Module 5 - Searching the Web
Lesson 4b - Using Google effectively cont...
spc
 

Some NOT good points about Google:

Google has lots of STOP words.  

Stop words are words the search engine will usually NOT search for. 

  — Why not?

Either they are too small or too commonly used and the search engine has been told to ignore them. Some words that are usually considered to be Stop words include:  in, an, the, of, but, not, to, etc. 

Solution: Make sure that you use quotation marks ( "  " ) around phrases that include small words that you need as part of your search.

Exercise 5.2 - Google

Use Google and try searching for "to be or not to be" or  to be or not to be without quotes.  (this is a famous line from the plays of William Shakespeare).  Do you see a difference in the results?

 

Google does not support full Boolean logic.  Remember Boolean logic

We discussed it earlier in the tutorial.... 

  • This means that Google has specific rules that you must follow if you want

to use Boolean operators in your search and you may not be able to do

everything. 

  • For instance: You must use a dash ( - ) instead of not , and you must

capitalize OR and AND.  (In most searching situations you don't need to capitalize the Boolean operators).

  • In addition, you can use a plus sign ( + ) instead of AND. 
  • To see the full set of rules for using Boolean in Google, visit Google's

Advanced Search Tips page.

Google will automatically put an AND between your search terms if you do not.  This SHOULD mean that all the results you get should have all the words that you typed into the search box, right?  (Remember, with AND, you are asking the computer to find articles/web sites with all of the words)  

However, Google sometimes returns pages that do not contain all of your terms.  Sometimes, your words occur in other pages that link to the page Google showed you or in other pages on the same site! 

You need to be aware of this or your you will think that your search string is not working...


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