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Google displays the most relevant results first.
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Better go back and talk to teach again. Google has no way of knowing what is relevant to what you want to know. If you're looking for the PAGE scriptwriting contest if will feed you a ton of pages that all have the word "page" on them. It has no way of knowing if you're looking for Red Robin restaurants or Red Robin poems. It can't tell if you want Paris Hilton the hotel, or the obnoxious jailbird. It uses it's logic systems and parameters, but really can't tell what's relevant to you. Part of it's logic is sheer mass. You want a hotel in Barcelona but no specific name you're going to get page after page of big travel sites. Etc.
Correct in that it doesn't matter how many hits you get if you're finding what you need up top.
It does seem surprising that people don't know basic search techniques. Or have to go college to learn them.
For those interested in more advanced parameters, here's a little cheat sheet than can be very helpful.
1. Find similar terms
And you thought the tilde character (~) served no useful purpose. When you insert the tilde in front of a search term, Google will retrieve sources matching the word as well as synonyms.
Searching "~conservative" will yield the National Libertarian Party, the National Republican Committee and the Right Wing News home page. Do not leave a space between the tilde and the search term.
2. Exclude terms
Sometimes a keyword will come up with items totally unrelated to the subject you are interested in. A student researching plasma in the cosmos would type in the word plasma and be forced to wade through scores of sites referring to plasma televisions.
The fastest way to solve this is to use the exclude function, the hyphen. Search "plasma -tv" and you will eliminate many irrelevant sites.
Though better, that may still not be good enough - you'll wind up with sites using the word "television." Simply refine your search this way: "plasma -tv -television" and eliminate both terms from your results. (No need to use the word "and" or other punctuation.)
If you really want to be cool, combine your newfound skills and type "plasma -~tv" that will exclude all synonyms of TV.
3. Substitute for unknown words
Friends kid me that my memory is pretty bad; I think they exaggerate. But sometimes I need to look up a quotation for which I can't recall all the words. No problem. Use asterisks to stand in for missing words.
So if you forget, oh, let's say, the number of years that Whatsisname referred to in his famous address: Something score and something years ago ... just type "Four * and * years ago." Sometimes you'll come up with humorous results: Try "To * or not to *." Ol' William is not the first person whose quotation is retrieved.
4. Find lost pages
A wonderful but mostly overlooked feature of Google search is the cache option. Most people glance right past it, but in virtually all search results, you will see a link to cached versions of pages you are looking for.
You usually won't need to refer to these archival pages, but if your search ever turns up an old news page, for instance, you may find that when you click on the link, the page no longer exists, even though it turned up in the search results.
In that event, simply click on the cache link (at the bottom line of the search result), and that will retrieve the last saved version of the page that had failed to show. This is a powerful, extremely helpful tool when you come across old pages from Web sites that no longer exist or are no longer maintained.
5. Get your number
Looking up a phone number? Give your fingers a break, and let Google do the walking.
Just type "phonebook" and the name and city (or state initials) of the person whose number you're looking for. The number will pop up instantly. Often, you can leave out the word "phonebook," though city or state will be required.
6. Get the name
If you have a phone number but want the name or the location, just type in the number - no hyphens, parentheses or spaces necessary. For fun, type in 2024561111 and see whose office this number belongs to.
7. Look up synonyms
With all due respect to Webster, you can now get definitions in a flash by typing "define:" and your search word. You'll come up with definitions, synonyms and links for further information.
8. Explore specific sites
Let's say you want to look up a past column by your favorite computer columnist. Hmm, I wonder who that might be. ... Well, let's say it is yours truly. If you type "the PC Guy," some dastardly people using the same name will appear in your results.
You, of course, don't want impostors; you want the real thing! So restrict your search solely to The Record's Web site by using the site keyword as follows: "the pc guy site:northjersey.com." Of course, this works with any domain name and is a great way to limit your results to a manageable number.
9. Get the picture
Did you know you can search for pictures with Google?
Just go to the Google home page, click on images, and pick out your favorite pics. Whether you're looking for the latest NASA images of Jupiter or the latest photos of Brad and Angelina, you can further narrow your searches using the advanced search function to, for example, retrieve certain types or sizes of files.
10. At your fingertips
Simplify all your searches by incorporating the Google search bar into your browser. Go to google.com, click "More," scroll down the page to Google Tools, then click on Toolbar and follow directions from there.
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I got up to a thousand at one time (by jumping to the ends i.e. when it gives a list of pages at the bottom, I went up ten at a time) and then it stopped; no more hits even though it said millions. I'm sure there must have been a way to continue, but I didn't.
