Powersearching Google

Precision and Recall(Library Jargon)

• Recall – Degree to which you got all of the pages that would have been useful.

• Precision –How much of what you got was good as opposed to junk.

Which one is more often a problem with Google?

The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google search results. - Unknown

Main Search Box

BooksMapsNewsTranslateShopping…

Advanced SearchFiltersDisplayHelpHistory

Doing a good search

• Think about the words you want to see on the page you are looking for

• Singulars and plurals come out differently, but both will be picked up in a search (usually)

• Word order matters (Brown bear vs. bear brown)• Repetition matters• Unsearched words (the, an, of, in, where, who, is, etc…)• Hyphen is itself or nothing (On-site=onsite or on-site)

The Great Goodini

• Use the “wildcard” to fill in a word you don’t know.– “An apple has * calories”– “The US has * states”– “Three * * see how they run”

Boole

What might happen if I say Eagles (not) Philadelphia?

And – Both conditions are present

Or- Either condition is present

Not – Remove if this condition is present

Advanced Search - Operators

Operators in Google

• And is automatic• OR (must be caps) or “|” (ape OR chimpanzee)

• - (not) (tigers –baseball)

• “” phrases – (“ucr library”)

• Ranges .. (Fahrenheit 100..500)

• ~ synonyms (market research data ~grocery)

Advanced Search - Limiters

In box Search Limiters

• site: cheese site:www.usda.gov• intitle: intitle:ecommerce payments• allintitle: allintitle:ecommerce payments• inurl : inurl:ucr library• allinurl: allinurl:ucr library • link: link:library.ucr.edu• related: related:www.cnn.com• filetype: cheese filetype:ppt

Extras from the Google Box:

• Calculator 5+2*2• Define: define:ecommerce• Stocks: msft• Conversions

– Ounces in pounds (or grams)– Dollars in Pounds

• Street maps 3401 Watkins Dr. 92507• Directions seattle to portland (by train)• Flight Info United 1200 or flight ont pdx• Weather Weather 92507• Time time London• UPS/USPS 1Z750RIW0340346563

Movies and music

• Type in a movie name for local showing– (or just type movies 92507)

• Type in an album or musician for discography or album info (knowledge graph)

Results

Cached Similar

TimeVerbatimReading LevelLocation preference

What if you get too much Junk?

• Remember the – and the “”• Add more words to the box

– When words are added with OR # goes up– When words are added with and # goes down

• Limit by domain or date range

Tips for narrowing

Google search results:• widget parts 691,000 • “widget parts” 1070 • “widget parts” green 116• “widget parts” green -china 89

Images

Search Tools

•Size

•Color

•Type

•Time

•Usagevs

Advanced

•Terms\

•Site / domain

•File type

Note: Copyright is fuzzy, ask again later…You may want to try flickr, Microsoft clipart and UCR image databases where copyright is clearly noted. Or limit to .gov.

But Wait…There’s More

http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/products/Google scholarGoogle patentsGoogle booksGoogle TranslateGoogle Drive (docs etc)Google correlateGoogle flightsGoogle sites

Google fusionGoogle PlaygroundGoogle TrendsGoogle CodeGoogle GroupsGoogle MailGoogle imagesGoogle photos

Google Alerts

http://www.google.com/alerts

Monitor the Web, for changes

Google Maps and Google Local

• The one box philosophy brought to maps and yellow pages both.

If you like this, you will LOVE Google Earth

Google Scholar

• Find journal articles in a wide variety of topics• Once again, the single box• Remember to turn on your proxy or VPN if

you are not on campus• Click on the UC-eLinks link to get to the

article (if The Libraries license it)

http://scholar.google.com/

Google Books

• The full text has been scanned or otherwise added from 1000’s of books.

• Search the full text • Look at up to many of the pages (preview)• If you like what you see check in Scotty

– “find this book in a library”– Melvyl / Scotty

What Google Can’t Do

• Provide you with copyrighted material which we haven’t licensed for you

• Search every database on the internet– The “Deep Web” or “Invisible Web”– The special subject databases we have licensed

at UCR– Sometimes you have to be more general, just to

get to the doorstep of the right database.

Want More?

library.ucr.edu/go/oreilly