Not only is Google.com one of the best search engines with the largest data bases, but you can maximize your ability to search on it if you know how to do this.
Google is widely recognized as an excellent search engine. It has been rated the #1 search engine for providing an Outstanding Search Service by Search Engine Watch. It was also rated the Most Webmaster Friendly Winner. In fact, Google has received extensive industry praise and accolades, including being:
-listed among the top 100 Web Sites for Search and Reference by PC Magazine (March 2001),
-rated the Most Intelligent Agent by Wired Readers Raves (October 2000),
-described as the “Best Bet” Search Engine by PC World (September 2000),
-characterized as the “Best of the Web” by Forbes Magazine (September 2000),
-listed as the Editors’ Pick at CNET (August 2000),
-honored for the Best Technical Achievement and given a People’s Voice Award by the Webby Awards (May 2000),
-listed among the Top 10 Sites by TIME Digital (May 2000).
It was even described as the Best Search Engine on the Internet by Yahoo! Internet Life (January 2000) and as the Best Search Engine by the Net (March 2000).
How Google Works
Google was originally founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. candidates at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who developed a technologically advanced method for finding information on the Internet. Their intention was to create a powerful, but simple-to-use format for finding the most relevant answers to search queries. Google uses a sophisticated text-matching technique to find pages that are both important and relevant. It not only returns pages containing all search terms by default, unless an OR operator is used, but it looks at the pages linking to that page. Then, it ranks its search results in part by using a proprietary page-ranking system which is partly based on how often other sites link to that site, according to a Wall Street Journal article by Walter S. Mossberg, “Search No Further: Google Is the Best Search Engine”, published in March 1, 2001. Also, Google rates more highly those pages where the query terms are near each other. In short, a Google search is based on combining its PageRanking system for ranking Web pages with a sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to provide a good match for each query.
Then, the search results return a short summary of each Web page, which features a short excerpt or snippet of the text matching the query with the search terms highlighted in boldface. This way you see what is currently on the page rather than a never changing Web page summary. In addition, Google provides a link to a snapshot of that page, called a “cached version”, which Google saved when it first indexed the site. Google further provides a link to a list of similar sites, though they are not exactly on target, such as linking to other types of cars, when you do a search for Ford or GM.
Google’s Database of Sources
Google developed its database of sources through an automated computerized search, based on directly indexing Web pages through a full text analysis and on including additional pages through link analyses. It does this link analysis by looking at the text in and around hyperlinks, and uses this information to help define the pages which the links point to. Should it find that many pages point to the same site, using particular words to do so, Google is programmed to presume the site is relevant for those words, even though it hasn’t visited that site. Through this link analysis, it leverages its search ability.
Thus, for example, when Google reported a full-text index of 560 million URLs in June 2000, making it the largest search engine on the Web, its link data expanded its reach to another 500 million URLs or about 1 billion pages, as reported by an article in Search Engine Watch: “Google Announces Largest Index” (from The Search Engine Report, July 5, 2000). As of November 2000, its reach was even larger, when it reported indexing 602 million pages and 1.2 billion pages through link data – more than double the size of any other search engine, including Fast, WebTop.com, Inktomi, AltaVista, Northern Light, Excite, and Go (previously Infoseek and now about to go out of business), according to an article on “Search Engine Sizes” in Search Engine Watch by Danny Sullivan (November 8, 2000).
This database not only includes Web sites, but it now includes Adobe PDF files from all over the web, the first of any major search engine to include such files, according to Search Engine Watch article by Danny Sullivan in February 2001: “Google Does PDF and Other Changes.” By mid-February, Google enabled users to access the full text of 13 million PDF files, indicated by a “pdf” label next to their title, although text-only versions are available. The way to access these files is to include the “inurl:pdf” command after all of your search words, although these files turn up in a regular search, as well. property deals management