 |
|
|
|
Google SearchesTips and Strategies for Google searches.
Our video tutorials require Flash. If your computer does not have it, download the free Flash plug-in. Google ranks sites by relevance, popularity, and other variables that Google won’t say much about. Relevancy is extremely important, because Google looks for exact matches with the keywords you enter into the search box. The popularity issue is a touch more nebulous. Here is how it works: a link from site A to site B is essentially a “vote” for site B. The more votes site B (or site A) gets, the higher it climbs in Google’s ranking of Web pages. If site A is itself a very popular site, then its vote for site B counts more than a vote from a less popular site. That is a basic explanation of Google’s popularity measurement. Just keep in mind (and remind your students) that popularity does not necessarily mean credibility. The credibility of a Web site is something that we all have to ascertain. Try evaluating some Web sites together. Have students try to find a reliable Web site and an unreliable Web site, project examples of each onto a screen, and then ask them these questions of each Web site:
|
|
Too often students come to us and claim they “can’t find anything” on their topic on the Web or they “can’t find anything good.” Often it is because they do not have a search strategy with appropriate keywords. Google is currently the Web’s most popular search engine, and -- for better or worse -- the primary research tool for most students. Though we think that Ask.com organizes search results in a clearer navigational manner than does Google, the reality is that our students turn to Google more often than not for online search needs. So, we focus our efforts in this section on using that particular tool.