HOW GOOGLE SEARCH WORKS

The Google Search Engine:

Google's search engine is a powerful tool. Without search engines like Google, it would be practically impossible to find the information you need when you browse the Web. Like all search engines, Google uses a special algorithm to generate search results. While Google shares general facts about its algorithm, the specifics are a company secret. This helps Google remain competitive with other search engines on the Web and reduces the chance of someone finding out how to abuse the system.

­Google uses automated programs called spiders or crawlers, just like most search engines. Also like other search engines, Google has a large index of keywords and where those words can be found. What sets Google apart is how it ranks search results, which in turn determines the order Google displays results on its search engine results page (SERP). Google uses a trademarked algorithm called PageRank, which assigns each Web page a relevancy score.

A Web page's PageRank depends on a few factors:

• The frequency and location of keywords within the Web page: If the keyword only appears once within the body of a page, it will receive a low score for that keyword.

• How long the Web page has existed: People create new Web pages every day, and not all of them stick around for long. Google places more value on pages with an established history.

• The number of other Web pages that link to the page in question: Google looks at how many Web pages link to a particular site to determine its relevance.

Because Google looks at links to a Web page as a vote, it's not easy to cheat the system. The best way to make sure your Web page is high up on Google's search results is to provide great content so that people will link back to your page. The more links your page gets, the higher its PageRank score will be. If you attract the attention of sites with a high PageRank score, your score will grow faster.

Google initiated an experiment with its search engine in 2008. For the first time, Google is allowing a group of beta testers to change the ranking order of search results. In this experiment, beta testers can promote or demote search results and tailor their search experience so that it's more personally relevant. Google executives say there's no guarantee that the company will ever implement this feature into the search engine globally.­


Google Services:

­As Google has grown, the company has added several new services for its users. Some of the services are designed to help make Web searches more efficient and relevant, while others seem to have little in common with search engines. With many of its services, Google has entered into direct competition with other companies.

Google's specialized searches are an extension of its normal search engine protocol. With specialized searches, you can narrow your search to specific resources. You can enter keywords into Google and search for:
Images related to your keywords
Maps
News articles or footage
Products or services you can purchase online
Blog entries containing the keywords you've chosen
Content in books
Videos
Scholarly papers

For these searches, Google has created specialized indexes that only contain relevant sources. For example, if you search for the term "Planet Earth" in the news category, the results will include only news articles that contain those keywords. The results will look very different from Google's normal SERP.­

In the last few years, Google has unveiled services that don't relate to search engines upon first glance. For example, Google's Gmail is a free Web-based e-mail program. When the service first launched, Google limited the number of users who could create accounts. The first group of users could invite a limited number of people to join the service, and so Gmail invitations became a commodity. Today, anyone can sign up for a free Gmail account.

Gmail organizes e-mails into conversations. This means that when you send an e-mail to someone and he or she replies, both e-mails are grouped together as a thread in your inbox. This makes it easier to follow the flow of an e-mail exchange. If you reply to your friend's response, Google will attach your message to the bottom of the thread. It's easy to navigate through the e-mail program and follow specific conversations.

Another free service from Google is Google Docs, a storage database and collaborative productivity software suite. It includes word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs. Creating a Docs account is free and allows you to store up to 5,000 documents and images online. Each document can be up to 500 kilobytes, and each embedded image can be up to 2 megabytes. You can share documents on Google Docs, which allows your friends to view and make changes to documents. You can also store all of your documents on Google's servers and access them wherever there's an Internet connection.

LATEST NEWS ABOUT GOOGLE:

Google today announced a new feature for Google Search that highlights in-depth articles related to your search queries. Google says while many users just want a quick answer, its own research indicates that about 10% of people are looking for links to more in-depth stories. Over the next few days, then, the search engine will start highlighting these kind of articles in a new section in its sidebar.
It’s not clear how Google will determine that an article is “in-depth,” though chances are it will look for high-quality, long-form stories from a select number of sources. All Google will say is that the results “are ranked algorithmically based on many signals that look for high-quality, in-depth content.” The results, Google says, are meant to “provide high-quality content to help you learn about or explore a subject.”
For now, this feature will only be available on google.com in English.

TIMER ON GOOGLE: 

Google has a new fun tool built within their search. If you ever need a quick timer for something, grabbing your phone or a regular timer isn’t always convenient when you’re sitting at your desk – and you might not want to install one of the many web apps that do it.
But now you can type specific search query into Google's search box, and Google will create a timer for you right on the search results page.
To create your timer, simply type "timer for [duration]" such as "timer for 30 seconds" or "timer for 1 hour 30 minutes". It has a stop and reset option and it plays a beeping sound when the timer expires. You can have it open in one tab, and use another tab and you will still hear the audio alarm.
Google's timer will also give you a warning if you have an active timer and you try to close that tab or window. It does seem to work in all browsers, so it’s not exclusive to Google Chrome.
It is unknown how long it has been available for, but it seems to have been first pointed out on Reddit last week.

HOW TO USE TIMER ON GOOGLE:

Do you need a simple timer to remind you of upcoming tasks like picking up the laundary, making that phone call to your client or for sticking to the Pomodoro technique. There are good web apps, e.ggtimer.com for example, that let you create countdown timers in the browser quickly but you probably don’t need them anymore.
That’s because you can now setup online timers inside Google itself by entering the timer command in the search box in the following format (the word “set” is optional):

timer for <time> OR set timer for <time>

The <time> can use a combination of hours, minutes and seconds. For instance, you may use search commands like set timer for 20 seconds or timer for 1 hour 2 minutes and the timer will spring into action. When the time has passed, the browser plays a sound.
One more thing. Instead of setting the time in the search command, you can just use the search query “timer” inside Google and then manually set the timer.
This tip is courtesy Lifehacker. And while we on the topic of online timers, you should also check out timer-tab.com – this one lets you set any YouTube video as the notification alarm.