Suggestions for Googling the Internet

Popular and powerful search engines:

www.google.com     most widely used now, very good.
www.yahoo.com  first searches it's content-based categories.
www.altavista.com
 better at * wildcard searches.
www.AlltheWeb.com  recommended to search for pages that link or mention a URL.

www.newsnow.com  live news feeds.

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phonebook:bread & chocolate va

note no space after :, need state abbrev. at end.

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Dash subtleties: If you try to google for a document by a report number that contains dashes or hyphens, it can matter what kind of dash it is (hyphen, figure dash, en dash, em dash). For example, searching for "GA-A25602" is different than searching for "GA–A25602" or "GA—A25602" (though Google appears to treat both of these latter searches as equivalent). These 3 searches correspond to:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=GA-A25602&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=GA%E2%80%93A25602&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=GA%E2%80%94A25602&btnG=Search

In Windows XP, an en or em dash may be typed into most text areas (including a Mozilla Firefox browser window to do a Google search, but not SSH terminals!), by holding down the Alt key and pressing 0150 or 0151 respectively. The numbers must be typed on the numeric keypad with NumLock turned on.
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For wildcard searches, altavista is better, google doesn't do it (though it now allows ~ to allow synonyms).  Google also allow searches for

brownies (fudge OR fudgy)

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AlltheWeb.com recommended by NYT 2003 for link searches.

link:URL will search for links to a particular URL.  To search for web sites that link to or even just mention a particular URL, type just the URL without "link:".

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filetype:  will restrict search to particular file types (pdf, ppt, etc.).

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References:  Much of the above is well known, some taken from NYT, Aug. 21, 2003 article by Lisa Guernsey:

www.nytimes.com/2003/08/21/technology/circuits/21basi.html?page

Other google searches:
define: technology
stocks: apkt
movies: 08540