Technology & The Trial Lawyer

Google Secrets & Shortcuts

by Susan J. Silvernail

Google is my first choice in search engines and I suspect it is yours, too. After all, Google is said to handle up to 75% of all search queries on the U.S. Internet¹. And while you often hear the web search gurus talk about how important it is to use more than one search engine for in-depth research, I also suspect a lot of our web searches begin -and end-on Google. So, wouldn't it be wise to know more about the search capabilities of Google? Believe me, there's more to a winning web search than typing a few descriptive words into the "Search" box and hitting the “Enter” key. Let me show you some of the advanced search features and surprising short-cuts you can find on Google:>

• Searching by format: Since Google has started indexing PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents and Adobe Acrobat files, you can limit your search to a particular format and get very focused results.

  For example, if you were looking for statistics on rollovers, you could put the following into the search box:

  rollover and crash and filetype:xls

  Since most spreadsheets contain numeric information, odds are good that any XLS-format web pages that also have the words "rollover" and "crash" will be useful for your research. Or, if you are looking for presentations -or the knowledgeable people behind presentations - on rollover crashes and you work from the assumption that people who were giving a speech about rollover crashes would probably be using PowerPoint, then use this search syntax:

  filetype:ppt "rollover crash"

  Other formats include .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) and .doc (Word). So, move beyond plain HTML and get more relevant results.

• Searching by number: There's a handy new shortcut to useful information such as area codes, Universal Product Codes (UPC), flight tracking information, Vehicle ID (VIN) numbers and package numbers. It eliminates having to enter through several web sites and moving down into the related databases.

  Enter the tracking number for FedEx, UPS or the U.S. Postal Service and Google recognizes the pattern. Up pops a link to the Fed Ex.com web page (or UPS or the Postal Service) with the latest information on your package.

  You can find information about a product by entering its UPC code. Rather than retrieving the database entry from UPCdatabase.com, the search yields a link directly to it along with other possible mentions of the product on the Web.

  Add the word patent to the beginning of the number and you have eliminated several search steps and found the patent you were looking for.

• Searching by category: When you open Google, the search engine defaults to a full web search and that is the way most searches are done. But, if you move the tabs, you can change the kind of search you conduct.

  Switch to “Images” and you are viewing only images on the web -425 million images that are quite useful for presentations in mediation or the courtroom.

  Move over to the “Directory” tab, and you will enter a search in the Google directory engine. This can be useful when you are not sure of your keywords and you want to restrict your search to a particular topic or domain. For example, a search over the entire web for “Saturn” might return pages about automobiles and planets or any number of other subjects. By searching for “Saturn” within the category “ Automotive”, you will see only results related to the car.

  And check out the “News” for information related to current events. This Google service lets you search about 4,500 news sources worldwide. One drawback with this feature, however, is that Google News includes articles that appeared only within the past 30 days.

• Searching the government: If you want to limit your search to material from government sites use Google UncleSam. This Google “special search” feature searches all the .mil and .gov domains. Find it under “special searches” or go to www.google.com/unclesam. The search for “rollover” and “crash, for example, links you to all the references on the Department of Transportation website and saves you multiple search steps. So, if you are searching for something published by the government, this is a great place to start -and end.
  

Put some of these advanced search features and short-cuts into use on Google and your searches will not only be faster, they will yield more relevant results.

¹ "Google Here, There, and Everywhere", Business Week Online, December 16, 2003.