Guide
to Internet Research
Google Powerpoint
Presentation
SET PREFERENCES FIRST
All researchers should set the results to 100 items.
GOOGLE POWER SEARCHING
Parcel tracking IDs, patents and other specialized numbers can be entered into Google's search box for quick access to information about them. For example, typing a FedEx tracking number will return the latest information on your package. Other special search by number types include :
| • | UPS tracking numbers | example search: "1Z9999W99999999999" |
| • | FedEx tracking numbers | example search: "999999999999" |
| • | USPS tracking numbers | example search: "9999 9999 9999 9999 9999 99" |
| • | Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers | example search: "AAAAA999A9AA99999" |
| • | UPC codes | example search: "073333531084" |
| • | Telephone area codes | example search: "650" |
| • | Patent numbers | example search: "patent
5123123" Remember to put the word "patent" before your patent number. |
| • |
FAA airplane registration numbers |
example search: "n199ua" An airplane's FAA registration number is typically printed on its tail. |
| • | FCC equipment IDs | example search: "fcc
B4Z-34009-PIR" Remember to put the word "fcc" before the equipment ID. |
| • | Airport Information | To see delays and weather conditions at a particular airport, type the airport's three letter code followed by the word "airport." For example, Boston Logan International Airport updates can be found by searching for "bos airport." |
| • | Flight Tracking | To check the status of a U.S. flight, type the name of the airline followed by the flight number. For example, to see the status for American Airlines flight 468 search for "aa 468 ." |
In addition to AND, OR (|), ~ (tilde), and quoted strings “ ”, Google offers special syntax for search queries. NOTE: When using a Google syntax, there is no space between the colon and the first search term.
- intitle: Restricts search
to web page titles. [Also
available in Yahoo!]
Variation: allintitle: All the words specified make up the title of the web page.
CAUTION: allintitle: doesn’t work well with other syntax wordse.g. intitle:pierce law
- inurl: Search terms must
be contained in the URL. [Also available
in Yahoo!]
- intext: Searches only
body text; ignores link text, URLs & titles. Variation:
allintext: All the search terms are in the text of the web page.
CAUTION: allintext: doesn’t work well with other syntax wordse.g. intext: pierce law
allintext: pierce law school
Actually this is quite interesting in that it turns up pages where Pierce Law Center is mentioned on a page.
- inanchor: Searches
for text in a page’s
link anchors, which is the descriptive text of a link. HTML code
beginning with <a href=”url here”>This is where
the link anchor text is found.>
inanchor: "john hutson"
This produces an interesting list. The sixth choice down, when I conducted this search, was our very own Dean Hutson’s remarks before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1999.
- site: Allows you to
narrow the search by either a site or top-level domain. The
search engine Alta-Vista offers two syntaxes for this function;
one is host: and the other, domain:) This effectively gives
you a search engine for sites that don’t have one, but
its use can be much broader.
[Also available in Yahoo!]
e.g. site: loc.gov cybercrime
Search all of the loc.gov URLs for cybercrime.site: edu "computer policy"
Search all edu sites for the search string “computer policy”
- link: Returns a list of pages
that link to the URL specified. Also works with deep links.
[Also available in Yahoo!]
e.g. link: www.piercelaw.edu
- cache: Locates the
copy of the web page that Google stored when it indexed the
page so even if the site doesn’t
have the page available, you can see a snapshot of it when it
was located by Google spiders.
-
daterange: Limits your search results to
a specific date or date range that the page was indexed by Google.
Works with Julian not Gregorian dates. We typically use Gregorian
dates in our everyday life. URL for a converter:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html
e.g. cybercrime daterange:2452870-2453236
Cybercrime between 18 Aug. 2003-2004 - filetype: Searches filename extensions. Following is a list of 12 filetypes indexed by Google:
- Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)
- Adobe PostScript (ps)
- Lotus 1-2-3 (wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku)
- Lotus WordPro (lwp)
- MacWrite (mw)
- Microsoft Excel (xls)
- Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)
- Microsoft Word (doc)
- Microsoft Works (wks, wps, wdb)
- Microsoft Write (wri)
- Rich Text Format (rtf)
- Text (ans, txt)
- related: Finds pages
with related content. It’s a good way to find categories
of web sites.
e.g. related: google.com Returns a list of search engines.
- info: Provides a brief
page of links to the URL’s cache copy, links to it, similar
pages, or contain the term.
e.g. info: www.piercelaw.edu
- phonebook: Looks up phone numbers.
e.g. cybercrime filetype:ppt
PowerPoint files on cybercrimecybercrime filetype:xls
Excel spreadsheets on cybercrime
TIPS
Set Preferences to display 100 results per page and to open a new browser with search results.
FIND DATABASES – INVISIBLE WEB
- Figure out who or what agency is required to collect the data and search for their web site (Sometimes I check the statute to be sure.)
- If you cannot find a database, limit your search to site:URLofAgency with the search terms “search database.”
NEWS ALERTS
You can have Google scour the news for you daily to find news articles on your topic or topics of interest. http://www.google.com/newsalerts
ADVANCED NEWS SEARCH
http://news.google.com/advanced_news_search
GOOGLE SERVICES & TOOLS
http://news.google.com/options/index.html
GOOGLE LABS
GOOGLE SPECIAL SEARCHES
Google Uncle Sam, Linux, Apple, Microsoft, Universities http://news.google.com/options/specialsearches.html
GOOGLE FEATURES
http://news.google.com/help/features.html
GOOGLE WIRELESS
http://www.google.com/options/wireless.html