Google searches more sites more quickly, to bring you the most relevant results

Introduction

Google runs on a unique combination of advanced hardware and software. The speed you experience can be attributed in part to the efficiency of our search algorithm and partly to the thousands of low cost PC's we've networked together to create a superfast search engine.

The heart of our software is PageRank(TM), a system for ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. And while we have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to provide the basis for all of our web search tools.

PageRank Explained

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.
Integrity

Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult. And though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank). A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search.

BEST SEARCH ENGINE SITE: Google

This terrific new tool, which began as a Stanford University research project, yields relevant results using a complex mathematical formula. All you need to know is that it works—and fast, thanks to a large collection of cached pages. And it's the only search engine with an "I'm feeling lucky" option, which takes you directly to the first Web page retrieved by your query; it's a real time-saver if you're seeking a small bit of information, such as the name of a person or company.

ALSO: For the most efficient searching on multiple engines simultaneously, we like Meta Crawler. We gave it four stars back in February, and it lives up to its rating with speedy utility and relevance of results.

by Rob Bernstein

New to Google? Learn the Basics

Basic Search

To enter a query into Google, just type in a few descriptive words and hit the 'enter' key (or click on the Google Search button) for your list of relevant results.

Google only searches for pages that exactly match your search terms, so you can try using different versions of your search terms. For example, if a search for "Boston hotel" didn't turn up what you were looking for, try "Boston hotels" instead.

Or you might try rephrasing your query. For example, searches on "cheap plane tickets" and "cheap airline tickets" return different sets of results.
Automatic "and" Queries

Google automatically adds "and" between the words you enter so it only returns those pages that include all of your search terms. To restrict a search further, just include more terms. Google also prefers pages in which related query terms are near each other.

For example, to plan a vacation to Hawaii, simply type


into the search field and click on Google Search.
Using the Google directory

The Google directory provides yet another way to find quality information on the web. Get answers about how the Google directory works by visiting the directory help page.




Search - Frequently Asked Questions

How can I narrow my search results?

Sometimes a search is in the right area but gives too many results. To reduce the number of search results, you might want to do a new search that only "looks" within the URLs returned by your first search query. This is often called "narrowing a search" or "searching within the current search results."

Google makes this process easy. Since Google only returns web pages that contain all the words in your query, all you need to do is add more query words to the terms you have already entered. This new query will return a specific subset of the pages returned by your original "too-broad" query.

You can also exclude a word by putting a minus sign ("-") immediately in front of the term you want to avoid. (Be sure to include a space before the minus sign.)

Does it help to use "or" or "and"?
Google automatically does an "and" search for all query terms. Google does not support the logical "or" operator. Some search engines return pages that contain only a few of the query terms you enter, even giving them preference to pages that contain all the terms. Google only returns pages that contain all the terms.

Because Google does not support "or" searches, there is no way to tell Google to accept pages containing either word A or word B. You can submit the query twice, once with word A and once with word B if you don't find your desired result the first time.

Do I need to type the whole word?

To provide the most accurate results, Google does not use "stemming" or support the "wildcard" searches. In other words, Google searches for exactly the words that you enter in the search box. Searching for "googl" or "googl*" will not yield "googler" or "googlin." If in doubt, try both forms: "airline" and "airlines," for instance.

Do capital letters matter?
Google searches are not case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for "george washington", "George Washington", and "gEoRgE wAsHiNgToN" will all return the same results.

Some Talk about

Time Digital The Next Generation of Search New search engines are taking on the old guard, armed with radical new technology. May 5, 1999.

Google: Learn What Future Web Innovations Require Webpedia Opinions.

La Revolucion Google! Diario del Navegante. Written in Spanish by Ramon Salaverria April 21, 1999.

Internet Info for Real People by Bob Brand.

Internet Chock Full of Really Cool Stuff Evansville Courier & Press review by James Derk.

Brill's Content reviews the best of the web in an article by Noah Robischon Portals/Search Sites.

In Search of Success by David Green of the Independent Network, March 29, 1999.

Critic Mark Frauenfelder writes in the April issue of Playboy,
"..when I want to quickly get to the most authoritative sites on a topic, I use a search engine called Google."

The Hersh Web Site Observer states in an issue dated March 22, 1999,

"This search engine uses a complicated mathematical analysis, calculated on more than a billion hyperlinks on the web, to return high-quality search results so you don't have to sift through junk."


John Naughton wrote in The Observer, a British Sunday Newspaper, March 14, 1999:

"Sergey Brin and Larry Page, two...Stanford graduates with a great idea and a wacky name. Google (www.google.com) indexes Web pages using an ingenious algorithm which ranks a site on the basis of who links to it."

"Getting BeGoogled" The Internet Newsroom. February 1999.

Washington Post: Search and Now You Find the Right Stuff by Margot Williams, February 22, 1999.

"Google is a new search engine that takes advantage of the cyberspace community's collective expertise. Just as you trust the links on a really good site to get you to other good pages, Google crawls the Web scooping up hyperlinks and uses them to figure out how important a page is by who is pointing to it."

In the February 22, 1999 issue of Newsweek, Steven Levy touts Google as

"the Net's hottest new search engine, (which) draws on feedback from the Web itself to deliver more relevant answers to customer queries."
Review and discussion about Google in Tech Sightings, Andover News Network, by Robin Miller, February 18, 1999.
December 30, 1998: Google mentioned in The Andover News Network: Jack Bryar's Column.

"...if you need to find the best sites--fast, for subjects ranging from medieval life to ISDN technology, make this the first place you look."
From the December 21, 1998 Salon Magazine Article: Yes, There Is a Better Search Engine by Scott Rosenberg.

...Google gets remarkably smart search results by using a mathematical algorithm that rates your site based on who links to you. The ranking depends not simply on the number of sites that link to you, but on the linking sites' own importance rating. The result is a kind of automated peer review that sifts sites based on the collective wisdom of the Web itself.

The program is complex, but the proof is in the results. Since discovering Google a few weeks ago, I've been so impressed with its usefulness and accuracy that I've made it my first search stop....
From the December 1998 PC Magazine review of Google! by Breck Witte.

...Yahoo! and newcomer Google! were the only sites in our roundup to return highly relevant hits consistently, even on searches for very general or common terms such as Internet standards...

...Newcomer Google! deserves an honorable mention for its generally uncanny ability to find a great hit for your number-one result...

Google!
Searching the Web has increasingly become a two-stage process--execute a search, then wade through the results trying to find what you're actually looking for. Google!, an ongoing research project at Stanford University, helps you access the most relevant finds more quickly, and rivals Yahoo! for finding that handful of key sites you may be looking for.

The site's unique PageRank function indicates how many Web pages point to a particular document. Google! uses PageRank to decide which documents in the result set you might want to see first. For example, when searching for the National Institutes of Health, we entered the acronym NIH, and the NIH home page appeared at the top of our list. Google! is so confident that it includes an "I'm feeling lucky" button that retrieves Google!'s top pick for your search.

Google!'s large collection of cached pages is equally useful. We found ourselves visiting a document's cached page to assess its relevance, then linking to the live page for time-sensitive information.

If you're used to performing complex Boolean searches, you'll find Google!'s search capabilities limiting. It really offers only simple keyword searching. The ability to truncate search terms would be a welcome addition to this promising new site.
Copyright ©1999 Google Inc.