Search Engineering

Ain’t Google the best?

Well, it’s got some competition now. Amazon.com is going into the search engine bid’ness, and they’ve got some functionality that might give Google a run for its money. If you haven’t noticed it yet, check out their new A9.com search engine.

While waiting to see if that pans out, though, I thought I’d pass along a page that has some excellent search tips for using Google.

For some time I’ve been using the “site:” tag on Google to datamine particular pages (e.g., the Vatican’s horribly organized site). I’ve wanted a complete list of the tags Google will respond to, but haven’t had one. Though I don’t know if the site above offers a complete list, it does offer a much more robust one than I’ve henceforth had available. Some of the tags it offers look of limited utility to me, but others will be quite useful.

The page is part of a larger Google Guide that you might check out, too.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

4 thoughts on “Search Engineering”

  1. James
    A WARNING !!!!!!!!! In the beginners sections of googleguide.com, they have practice exercises. If you go through the beginners guide at googleguide.com, you will note that the search terms presented often have a leftist “tone of voice” even though the aim of the exercise is to improve your google skills. Have a look at this page for example http://www.googleguide.com/crafting_queries.html
    I guess my warning is to please be careful what you recommend…

  2. Hi James
    I knew about your rules – I was just shocked that something that had “sheeps clothing” on turned out to be a wolf in disguise. That someone would use a technical lesson in computers as a vehicle for a political agenda is scary. What makes me even more worried is our school system – what are our kids being taught there. “Ok math class, how many abused prisoners in this column? And how many over here? Ok so the average number of bruises per prisoner is what?”
    regards
    Boatbldr

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