Chapter 1: Discovering All That Google Can Do

In This Chapter

Getting an overview of Google’s many services
Understanding Google’s many search realms
Uncovering Google’s hidden features
Introducing Google’s non-search services
Understanding why Google’s is better . . . much better

You’re about to embark on an adventure that will stimulate your mind and gratify the most urgent desires of your soul. Then, after you drink that triple cappuccino, you’ll start discovering Google.

I know what you’re saying: You’ve already discovered Google. Who hasn’t? Not since the early Web days of 1994 and 1995, when everybody surfed through Yahoo!, have people flocked so unanimously to a single, dominant search engine as they do to Google.

During the time since Yahoo! got the ball rolling, many keyword-oriented search engines have come. Many have gone. Some remain, offering specialty searches or emulating Google. (Imitation and flattery — you know the drill.)

Now, with Googling a common term in the mainstream vernacular, general searching of the Web has become standardized into a universal ritual. Anybody wanting to find an online destination follows this three-step process:

Go to Google.
Type a few words related to the search goal.
Click the search results to visit relevant Web sites.

In my life as an online citizen (no, I don’t get out much), two destinations are indispensable. One is Yahoo!, a gargantuan domain that provides more free services than a sane person would try to count. The other is Google, which makes my virtual movements faster and more exact than ever. Online life without either is inconceivable. The amazing thing is that Google has been around only since the fall of 1999. Yahoo! has been building its reputation and service platform for nearly ten years. And it can be argued that Google has embedded itself into the lifestyles of ordinary Internet citizens and the business practices of companies more profoundly and securely than Yahoo! ever has. Whereas Yahoo! spent millions on the “Do you Yahoo!?” ad campaign, everybody started saying “Google this” and “Google that” with little or no formal advertising from Google.

I’ve written Yahoo! For Dummies and Google For Dummies. Each service is a cornerstone of the Internet. Prediction is a risky business, but when I’m in a divining mood, I can easily see Google becoming the most important online service in history, approaching the geek-idealist’s dream of indexing every bit of network knowledge and virtual expression, with an awareness of the surrounding context, each contribution ranked by its peers and instantly accessible. A profoundly foolish vision? The surprising part is how closely Google is chasing it already.

Life without Google? With each passing day, the thought becomes more inconceivable.

All well and good. Google is lightning fast and devastatingly accurate. And the chapters in Part II dismantle general searching to help you maximize your basic Google experience. But as it turns out, general Web searching is just the tip of the Google iceberg.