That Google is a superfast search engine is well known. But now, it is becoming a phenomenon of its times. And there are very good reasons why....
Quick.... you have the urge to write an online review... and you don’t know where to write it? What do you do? Where do you go? Simple. Log on to https://google.com, key in ’’writing reviews’’, press the ’’search’’ button. And get ready for being ’’googled’’...
Voila... you have before your very eyes a descriptive list of 2, 230, 000 web pages to choose from - all about ’’writing reviews’’, starting with the most relevant page. (Our favourite mouthshut.com ranks FOURTH in those pages.... impressive.) And it takes only 0.24 seconds for Google to do the trick.
Interesting, you say... what if I want to see ’’Groups’’ on the net which are about ’’writing reviews’’. So, without much further ado, you press the ’’Groups’’ button above your search phrase on the Google site... and there it goes again... a list of 226, 000 groups on the internet related to ’’writing reviews’’ are served to you hot and crispy. In 0.42 seconds. This is fun, you say...
Then, out of sheer curiosity, you try the same trick with their ’’Directory’’ button... and in 0.13 seconds you have before you 8, 100 Google Directory entries related to ’’writing reviews’’. You take a decision then and there... this is the Search Engine for me.
In your first experience with the search engine called Google you will notice three big reasons to ’’google’’ (in fractions of a second may I say).
Using Google is as easy as ’’abc’’.
It takes a website some real guts to just have a simple search box and a few buttons on a white background... on its homepage. Google has that. No distracting banners and ads like ’Altavista’ to slow the downloading time, no plethora of links and categories like ’Yahoo’ to confuse you, no need to frame questions like ’AskJeeves’. Just key in the phrase or words you are looking for in the serach box. And get your results in seconds.
Things which make a search on Google easy:
Not case-sensitive. Which means you don’t have to waste your time keying words in Capital Letters. Eg: If you need to search for something in USA, you can type that thing followed by ’’usa’’.
Automatic spellcheck: If you enter a mis-spelled search item, Google gives you the corrected version.
No commas required: You don’t need to put commas between you search items. For example, if I am searching for an article on writing reviews online for websites, I have to enter - writing reviews online websites - for very relevant results.
That’s the ’easy’ factor for using Google. Then comes the ’’Fast’’ factor.
Google is superfast and quite proud of it.
It not only shoots back millions of pages at you, ten at a time, it even tells you how many fractions of a second it took to complete the task. It’s very fratifying to see yourself doing such fast work, thanks to Google.
It would probably surprise some to know that Google powers Yahoo’s searches. And the technology behind this supersonic engine is not the result of some multinational giant... it is the contribution of a pair of brilliant university students. My odes to them.
Next, and one of the most important factors when it comes to usability...
Google gives you the MOST RELEVANT results.
On other search engines, you have to waste my time opening up a lot of results before you can arrive at what you are looking for. With Google I usually find what I am looking for in the first two pages (10 results on each page).
There was a time I would search on engines like ’’Dogpile’’ which gives you results by more than ten other search engines... it’s a multiple search engine... and it would take me ages to sift through the ’’pile’’. All that is history now that I use Google for getting relevant results, fast.
On other search engines, if you were to type the two words - writing reviews - you would be served web pages which are about ’’writing’’ and pages which are about ’’reviews’’. One of the search engines gave me ’’CD Writing’’ links for my ’’writing reviews’’ search... right on top... definitely not what I was looking for. Google only gave me pages which had both ’’writing’’ AND ’’review’’’ in them. That’s what I call being relevant.
Google’s bundle of added features when you get addicted:
Have up to 100 results displayed per page through advanced search.
Search specific file types (pdf, doc, etc) with advance search
Search for images (with or without adult filter)
Search within sites with advanced search.
Search in your language (81 language interfaces offered)
Add ’’Google’’ serach to your site in five minutes flat, free of charge... this is a good thing to do once you have become a loyal fan. And it doesn’t cost you anything.
Results displayed give you an option to translate the page into your language, to convert a non-html file to html, and a snippet of the page where your keywords occur highlighted in bold so you can quickly decide if it is relevant.
Searching with Google is so fast and fun that I log on to the site in all my moods... and let Google take me to the place that would suit me best. Try typing ’’Beaches’’ on Google’s Image Search and have some fun.
And I am not the only one who ’’Googles’’ in free time. I have read in the news about a game where people compete with each other to type in a minimum number of words in Google and get a ’’NO results for your query’’ response. Try it... it’s tough. And addictive.... If you liked this long-winded review, my second one on mouthshut.com, do encourage me. I am looking for friends I can count on... and add to my ’’trust’’ list.