How This Book Is Organized / Google For Dummies

How This Book Is Organized

This book employs a new and startling organizational system by which words are gathered into sentences, which in turn form paragraphs, and the whole shebang is printed on pages. Just turn the page, and . . . more words! I’ve collected thousands of the finest words in circulation, and strung them together in a manner that occasionally approaches coherence.

The book’s chapters are organized into five parts, as follows.

Part I: Taming Google

The four chapters in Part I present a detailed look at Google’s basic services — the ones you reach from the home page. Here you learn about Web searching, image search, the Google Directory, Google News, and Google Groups. This part is not merely an overview. To the contrary, I get very detailed about search operators (they can improve your life, trust me), finding certain types of document, trolling through newsgroups, and explaining how the directory works. Don’t skim past these chapters if you know basic Googling! This part is stocked with tips and little-known facts about Google’s under-publicized features.

Part II: Specialty Searching

Part II goes somewhat further afield to Google’s fringe services. Chapter 5 describes how Google provides a product database for virtual window shopping. Chapter 6 explores several specialty search engines that Google operates in parallel to the main Web engine. Google Answers, a for-pay research service, gets the next chapter. Finally, Chapter 8 examines several search-lab experiments that Google throws open to the public.

Part III: Putting Google to Work for You

The chapters in Part III describe four uncommon ways in which Google can be put to work. First, and for many most importantly, Google can attach to Web browsers in various ways, offering one-click searching from anywhere on the Web. I venture to say that the Google Toolbar is the single most important Google service beyond the basic search engine, and I strongly recommend that you read Chapter 9. Google’s translation services are covered in the next chapter. Chapters 11 and 12 are of special interest to site owners. The complex AdWords service takes over Chapter 11. Chapter 12 explains how Google searches the Web and how anyone with a Web page can get into Google’s search results.

Part IV: Tricks, Games, and Alternatives to Google

Part IV is almost all recreational. Google’s Blogger.com service, which provides Weblogs free of charge, is in Chapter 13. If you’re new to blogging, a whole new world awaits you. The next two chapters take you all over the Web, trying Google-related sites developed by individuals who took advantage of Google’s standing invitation to build alternate search interfaces. Google’s index is available to any programmer, and some of the results are spectacularly successful — improvements, even, on Google’s own pages. Fun and games are in Chapter 15. If you’ve heard of Googlewhacking and wondered what it is, this is the chapter for you.

Part V: The Part of Tens

In the traditional For Dummies list-of-ten chapters, I stashed the miscellaneous features, tricks, and tips that didn’t fit into other chapters. Chapters 16 and 17 together contain twenty tips for more effective Googling that I find essential. The book’s final chapter points you to ten sites about Google — pages that explain Google exotica and even sites that are openly, loudly critical of Google’s success.