HOW TO SEARCH ON GOOGLE
Step 1: Go To Google (But Which Google?)
Obviously, to search Google, you have to go to Google. But did you know there are various ways to reach the site? In fact, that there are even different Google web sites? There are!
You can go directly to Google.com by typing in https://google.com into your web browser. That will take you to the main Google web site, which is designed to serve the United States plus the world in general.
If you are outside the United States, you may prefer to go to the version of Google designed for your own country. You’ll find a list of country-specific versions of Google shown on this page.
Google also offers a variety of “vertical” search engines, which are versions of Google that let you search just for particular types of material like images, videos or news stories. If you’re interested in specific content like this, it may make more sense to search starting at one of these subject-specific versions of Google. You’ll find a list of them here, under the “search” heading.
Step 2: Go To Google Via A Toolbar
A faster way to use Google is to enter a search into the search box that’s built into most popular browsers. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox have little boxes in the top right corners where you can type what you’re searching for, hit return, and the search results will load into your browser:
Note that Internet Explorer may be already set to use Microsoft’s Bing search engine rather than Google, if you type into the search toolbar. This is easily changed. The article below talks more about it:
Step 3: Enter Your Search Terms
Actually searching Google is pretty easy. Just type what you’re interested in finding into the search box on the Google web site or into your toolbar!
If you’re using a toolbar, as you type, you may see words begin to appear below the toolbar’s search box. These are suggestions that Google thinks may match what you’re interested in. Google calls this “Google Suggest” or “Autocomplete.” You can ignore the suggestions, but if one seems useful, select it to save some
Google Instant Search: The Complete User’s Guide
Step 4: Review Your Search Results
After you’ve searched, you’ll get a page full of results. Some of these will be matching pages from across the web. Some of these will be matching content from those subject-specific versions of Google that were mentioned above. You might get news or image results mixed in, as you can see below:
This mixing is called “Universal Search,” and the articles below explain more about how it works:
Google 2.0: Google Universal Search
Google Universal Search: 2008 Edition
The units that get mixed in are called OneBox results. Sometimes, you’ll also get special OneBoxes that give you a direct answer, without requiring a click away from Google. For example, here’s the weather in Los Angeles:
The article below has more about how OneBox answers work:
Meet The Google OneBox, Plus Box, Direct Answers & The 10-Pack
Google also has a guide to special searches like weather, stock quotes, the current time, sports scores and more than will trigger direct answers: