Tools & Tips: A Guide To Google and More

Google

Google is the most powerful tool for many, but not all, types of search. Consider buying Google: The Missing Manual by Sarah Milstein and Rael Dornfest. Why? Because the more you know about how to find what you need using the internet, the better off you are. Even although I've years of experience with the internet, Google, The Missing Manual showed me lots of new ways to harvest useful knowledge. If you want some online tips, try this article about Google Search Secrets.

The place to start is Google Search: More, More, More . . . It contains a list of the major services and search tools available from Google, toegether with instructions on how to use them. Google is available in country-specific versions. Learn how to use the one for your country, or the Google News Summary. You can even have Google Search installed on your own site. My own preferred jumping off point is the Advanced Search Page for Google Canada.

Phrase search is important - instead of searching for words (Marketing Solutions gives about 22,800,000 pages) a search for the phrase "Marketing Solutions" gives only 1,170,000 pages. Each search engine has its own rules and syntax that you should understand. Google provides its instructions at the Help Center.

Five Best Search Engines

Google achieved its success using the Page Rank Algorithm, but it is not the only show in town. With literally billions of pages out there, other approaches provide valuable insights.

Perhaps the most fundamentally different search engine, Ask.com is powered by Teoma. Instead of using Page Rank, Teoma analyzes the Web as it is organically organized - in naturally-occurring communities that are about or related to the same subject - to determine which sites are most relevant. Try the same search using Google and Teoma, and see the different results you get. Nutrionists will love Brain Boost, which has a special area for nutrition questions.

Other major players are Yahoo and MSN, which oncew used results from Yahoo, but is now setting up its own MSN Search. Try the same query here, and compare it with the results from Yahoo, Google and Teoma. All The Web is another contender.

You may not have heard of Vivisimo, but it deserves mention because of the way it clusters the reults into categories that you can browse through - great for planning how to write an article. Dogpile also is an up-and-coming search engine worth checking out. And you might like a meta search engine called Windseek - a new entry from Sweden.

Directories and Other Resources

In addition to search engines, learn how to use directiories - collections of information, often created, organized and managed by human editors rather than algorithms. The biggest is the Open Directory, which is staffed by volunteers, and provides the material for the Yahoo and Google directories. You can also use the amazing All-in-One List of Search Engines availabe at Pandia Search World.

If you want to find a web page that is no longer active, use the Internet Archive. It is not a search engine - you have to enter the URL you are looking for into their Wayback Machine - but it can find pages that have long disappeared from view.

The Google Toolbar can be used to find Page Rank, and their Desk Bar helps you to find material stored on your own computer. Google supposedly offers the "links: " search request to find out links to a site, but this has been disabled. Instead use the "info: " search as for example with "info: we-q.net". This is useful for assessing the credibility of a site.

Research Tools For Students

You can find more tools to help you conduct research and to present your findings at A Research Guide For Students. This extensive site contains lots of useful links to help you write a report, research essay, or term paper.

Life Science and Nutrition Research

Although you can find lots of information using popular search engines, the academic community has developed its own tools, many of them only available to insiders, or for a fee that you may not be willing to pay. Here are some that are more accessible - but it's up to you to learn how to use them!

Make sure that you have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer - many research articles are made available in this format because it can display graphics, images, text and fonts correctly, no matter what sort of computer, monitor and printer you are using.The Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free download.

Google Scholar – Academic Information	www.scholar.google.com/
Amazon Books - Find out about books and things	http://www.amazon.com/
Pub Med CAM Database	http://nccam.nih.gov/camonpubmed/
Dictionary for scientific terms	www.thefreedictionary.com/
BioMed Central	http://www.biomedcentral.com/
BioMed Central Google Toolbar	Google Toolbar
Online Research Journals for Biosciences	www.biomedcentral.com/browse/bysubject/
Pub Med Research Articles	www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/
Journal of the American Dietetic Association	www.eatright.org/Public/Media/PublicMedia_10110.cfm
Herb Med	www.herbmed.org/
Mayo Clinic	www.mayoclinic.com
Med Broadcast	www.medbroadcast.com
Medline Plus	http://medlineplus.gov/
Merck Manuals Online	www.merck.com/pubs/
Natural Pharmacist	www.tnp.com
American Psychological Association Style Manual	www.apastyle.org/
Centre for Science in the Public Interest – Canada	www.cspinet.org/canada/
Nutrition Action Health Letter	www.cspinet.org/nah/index.htm
Canadian Health Network (CHN)	www.canadian-health-network.ca/
Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine	www.pcrm.org/index.html
Nutrition Resources Page	www.we-q.net/_files/nutrition.htm
Health Action Network Society	www.hans.org
Medical News Today	www.medicalnewstoday.com/index.php
CAM Literature Searching Workshop	www.cameraresearchnetwork.ab.ca/research/pdf/literaturesearching.pdf
Health Science Library Alternative Medicine Links	www.lib.sk.ca/rhdl/InformationPathways/alternative_medicine_external.htm
Holistic Health Research Foundation of Canada	www.holistichealthresearch.ca

These resources are a starting point for you - they are intended to help you find the answers you are looking for. Also see related pages about Internet Marketing and Nutrition Facts.

Enjoy Your Adventure!

Doctor I. Johnson
Author, Speaker, Consultant