Superior Searching - Specifying Where on a Page to Search
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Google keeps track of text in the body of a page, in the URL, in the links to other pages, and in the title (which is different from the URL). The Occurrences pop-up menu lets you tell Google when you’re looking for results from only one of those places. Here’s when you might want to use them:
In the title. A Web page’s URL is not the same thing as its title. A URL is an address that your computer can read, and sometimes you can read it, too (for example, www.npr.org). But often, URLs are super-long and contain a slew of characters and symbols that make no sense unless you’re a droid. In those cases, it’s useful when a page has a separate, readable title that a Webmaster has written to help you understand what’s on that page. The first line of a Google result is usually a page’s title, not its URL, as Figure 2-4 illustrates.
A word that’s mentioned in the title of a page is more likely to indicate what’s on that page than a word that shows up randomly in the text. For example, a page called “File-sharing for fun and profit” is more likely to explain how to go about file-sharing than a page that simply mentions it as part of another discussion. Use this feature to get a smaller, more focused list of results.
In the text. Asking Google to ignore titles, URLs, and links is useful when you want to search for keywords or phrases that are likely to show up all over the place. For example, if you want only sites that discuss those bumpkins known as yahoos, and you don’t want pages from Yahoo.com or links to that site, use this feature to filter out references to the Web site.
In the URL. Want to find out how many sites have already used the word “sneaker” in their URLs? Here’s the place to check. Happily, this feature does not limit you to simple Web addresses, like www.sneaker-nation.com; it also produces more complex results, like www.cynosure.com.au/isp/sneaker.
Note: Searching for a term within a URL only yields results with whole words. In the example above, Google would give you back www.sneaker-fetish.com or www.sneaker.fetish.com, but not www.sneakerfetish.com.
In the links. This feature simply searches for the text in hyperlinks that connect pages. It’s useful in two situations. First, if you want to find out what pages have links to a certain person, phrase, or site, the “in links to the page” option can give you a rough idea.
Note: The text of a link may have nothing to do with the page it links to. Most commonly, you see sentences like, “To read about Barry Bonds, click here.” If “here” is the text for the link, your search for “Barry Bonds” isn’t going to bring up this page.
Second, the links search can help you find a person’s email address, because on most Web pages, an email address is a link. If the person’s name is part of the email address, or if the page says something like, “For more information, email Brad Pitt,” you’re in business.
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