. Google is today’s best-known search engine and it is used worldwide. On the Google homepage you type in a keyword and Google shows you a list of web pages relevant to this keyword. Another way to find your way around the Internet is by using a directory listing. On a directory page you will find web pages organized by topic, subject or category. In this guide, you will learn how to: start Google; open a website in a new window; manipulate the search results; understand the way search engines work; perform advanced searches; search for images; use the Google guide; use discussion groups; install the Google Toolbar.

Please note: The screen shots throughout this guide may look slightly different than what appears on your screen. The Internet is a constantly changing medium and the content on a web page can be frequently updated. The basic functions we are describing however will remain the same.

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Starting Google

Open Internet Explorer 1 You will now see the homepage that has been set on your computer: If you have previously never set a homepage on your computer, you will most likely see the website of MSN.

Click the Address bar

Type: www.google.com

Press Now you will see the Google website. The Search box is in the middle of the page:

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Tip Google as homepage Many people like to set the Google website as their homepage. This will mean that every time you start Internet Explorer, you will see the Google homepage:

Click

Click In Internet Explorer 8:

Click next to

on

Click

Click At the bottom of the window:


Click

Click

Start a new search:

Click the Search box In this box you can type a search word, for instance: railroad.

Type: railroad

Press

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At the top of the results page, you will see the box containing your search word: Underneath you will see the titles of the web pages Google has found for you:

The blue, underlined words are called hyperlinks, or links, and they will lead you to the website. By clicking one of these links you can open the website which belongs to the link. Beneath each link, Google displays a short summary of its content.

Click

The website of the Union Pacific railroad company will now be opened:

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Click

Now you have returned to the list of search results from Google:

Opening a website in a new window In Google you can also open a link in a new window. This can be useful at times,

because the button will not always function:

Right-click

Click

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The website will appear in a new window on top of the search results: You can close this new window:

Click Opening a website in a new tab You can also open the Google link in a new tab:

Right-click

Click

The website will now be opened in a new tab:

Click

You can now close this tab:

Click

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Search results Let’s take a closer look at some of the other items shown on the Google search results page. You can find more information at the bottom of the page. To see this information, you need to scroll down to the bottom of the page by using the scrollbar:

Drag the scrollbar down

At the bottom you see the link to the next page:

Click

Now you will see the next page of search results: You can also see how many websites Google has found:

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With the commands Next and Previous you can ‘turn’ the pages of the search results. You can also click on the page numbers at the bottom of the page. This allows you to thumb through the pages a bit faster:


Click a page number,

for example, 5

Now you will see the search results on page 5:

Tip Google as a calculator You can also use Google as a calculator. For example, type any two numbers you want to add together in the search window and click Search. You will quickly see the correct result. For more information, click

.

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How does a search engine work? Search engines are really computer programs that constantly perform the same important task: that of indexing web pages. In this way they build an enormous index of keywords. There are many different search engines and they use different techniques for the indexing of web pages. That is why the search results from one search engine can be quite different from that of another. Several search engines build their indexes by adding as many words as possible for every web page. Other search engines only use keywords that occur in the title of a web page. Some engines mainly use a special kind of keyword or Meta tag that can be found on a web page. Web designers can insert these hidden keywords themselves. Sometimes the designers abuse this possibility. They know which keywords are frequently used on the Internet, and so intentionally insert them in their web pages. That is why sometimes you may see web pages in your search results that have nothing to do with the keyword you have used. It may surprise you to know that search engines are “stupid”. They can only do what you tell them to do. They do not edit or select the web pages they find. This ‘stupidity’ is especially obvious when an engine carries out a search on a search term that has different meanings. An editor would be able to order these kinds of web pages according to their content. As a matter of fact, most well-known search engines have a special section where human-editors actually review submitted web pages and organize the pages according to subject matter. Several websites specialize in this form of organization. These websites are called directories. They attempt to organize the web by subject. You will get to know these websites in the following pages of this guide. In most cases though, a website must first be submitted to a search engine in order to be indexed. Websites that are not correctly submitted may not be found by a search engine. How to use search engines In some cases you will be disappointed by the results you get from a search engine. The search engine blindly sums up all sorts of unrelated pages that contain your keyword. You may be unable to find the exact information you need. Here are some frequently occurring problems, and several things you can do to improve your search results. Too few results Sometimes a search yields very few results. Try to:

use another search engine. Different search engines often produce different results;

use more than one keyword or try a synonym; use a keyword in a different language.

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Too many results At other times a search will yield too many results. When this happens, you can try to: fine-tune your search by using more than one

keyword or by using a synonym; limit your search to web pages in the English

language. In this way you can prevent Google from ‘muddying’ your search results by presenting web pages in other languages;

search by using a directory instead of a search engine. For example when trying to do a search using a very broad keyword, such as the word animals, try instead to search within a topic, subject or category.

Wrong pages This is caused by the fact that a search engine does

not edit or sort your results. This can frequently occur with words that have different meanings, such as the words board and case. Try to: use a synonym or another keyword; use a directory listing.

Advanced searches When you use a search engine, you may become frustrated when your search term yields too many results. For example, Google will return more than a hundred thousand pages as a result of searching with the keyword railroad. Try using more than one keyword at a time. This will enable you to more quickly find the specific information you want. Try this with the keywords boats and builder.

Double-click the Search box

Type: boats builder

Click You will now see the first ten web pages of your search result, which contain the keywords boats and builder:

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You can refine your results further by instructing Google to use additional parameters when it performs the search. Every search engine has its own method of specifying searches. In Google you can do that like this:

Click

Google shows you several more options with which to specify your search:

Tip What you should know: Google searches all the words on a web page; Google ignores standard terminology, such as ‘http’, and ‘.com’; Google searches are case insensitive; searching for Boats produces the same

result as searching for boats. When searching with multiple keywords, remember that you can combine these keywords in different ways. This is important to get a good search result.

Please note: If you use multiple keywords such as Frank Sinatra, many search engines will look for the web pages where both keywords Frank and Sinatra occur. This is the way Google works. This method does not necessarily return web pages relevant to the singer Frank Sinatra. It is very likely that the search results will also contain pages about Frank Lloyd Wright or Nancy Sinatra. In order to execute a more relevant search you need to specify that Frank Sinatra is in fact one keyword. If you want to see how this works, you can try different methods of combining keywords.

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Searching by combining keywords All search engines use methods to combine keywords that should be seen as a whole. You can always specify if keywords belong together or not. In some search engines this combination is called a ‘word group’. In other engines it is called an ‘element’. Frank Sinatra is an example of a word group. In Google this is called an exact wording or phrase:

Click the box next to

Type: boats builder Google will now search for the combination boats builder as a whole.

If necessary, drag the scroll bar down

Click

The number of results returned by Google has been greatly reduced:

This is to be expected, because boats builder is actually not a correct English word (if you would have typed boat builder you would have gotten a more accurate search result).

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Tip Put quotation-marks around your keyword If you type a keyword within quotation-marks, Google will immediately search for the exact combination of words:

Click the Search box

Type: "Jackson Pollock"

Press Now Google searches for the full name Jackson Pollock.

In Google itself there are a number of search tips available. They will help you to use Google and search the web in the most effective way:


Click

Now you will see a help page, with information about the way Google works: Take your time and read this information carefully. When you have finished reading:

Click

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Searching for images When you are working in a document, you may often want to add a picture or an image. Google’s Image Search will help you easily find the images you want.

Drag the scrollbar back to the top of the page

Clear the Search box

by selecting and deleting your previous search terms

Type: Puppy

Click Now you will see the search results:

Click an image

On the right you see the website where the image was found:

Click

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Now you will see a larger, full-size image:

Right-click the image A menu appears showing you several options for saving or printing the image:

Discussion groups In Google it is also possible to search for information in several discussion groups. You can answer other people’s questions, or post a message yourself.


Type: www.google.com

Press Now you see the Google homepage again:

Click

Click

Click

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Now you will see the Group directory. You can choose one of these topics and view the discussion groups:

Click

Now you can choose a topic in the Recreation category:

Click

Now you will see all the discussion groups that belong to the group Recreation-Autos:

Drag the scrollbar to the middle of the page

Here you will see the links to these discussion groups:

Click

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Now you will see the messages in the discussion group alt.autos.gm: You can also post a message yourself, or reply to a message from somebody else. You need to subscribe to the group first before you can do that.

Tip Searching discussion groups By using keywords you can search the pages in a discussion group. For example, if you have opened the discussion group alt.autos.gm, you can search for Chevrolet:

Click the Search box

Type: Chevrolet

Click

Now you will see the Google search results:

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The Google guide You can also use Google to search by topic. This is a very useful method when you want to find information about a specific subject.

Surf to www.google.com 2

Click

Click

Click

Now you see an overview of all the various topics:

If you click one of the topics, you will see a number of categories. Clicking a category will lead you further into additional sub-categories. Eventually you will reach a page where you can choose several links that will lead to your specific subject.

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The Google Toolbar If you frequently use Google, you may want to install the Google Toolbar to help you use Google more readily when working in Internet Explorer.

Click


Type: http://toolbar.google.com

Press You see the Google Toolbar installation screen.

Click

Click to remove the check mark by

and

Click

27


Click

You see this window:

Your screen may goes dark and you need to give your permission to continue:

If necessary, click or

Click

Internet Explorer opens a new window:

Click

28


Here you will see that the Google Toolbar has been added to Internet Explorer:

To return to your home page:


Click

Tip Searching different file formats With Google you can search for different types of files. You can find this option on the Advanced Search screen. By using this option, you instruct Google to limit the search results to a specific file type such as PDF files only, or Microsoft Word documents.

Click

Click next to

Now you will see different file formats. Choose a format and Google will only search for files of the type you have chosen:

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Appendix: How Do I Do That Again? The tasks and exercises in this guide are marked by footsteps: 1 Find the corresponding number in the appendix below to see how to do something.

1 Open Internet Explorer

Click

Click Click

Click

2

Go to a website in Internet Explorer

Click the Address bar Type the web address

Press