Google: More than Just a Search Engine

Today, Google search engine is unquestionably the dominant tool in the market. Initially built for queries and data research only, Google nowadays has many other features and power tools to allow its users obtain and analyze targeted information quickly and easily.

There are several major points standing behind Google’s immense popularity.

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High Quality Search Results

Google search engine provides timely, relevant results in split of a second. By using the secret algorithm and PageRank™ technology company’s developers have managed to almost completely eliminate spam and shallow-content pages from appearing on top of the search results. Pages are ranked by relevancy, domain age, inbound and outbound links and their trustworthiness.

Google is also very effective with misspellings: has a user made a typo in a common word or phrase Google will offer to replace the term with a correct one at the same time displaying search results for the original query. This option is essential when the query is difficult to spell, or when it contains a person’s name that might be spelled in more than one way.

Google ads that appear on the sides of the pages are, too, related to the query topic and are often as useful as the search pages. Ads and sponsored links are explicitly marked as such and do not clutter the search result page.

Google Search Services: Different Results Formats

To deliver faster and more accurate results, Google offers other service search options through tags that appear on the top of the Google homepage. “Web” tag is the default option, and if a user is looking for an image, a book, a map or a video – all he has to do it click on the relevant tag and type the query in the search box. The search results will appear in the relevant format: image, map, book list, video and so on.

Another helpful search service is Google Translate. Sometimes, the most relevant search result appears in a foreign language. It happens when a user is looking for a corporate web page of a company located in a different country, or when the query itself is in foreign language. By clicking “translate this page” next to the URL on the search result list, Google will display the landing page in English providing a reasonably good translation quality.

Google Advanced Search and Search Operators

Google search operators are certain words written with a colon, followed by the query term. The operators restrict the search process to specific areas on the landing page. For example, if a user starts a query with allintitle: operator, Google will search all query terms that appear in the title of its indexed webpages. The displayed results will only contain pages that have the desired query term in their title.

Search operators are extremely useful when looking for specific file types, definitions or information from a specific source. This option allows skipping several steps and getting a detailed result on the first search attempt.

Google advanced search is another search-restricting option that narrows the results by specific criteria set by the user: certain words, phrases, geographic location, language and even usage rights. Advanced search tool does not require the knowledge of operators.

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Google is a mighty instrument that has become much more than a basic search engine. Its multiply functions, services and tools practically encompass all of the internet activity: searching, rating, analyzing, translating and even predicting future trends. Google tools enable end users and webmasters to work with different types of information, build websites, run blogs and analyze keywords to improve traffic and sales.