Google 101 - The Things You Didn’t Ask For
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Along the top and right side of a your results page Google gives you a handful of things you didn’t explicitly ask for. But just because they’re extra doesn’t mean they’re not useful. Figure 1-10 maps out the goodies.
Tip: At the top of a results page, above the search box, Google gives you links for the Web, Images, Groups, News, Froogle, and More. Google’s standard search looks for your terms on the Web, but Google can also search other electronic collections for the same terms. Each link represents a different place Google can search; click one, and Google runs the same search there. For example, if you searched for organic coffee, and you’re wondering what the plant looks like, try the Images link. (Chapters 3, 4, and 5 tell you all about Google’s alternate searches.)
Up to Speed: What is HTML?
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, which sounds more complicated than it is.
In fact, HTML is a pretty simple system for encoding text or pictures so that Web browsers can read the informaton. For example, to make text on a Web page appear in bold, you’d put HTML tags around it, like this: <b>Beet juice makes a lousy cleaning solution.</b> And it would appear like this: Beet juice makes a lousy cleaning solution. (The <b> tag turns on bold formatting, and </b> turns it off.)
People create HTML code using word processors, browser-based composing features, and special software like Dreamweaver and Frontpage that automatically tags elements as you build a Web page. In the end, though, HTML ends up as plain text documents stored on computers connected to the Web. Your browser knows how to read these fies and display them with fancy formatting rather than ugly tags.
The summary bar
The summary bar has two important elements:
- Each word in your search, underlined. Click one, and Google takes you to the Dictionary.com page for that word, giving you a handy definition and pronunciation guide. You can use this feature, of course,just to get a definition—even if you don’t care about the search results.
- An estimated number of results and the time it took Google to perform your search. People like to use the number of results as a measurement of something’s popularity or importance, but given the vagaries of the Web and the idiosyncrasies of Google searches, Ouija boards might be more accurate. Still, that number is worth a glance when you’re trying to decide whether to look through all 350,000 results or not.
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