Google Introduces Verbatim Search

Google has just introduced Verbatim Search which can be used when you want an exact search to your query.

Doesn't Google already give exact search results?  Well, actually, Google may make the following changes to a search query:

• Make spelling corrections
• Personalize your search by using information such as sites you’ve visited before
• Include synonyms of your search terms (matching “genealogy” when you search for [family history])
• Find results that match similar terms to those in your query (finding results related to “burial” when you search [cemetery])
• Search for words with the same stem like “obituary” when you’ve typed [obit]  
• Make some of your terms optional, like “circa” in [died circa 1843]

Google call these changes to a search query "normal improvements"  and most of the time these improvements really help broaden your search and give better search results.  But for the times you want an exact search, you may want to try Verbatim Search.

How does a Verbatim Search affect your Google search results?  With Verbatim Search:

• Every search term must be included in results 
• Spelling must match exactly (even if your search term is mis-spelled) 
• No word stemming - obit and obituary will not match, cemetery and cemeteries will not match, research and researching will not match.

Verbatim Search is NOT the same as putting a phrase in quotes.  A phrase in quotes must appear on the page exactly in the same order as the search query.  The words in a Verbatim Search must appear on the page but do not have to appear consecutively.

A few weeks ago, Google announced they would replace the Google + operator used to search for exact terms with double quotes around the word.   I think Verbatim Search may be Google's answer to the many requests to bring back the + operator.  But Verbatim Search and the + Operator are not the same.  With the + operator, you could choose only one of the words in your search query to be exact.  With Verbatim Search, all the words in your query must be exact.

You can access the Verbatim Search tool under “More search tools” on the left-hand side of Google Search Results.

When Verbatim Search is enabled, the word Verbatim in the left column of your search results will be red.

Try the same search query with and without Verbatim Search and you will see the huge differences in search results.

Cached Pages in Google Search Results

Google has removed the cached page link from the search results page.  Until last week, it used to appear with every link in the search results.  In its place, if you hover your cursor over a search result, you will notice two arrows in a light gray box appear.   

Click on the arrows in the box, and you will see a preview thumbnail of the website along the new location for the link for the cached site.

I use a website cache for many reasons:

• On cached pates, each search term is highlighted instantly and in a different color making keywords easy to find especially on long pages. 
• Cached pages load faster. 
• Cached pages are available for pages that are altered, deleted, hard to load, or firewalled. 
• Cached pages are available for pages that are updated frequently such as forums, blogs, and news, many times taking me to the page that has moved on that contains the search items.

Once you try using cached pages for the above reasons, you may find them useful, also.

To me, Google's "Instant Preview" of a website is pretty much useless.  It's too slow to load and too small to read except perhaps the title.   I'm always accidently clicking on it - it gets in my way while viewing the search results page.   And with a pop-up blocker turned on or javascript disabled, you may not even be able to see the arrows.  But that is now where you have to get the link to see cached results.

I find the new method to click on the link for cached pages user-unfriendly.  Now, there are two extra steps to use the cached links.  First, you must hover over the result to make the arrows appear and then click on the instant preview arrows and wait for the "instant preview" to appear (which on my computer isn't always instant). Then click on the cached link.  Much more time consuming to get a link for something I consider very useful and necessary. 

  

I'm sorry to see Google making such user-unfriendly decisions recently - see Google Removes the + Search Operator.  The great search results and interface simplicity are what drew me to Google years ago.  Cached pages are one thing that makes Google unique - Bing and Yahoo don't have links for cached pages.

Google is always on a quest for greater search speed hence Google Instant  which shows results as you type and Google says takes 2 to 5 seconds off each search.  It surprises me that they would then make two changes  in one week that makes things slower on the user end.

Google's +1 Button

Google's has just introduced the new "+1"  button which is similar to Facebook's "like".   You can click on +1 buttons across the web to recommend content, blog posts,  web pages, and news articles to others.  Google says the +1 will be an element in its search results.   Clicking on the +1 when you find good genealogy content in turn could make Google search results even more helpful for all.

It's an interesting concept which could make Google ancestor searching much more personalized and relevant.

Look for the +1 button on blog posts right underneath where it says ""Posted by".  You'll find the +1 button at the end of the line of other "share buttons".  Click on the +1 the way you would a Facebook "like" to let others know what blog posts and websites you think are useful or informative.

Not every website has a +1 button, but many blogs do.  And I have also seen the  +1 in the Google search results. 

Whether or not you are interested in clicking on +1 buttons, at least when you see one now, you will know what it is. 

Using Google's Recipe View for Family History

Google has a new feature to help find recipes online called Recipe View. 
I don't like to just find names and dates of my ancestors.  I like to write about my family history and the various cultures of my ancestors.

Cooking, to me, is a big part of culture, and because of this, I've always included family recipes in the stories of my ancestors.  Unfortunately, although I know what dishes my grandmothers and great-grandmothers cooked, none of these recipes were ever written down. 

Google Recipe View can now help me find recipes close to my family recipes.  If I know my Hungarian grandmother cooked goulash with paprika and poppy seeds but without ketchup (which a lot of online recipes seem to include - ugh!), Recipe View helps me find a recipe meeting my criteria.  It not only allows me to choose the ingredients in the recipe, but it allows me to choose ingredients I know are NOT in the recipe by clicking on the "Yes" or "No" ingredient check boxes in the left column.

Google Recipe View helps me choose a recipe among the search results by showing clearly marked ingredients and pictures without having to go into each website to check out the ingredients of the recipe.

To get to Recipe View, click on the Recipes link in the left-hand panel when searching for a recipe. You can search for specific recipes such as Goulash or Schnitzel or can search for more open-ended topics that feature a holiday or event, such as German Christmas recipes or St. Patrick's Day in Ireland recipes or Easter Bread or even Bastille Day recipes.

You filter search results based on your ideal ingredients, cooking time and calorie count using the recipe tools on the left hand side of the page.  For cultural recipes, I don't use the cooking time or calorie count check boxes.  I don't think my ancestors worried about these either.

Sometimes, I have found it helps to add the word authentic to the recipe name when searching to better find a historical recipe.  You can try searching for specific recipes such as Authentic French Crepes or Authentic German Sauerbraten or Authentic New England Clam Chowder

For genealogy webmasters and bloggers: Recipe View is based on data from rich snippets markup. If you publish recipes of your ancestors, you can add markup to your web pages so that your content can appear with this improved presentation in regular Google results as well as in Recipe View. This will help those genealogists like me searching for recipes that our ancestors used to make.

Google Discontinues its Phonebook

Google has dropped the phonebook: and rphonebook: operators used for finding U.S.  phone numbers.  The phonebook: operator was for both business and residential phone numbers while the rphonebook: operator was for residential phonebook and focused on home phones.  

In addition, phonebook results no longer appear among regular Google search results.

The Google phonebook operator was a great way to locate long-lost friends and family and was my favorite people finder search engine.  It was also convenient way to find long-distance phone numbers.  I'm going to miss it.

Also gone is GOOG-411,  Google's voice-powered directory assistance service, which was free of charge and connected to businesses across the U.S. and Canada.  I had used goog-411 from my cell phone while out and about.
 
Meanwhile, there are other free U.S. phonebooks that can be used:

• WhitePages.com
• PhoneBook.com
• Yahoo People Search

And there are other ways to find a long-lost mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother, grandfather or other missing family member:

• Finding Living People
• Person Finder

The Kim Cattrall episode of Who Do You Think You Are? shown in the U.S. may encourage others to try to locate missing family members.  The internet and technology certainly makes the search easier, but, as this WDYTYA? episode shows, collecting information by talking to family and even their neighbors provides a great starting point.

Google Instant Preview

Google is constantly improving its search to give us a more useful and faster user experience.  With this in mind,  Google has just introduced the Instant Preview to help users choose between search results.  Google Instant Preview gives users the ability to view a website without actually visiting it. It does this by showing a screenshot of the webpage after you have clicked on the magnifying glass icon that is on the right of every search result.

In addition, Google puts an orange box around the section of the preview page where the search term occurs.  In typical genealogy searches, you may trying to find specific information on a long, wordy page. Instead of having to scroll through the entire page to find the person’s name or keyword, you can look at the Instant Preview and see where the word occurs on the page.

After activating Instant Previews with that one click on the magnifying glass, you can hover over any other search result to see a preview of the web page.

Google says the benefits are:

• Quickly Compare Results
  A visual comparison of search results helps you pick which result is right for you.
• Pinpoint Relevant Content
  Text call outs highlight where your search term appears on the web page so you can evaluate if it’s what you're looking for.
• Interact with the Results Page
  Page previews let you see the layout of a web page before clicking the search result.

My own personal opinion is that the previews are far too small to be useful.  Maybe it is my old eyes. Maybe it is that my monitor resolution is 1920 x 1080. But all I can see is the general page layout.  I can’t actually read anything except the largest headings which really isn’t helpful to find a surname in context.

I find it easier to find a surname or word on a long, wordy genealogy webpage by using the Google Toolbar Highlighter

If you dislike the previews, you can turn it off by clicking on the page again or clicking on the X in the bubble, but I have found no way to permanently turn it off.

Google Instant Preview is NOT the way that Google shows you search results as you type.  That is called Google Instant, another new Google feature.

Finding Living People

Genealogists search for their ancestors - people long dead; but sometimes they have a need to find a living person to help with genealogy research.

Losing touch with a cousin or the need to find a distant relative to help with research are just a few of the reasons to search for a living person.

There are a number of people finder search engines that are very good at what they do.  Some of them search the web; some search public records; some of them can search the deep web databases that don't normally show up on a Google search.

Sometimes they point to pay-for-databases, but most of the information is free.  There is generally enough free info that it usually isn't necessary to pay for a living person search.

Here are my favorite US-based people search engines:

http://pipl.com/
Searches not only the web, but also the deep web or invisible web.  Since most personal profiles, public records and other people-related documents are stored in databases and not on static web pages, this search engine finds the higher-quality information about people that is simply "invisible" to a regular search engine.  

http://www.zabasearch.com/
Free people search engine that gives address and telephone number for free. ZabaSearch also supplies the birthdate which can help narrow down the correct person.

WhitePages.com
White pages results show age and related people to help narrow down the right person.

http://www.zoominfo.com/search
Find people through the company they work for.

http://www.searchforancestors.com/personfinder/
Step by step ideas for finding people - long lost mother, long lost father and other relatives.

US Search
When the free people search engines can't help, you can always try one of the pay people finders.  They say "Guaranteed - no results, no charge".


When I saw how much information was available to other people when I searched for my own name, I was tempted to opt out of these search engines.  It is public information and posted for all to see.  But then I realized if a long-lost or distant relative was searching for me, I didn't want to close the door by opting out.  Opting in or opting out of these people finder search engines is a hard decision to make but everyone must choose for themselves how much info about themselves they are willing to have available on the internet to help people find them.

Google's Dictionary Changes Again

Google's built-in dictionary has undergone a few transformations over the years and has just undergone another major change. Previously, Google's  dictionary  was found on the blue bar on the right hand side of the Google results page where Google would link search words to definitions supplied by Answers.com, Dictionary.com and eventually to its own dictionary.

But recently, after the latest Google redesign of the results page, this dictionary link to search words has been removed completely along with the blue bar on the search results page where the link resided.

A dictionary is still available but now it just is a little harder to find.

There are actually two ways to access a dictionary from Google and they give different results.

• Google Dictionary
  The more thorough dictionary which is available in multiple languages.  Google's Dictionary gives:
• Definitons
• Verbal Pronunciation
• Synonyms
• Related Phrases
• Usage Examples
• Definitions found on various websites
• A Dropdown box for other languages

• Define:genealogy
Using the Google searchbox, type the operator define: followed by the word you want to look up in the dictionary (with no spaces between define: and the word ). Google will give:
• Related Phrases
• Web Definitions

I find many words in my genealogy research that are not in common usage today and the Google defne operator is all I need.  Some examples:

• Define:rod   (a measurement I found in an old will which described the size of a plot of land )
The rod is a unit of length equal to 5.5 yards, 5.0292 metres, 16.5 feet, or of a statute mile. A rod is the same length as a perch and a pole
• Define:teamster  (an occupation of an ancestor in the 1870 census)
The driver of a team of horses doing hauling  
• Define:apoplexy  (cause of death found in an 1890 obituary)
  
  Stroke: a sudden loss of consciousness resulting when the rupture or occlusion of a blood vessel leads to oxygen lack in the brain

When the define: operator does not give enough information, the thorough Google Dictionary is now available.  I've actually found no links to the Google Dictionary  from the Google website, so it is best to bookmark it.

Google's Similar Sites

There are a lot of genealogy sites on the web and you probably have your favorites.  How can you find additional sites like those favorites?  Last week, Google launched a search feature that helps you easily find new websites that are similar to the ones with which you’re already familiar.

Google has offered a "Similar" feature on results for a while now as a way to discover new, useful sites, but it was easy to overlook. Now they are showing these alternative sites more prominently. For queries where similar sites are likely to be helpful, Google has started to display a list of "Pages similar" at the bottom of the results page. For example, if you search for Rootsweb, this is the list of sites similar:

Pages similar to http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/:

• FamilySearch.org - Search for family ancestors. Billions of free family ... - familysearch.org 
• USGenWeb Project - Consisting of a group of volunteers working ... - usgenweb.org 
• Genealogy Today - genealogy and family tree history, ancestry ... - genealogytoday.com 
• genealogy, ancestry, family history - Discover Your Ancestry, ... - kindredkonnections.com

  And right below that is Additional Searches Related to Rootsweb.

While a broad search like Rootsweb might give very obvious similar sites, try checking out Similar Sites when searching for surnames and localities related to your family tree and see if this the newest Google search feature is useful to you.

Additional Google Search Options

Google just added additional search filters to its Search Options.  You can find the Search Options side bar by clicking Show options on the blue bar above your search results on the Google Search Results Page (the page of results you get after you have entered a query into the Google search box).

Search Options helps the user filter search results by different criteria without opening a new page. Generally, Google gives what it considers the most relevant results first, but Search Options allows you to change the filter to meet your own needs.  Previously using Search Options, you could search withing a date range, get related search results, and get a Google translation.



You now have the following additional choices to further filter your Google search results:

• Visited pages  or Not yet visited  lets you search specifically for webpages you already viewed or not viewed. You can imagine how helpful it will be to select sites that you have Not yet visited  when searching for genealogy websites so that you don't keep checking out the same sites over and over.  This feature relies on your Google Web History so make sure you are logged into your Google account when surfing genealogy sites. 

• Fewer shopping sites or More shopping sites  could be useful when genealogy surfing if your search results keep giving book results at Amazon or memorabilia at eBay. Don't want those results?  Now you can choose Fewer shopping sites. 

• Blogs  This option will restrict results to just blogs. Blogs have been added as a search filter in addition to the filters for Images, Videos, News, Updates. Books, and Forums.

If you haven't tried doing your Google searches using Show Options located on the upper blue bar on your Google search results page, try it the next time you do a genealogy search.  I found these filters to really help filter and narrow down my search results.

Google's New Search Options

This week Google announced a new set of features called Search Options - a collection of tools that let you slice and dice your Google search results to generate different views to find what you need faster and easier.

Starting this week, a "Show Options" link now appears on the blue bar above the Google search results. See arrow above. Click on Show Options to see the new Google features.

Search Options helps the user filter search results by different criteria without opening a new page. Generally, Google gives what it considers the most relevant results first, but Search Options allows you to change the filter to meet your own needs.

Google Search Options now allows you to organize your search results by time so that the newest results will appear first. I think the Search Options will be especially useful for genealogy queries that are performed frequently. Genealogists are constantly looking for new info posted on the web to further research. By putting the newest sites first in the list of search results you are less likely to miss them.



The Search Options panel gives you the ability to view your results in new ways. One view gives you more information about each result, including images as well as text, while others let you explore and iterate your search by time.

You could search for your name, then change the results order to Recent Results, then further filter your search to Recent Results in Forums only with just a few clicks.

You can check more than one option under the different text results.

Take a look at the Wonder Wheel option. Perhaps Google is trying to make the process of refining queries more visual by adding a Wonder Wheel of related search suggestions. I'm not sure how useful it is but if you think of any ideas for its use, leave a note in the comments here.

The new Google Search Options are going to be very helpful so that we don't miss any new results for our genealogy queries. Try some of your Google queries that you frequently search for and take a look at the different results you find as you put the newest sites first.

Google says to keep watching as they plan to add additional features to the Search Options.

Google Blog Search Improvement

Google Blog Search has begun to search full blog posts. Previously Google Blog Search had only indexed the blog RSS feed. Since blog feeds can have either the full or partial blog text, often times only a small portion of the post would be found using Google Blog Search.

Since many blog authors don’t publish full feeds for a variety of reasons, the Google Blog Search has been missing a lot of what is posted in blogs. If a blog author posted a partial feed, Google didn't index links or the full text of the post which means the links and full text was not found in Google Blog Search.

Now Google says:

We have changed the way we index blog posts to include the full content of the page. We've had occasional complaints about the use of the feed content, particularly the problem with partial feeds. The indexing change has improved the results for a lot of queries, both because we have the full content of the page and because we extract links that are missing from the feeds.

With Google Blog Search you don't have to search each blog individually, but can search all blogs (and only blogs) at one time.

http://blogsearch.google.com/

Today, many of the top genealogy sites announce their new databases on their blogs - with surnames. Other blogs are devoted to research on particular ancestors - so a search of genealogy blogs could help you find repositories of otherwise unknown family tree information.

Some ideas to search for are ancestor surnames, genealogy topics, vital records, ancestral locations, or living relatives.

Google says:

Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively... Blog Search enables you to find out what people are saying on any subject of your choice.

You can choose to search posts from the last hour, last 12 hours, last day, past week, etc. so that you don't duplicate your searching effort. If you have previously used Google Blog Search thinking you have searched complete posts, you may want to do some re-searching.

You can also subscribe to 'blog alerts" to automate your blog queries for surnames and ancestral towns. You will receive an e-mail when your query keywords are found in a blog.

To create a query so that only genealogy blogs are searched, be sure to add ~genealogy to the query along with your surname or other keyword.

Google Blog Search

http://blogsearch.google.com/
Easy Genealogy Google Searcher, Part II
The blog search is also part of the Easy Genealogy Google Searcher, Part II

New Google Personalize Search Feature

Take a look around the Google Search Results page, and you'll start to notice some new items Google has been adding to the page.

One of these new features is a notation if Google is customizing your search results - giving you different search results than anyone else.

A message will appear in the top-right corner of the search results page, with a link to a page with more details about how and why Google personalized your search.

As long as you are logged into your Google account, Google will generally give you unique results based on geographic location, another recent search you performed, or items from your Web History.

Google Personalized Search gives your own unique search results only when you are logged into your Google account. Previously, you never knew when you were getting customized results since it was all done behind the scenes. Now that has changed.

Make sure you are logged into your Google account while Google searching so that Google can to learn how you search. Pretty soon Google will begin to give you more relevant and useful search results.

More about understanding Google Personalized Search.

Google Now Does Synonym Searches Automatically

Google has started including the automatic use of synonym searching in its search results as it continues to improve and change its understanding of search queries. Searching for synonyms means Google is now also finding words that are conceptually related to the keywords in the search query.

Previously, we had to search for the exact words that would be found on a web page. Now we can search for the concept. When we do a Google search, Google will find matches of the keyword, will find stem variations of the word, and now will also find synonyms of the keyword (words that are related to the keyword).

This was recently posted in The Official Google Blog: "We have made several notable advances including ... an advanced synonyms system. Synonyms are the foundation of our query understanding work. This is one of the hardest problems we are solving at Google. Though sometimes obvious to humans, it is an unsolved problem in automatic language processing.

As a user, I don't want to think too much about what words I should use in my queries. Often I don't even know what the right words are. This is where our synonyms system comes into action.

Our synonyms system can do sophisticated query modifications, e.g., it knows that the word 'Dr' in the query [Dr Zhivago] stands for Doctor whereas in [Rodeo Dr] it means Drive. A user looking for [back bumper repair] gets results about rear bumper repair. For [Ramstein ab], we automatically look for Ramstein Air Base; for the query [b&b ab] we search for Bed and Breakfasts in Alberta, Canada. We have developed this level of query understanding for almost one hundred different languages."

So, with almost no fanfare, Google has started the automatic use of synonyms in its searching. This is a step beyond stemming which Google has been doing for the last 5 years. With stemming, if you search for obit, you also get results for obits and obituary - variations of the same word. Now that Google is also searching for synonyms, obit might also return web pages that use the words death notice.

Previously, search for NJ and you only got pages that contained NJ. Google didn't consider New Jersey a match. Now, with synonym searching, it does.

Up until now, Google did not do synonym searching unless you specifically used the Google tilde synonym operator ~ .

This is a big algorithm change. Yet the change is so subtle that most people probably won't even notice it except to note that their Google results seem a bit better. Now people don't have to guess the exact words a webmaster uses on his web page to find the web page via Google.

However, we may not always want synonym searches such as when we are searching for surnames that are also common words. With this algorithmic change, we need to adjust the way we do some genealogy searches.

When I search for one of my surnames Powers, I not only receive the stemming words for Powers such as Power and Powered, now I also might receive synonyms such as Strengths. If I only want exact name Powers results with no stems and no synonyms, now I need to put a plus before the surname for an exact search. +Powers

If the surname you are searching for is Street, and find you are getting unwanted synonyms such as St. and Road, search for +Street to search for the exact word with no stemming and no synonyms. A plus sign before the surname with no space in between tells Google to search for that exact word.

Now that Google has added synonym matching for its search results, Google Personalized Search becomes even more important as it helps Google understand our queries better based on our past searching. And understanding how the Google Search Algorithm works is important because it can help us form better search queries.

Customizing Google Preferences for Better Genealogy Searches

You can get better Google search results if you first configure the options in your Google Preferences. To customize your Google Preferences, click on the Preferences link which is to the right of Google’s search box.

To me, the most important Google Preference is:

• Number of Results.
  This preference determines how many search results are displayed on one page. Google will normally return just 10 search results per page. I always increase my default to 100. (Note: If on dial up, you will probably have to test to see if increase the number works for you) What are the advantages?




• More Thorough Searching. When I have the preferences set to 10 results per page, I usually give up looking after 2 pages or so, which means I have only examined the first 20 results. But when genealogy searching, you may not be looking for the biggest or most popular genealogy sites which is what Google tends to put at the top of the search results. You may be trying to find a little unknown genealogy site where a cousin has put all of her 25 years of research. The site may only be of interest to a limited number of people and would probably not be at the top of the results in any search engine. If you only check 10 results or so, you may miss this website. When genealogy searching, be sure to dig past the first 10 results by setting preferences to 100. You never know what genealogy gem is waiting past the first 10 search results.


• Saves Time. Getting 100 results per page saves time when searching because it is much faster to scroll through one long result page than to manually click through 10 pages of results.

Here are the other Google Preferences and how they can help in your genealogy search:

• Interface Language - The language in which Google will display tips and messages. Your native language.


• Search Language - The language of the pages Google will search. A Google Search includes all pages in all languages on the Web unless you choose to restrict your searches to one language. Restricting language is especially useful when genealogy searching for webpages in the countries of your ancestors. For example, if I am looking for webpages about my German grandfather's home town, I would set the preference to search only German webpages. Don't forget to search in this language.


• SafeSearch - Blocks web pages with explicit sexual content. Just makes for a more targeted and more pleasant genealogy search to have SafeSearch turned on when genealogy searching.


• Results window - When enabled, clicking on the result link will open the page in a new browser window. This allows you to keep the original search page open while exploring the results links in another browser window.


• Subscribed Links - Google will search additional subscribed search providers if your query relates to them. An online dictionary subscribed link may be helpful if searching for unusual or old-fashioned words related to genealogy.
  

After selecting your preferences, remember to save them.



Other Google Genealogy Search Techniques:

• Search for Common Surnames
• Search using OR
• Search for Exact Word
• Search for Exact Name
• Search using Year Range
• Search using Wild Card
• Search for Synonyms
• Personalized Search

Try the Easy Google Genealogy Searcher which puts advanced Google features on one page with suggested keywords and advice about how each feature is useful for genealogy searches.

Searching Google's One Trillion URLs

Google recently posted in its blog:

Recently, even our search engineers stopped in awe about just how big the web is these days -- when our systems that process links on the web to find new content hit a milestone: 1 trillion (as in 1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs on the web at once!

The first Google index in 1998 had 26 million pages (not websites), and by 2000 the Google index reached one billion. Now it has 1 trillion pages - 1000 billion pages. Wow. Google hasn't indexed all 1 trillion pages; for example, they don't index duplicate content. But that is still a whole lotta URLs for Google to search through to find results for your query. Are you using the best keywords for your query so Google can find the page you want out of 1 trillion pages? As the web keeps growing, it seems more important than ever.

What are the last 5 things you searched Google for? Were you able to find what you were looking for?

Hint: If you don't remember your last 5 genealogy searches, go to http://google.com/ and click on "My Account" . Scroll down to "Web History". This will show all the web pages you have visited and all the Google searches you have performed. Look for the last 5 "Searched For" to find the last 5 Google Searches you did.

How did you do? Were you pleased with your results? If not, you can get some ideas for better Google searching at Surname Searching and More Google Search Tips.

By the way, 1 trillion is a hard number for me to grasp. It puts things a little more in focus when I realize that a trillion seconds = 31,546 years. And yet Google can complete a search in hundredths of a second.

Using Google to Find Common Surnames in a Genealogy Search

If you are searching for a surname that is also a common word such as Fox, Sales, Day, Park, or Green, you may have found that most of your searches bring up unwanted web pages that have nothing to do with genealogy.

Surnames that also can be first names such as James, Dennis or George have the same challenge.

Here are some tips to help find these difficult-to-find surnames using Google. These ideas work for all surnames, but are especially helpful for common word names:

• Use Google's Personalized Search. As Google learns your preferences, it will know that you are searching for Fox the surname and not fox the animal.
  
• Add ~genealogy to your query. Surprisingly, not every genealogy webpage has the word "genealogy" on the page, but using ~genealogy will find pages that use the words family history, family tree, or ancestry. A search would look like fox ~genealogy
  
• Eliminate false results by telling Google NOT to give results when a particular word appears on a web page. For example, fox -animal will eliminate all web pages on which the word animal appears. You can do more than one subtraction in a search. If you have eliminated all the pages about the animal fox, but find you are now getting search results about Fox News, you can add another subtracter to your query fox -animal -news which will eliminate all web pages on which the word animal and news appear.
  
• Add specifics to your query:
  
• Add first name to query using quotes. Search for "John Fox"
  
• Add a year range (generally birth and date death) to query. Search for "John Fox" 1800..1861
  
• Add location to query. Search for "John Fox" 1800..1861 Connecticut
  
• Add an additional name to query. If John Fox married Mary Wagner, search for "John Fox" "Mary Wagner" 1800..1861 Connecticut



• Add likely keywords that will appear on a genealogy page such as family or born. The keywords family or born are words that will more than likely appear on a genealogy web page and will help limit your search results to genealogy web pages.
  
• Another technique is "allintitle:" operator. This will search for the word in the title of the web page. This may capture some additional genealogy web pages about the surname usually buried deep in the search results. allintitle: fox genealogy
  
• Instead of using the Google search engine, try the Google Directory. Personal Web Pages found in the Google directory come from those submitted to dmoz.org. Although the DMOZ directory is woefully out-of-date and seems to regularly purge worthy websites, you still might find a helpful surname website here.
  
• Sometimes, a surname specific search engine is the only way to get results. Try the
  Surname Finder Search which searches databases by surname only.

Of course, all of these suggestions can be mixed and matched. More Google Search Tips

Google Personalized Search

Google Personalized Search means that Google gives you unique search results based on your Web History. If you and I are both logged into our Google accounts and we both have Web History, we might get different Google search results even if we used identical keywords.

You may have been getting Google Personalized Searches and not realized it. How do you know if you have Personalized Search? If you're signed into your Google account and do a search, you will see these links on the top right :

Web History - My Account - Sign Out

Google Personalized Search changes your search results by giving a boost in the search results to the types of sites you have previously searched for and selected from Google search results, especially if you have visited these sites often. Google will also boost sites and pages that Google's algorithm determines are related to those you are already visited.

There are actually three things that influence your Personalized Search results:

• Previous Google Web History
• Your iGoogle Personalized Homepage - blogs and other gadgets
• Your Google Bookmarks
  

Personalization is subtle—at first you may not notice any difference. But over time, as the search engine learns your preferences, you'll start to notice some differences.

Here is an example of how Personalized Search could work. Three different people may do a search using the keywords Civil War. The first person's web history shows a majority of genealogy searches and this person will get Civil War search results with a genealogy slant. The second person's web history shows that they are mostly interested in Civil War re-enactments and they will get served search results that are re-enactment related. The third person's web history shows that they are mostly interested in history, and, you guessed it, their results will have an emphasis on Civil War history. Subtle but each person received better results for their needs.

Sometimes, Personalized Search is very helpful in genealogy research by helping us find sites that are similar to sites we regularly frequent. I'm usually pleased to have my search results have a slight genealogy emphasis.

But sometimes having the sites you regularly visit always appear at the top of the search results may get in the way of finding new sites. In that case, log out of your Google account (top right link) and perform the search again to get slightly different results.

To see the difference in your search results with Personalized Search, do a little experiment. Search for the keyword genealogy while logged into your Google account. Take note of the first ten results. Then, log out of your Google account and perform the same search again. Note the top ten results and compare these results to your first search. When I do this, only two of the ten results are the same. Since my results are unique to me, you may find something completely different.

If you want Personalized Search and don't have it, all you need is a Google Account. If you have an existing Google Account and want to activate Web History to enable Personalized Search, visit http://www.google.com/history.

One additional point to make: I've been on RootsWeb mailing lists where people suggest to search for a particular term on Google and look at the "4th result". Now that you understand about Personalized Search, you will see that my 4th result and someone else's 4th result will probably be completely different. Better to give the name of the site that you see as the "4th result".

Comparative Analysis of Google Search Terms

I'd like to follow through on the question AncestryInsider posed at the Genea-Musings GuestBook in reference to my article about The Genealogy Search Trend on Google.

Ancestry Insider: To followup Kathi's article on Genealogy searching on Google, someone needs to do a comparative analysis of other search terms. Did all hobbies decrease in like fashion? It would be interesting to compare genealogy against other hobbies such as gardening and stamp collecting. Did people's interests move from hobbies to some other aspect of their lives? Besides hobbies, maybe you could look at other categories such as employment, finances, religion, politics, etc. Does the decrease demonstrate increased competition from other search websites? Maybe a majority of search terms have seen a decrease.

The Ancestry Insider wants to know if all hobbies decreased in like fashion:

Above is a comparison chart of search trend for different hobbies over the past four years. The keyword genealogy (blue), is the only hobby to show a relative decrease in searches. The other hobbies do not show a decline, although gardening (red), as would be expected, does show large up-and-down seasonal variations in the chart. Yet gardening still ends in the same relative position on the chart over the years. Scrapbooking (green) also shows a relatively steady line across the years. Stamp collecting (gold) shows a steady line but relatively lower than others on the chart - barely visible at the bottom of the chart.

The Ancestry Insider asks if people's interests moved from hobbies to some other aspect of their lives:

Above is a chart that show a comparison of searches for genealogy (blue), stocks (red), politics (gold), and religion (green) as search words. Religion (green) and genealogy (blue) both show a decline, while stocks and politics remain steady. None of these hobbies seem to have filled the hole left by the decrease in genealogy searching. However, because these charts show relative numbers, genealogy appears to have less of a relative decline than when compared to other aspects.

The Ancestry Insider asks if the decrease demonstrates an increased competition from other search websites:

Google's U.S. search referral percentage has increased from 52% in 2005 to 64% in 2007 to the new all time high of 67.25% in 2008. So, the decrease in the keyword genealogy is not caused by increased search competition. Google has been gaining in searches every year.


The Ancestry Insider asks if perhaps a majority of search terms have seen a decrease:

Hard to say since Google does not release absolute numbers. And Google Trends only releases information on the largest and broadest of search keywords.

I don't think an analysis of Google Trends shows the reason for the decrease in the Google keyword search of genealogy. The other hobby keywords that I tried are not declining. The other "aspects of life" keywords I tried are not declining. Google is growing every year in the number of searches relative to other search engines. Google Trends is not meant to provide detailed analysis - just broad strokes. There is really not enough information to draw a conclusion as to why genealogy is declining as a keyword on Google Trends.

However, you may be interested in the 2007 Year-End Google Zeitgeist which shows the fastest growing and fastest falling Google Search keywords in 2007. You will see a lot of keywords that have increased, but there is nothing to show a "cause and effect" of some keywords rising while genealogy is falling.

Google's WildCard in Genealogy Searches

A wildcard in a Google search query is indicated by an asterisk * and will match one or more whole words.

Name Search

For genealogy searches, the asterisk * is one way to search for a name that has a middle name or initial. Your ancestor's name may be Henry Aloysius Smith and in his lifetime he may have signed all legal documents as Henry A. Smith. A Google search for Henry * Smith will return results for both Henry Aloysius Smith and Henry A. Smith. Unfortunately, It will also return results for Henry Benjamin Smith, Henry B. Smith, Henry C. Smith, and so on; but it will not return results for Henry Smith (listed on a website with no middle name or initial).

So, in order to search for webpages that contain his name with a middle name or initial AND his name without either: Henry Aloysius Smith, Henry A. Smith or Henry Smith, use the query :

"Henry * Smith" OR "Henry Smith"

Be sure to leave a space before and after the asterisk. You can search for phrases with or without quotation marks, but using the quotation marks gives better results than leaving them off. Quotation marks force Google to find the exact phrase within the quotes, except for the wildcard word, especially if the wildcard word is the first or last word in the search terms.

Place Name Search

To search for a missing word in a phrase in a place name, you can again use Google's wildcard operator. If you know one word of a two word place name, you can use the wild card search for the second word. You may have found an old document where part of the name is illegible , or you might not be able to remember the whole name. Put the place name in quotes and substitute the wild card for the missing word. For example, search for

"Glen *, Pennsylvania" or " * Springs, Pennsylvania".

Double Asterisk

An asterisk replaces one missing word in a query. You can use a double asterisk to replace two missing words. You can use as many asterisks in a search query as you'd want but the more actual words you're able to supply in your search phrase, the more likely you are to find what you're searching for.

Whole Worlds Only

Wildcard searches in Google work for whole words or phrases only. Google doesn't support a search in which an asterisk indicates a part or extension of a word: John* will not find Johnson in Google. Google does use stemming technology -- when appropriate, Google will search not only for your search terms, but also for words that are similar to some or all of those terms. For example, if you search for power, it will return searches for power, powers, powered, and powerful.

Google Genealogy Search Techniques

• Search using OR
• Search for Exact Word
• Search for Exact Name
• Search using Year Range
• Search for Synonyms
  
  

Try the Easy Google Genealogy Searcher which puts advanced Google features on one page with suggested keywords and advice about how each feature is useful for genealogy searches.