What’s a Search Engine? FAQ
A search engine, to put it in the most simplest terms, is the thing you type into when you’re looking for something on the internet. You know, you go onto your laptop, open up the internet icon, the screen opens up and it says ‘Google’ on it with a white bar underneath that you can type into, you click the little magnifying glass thingy… Yeah, that’s your search engine. Google is King. Bing, well, Bing has a lot of growing up to do.
So… Can you use Google to look for anything?
Pretty much. That doesn’t mean you’ll get exactly what you’re looking for 100% of the time though. You’ll get what you want if you type in something relatively simple such as ‘black and white trainers’, ‘fish flavour cat food’ or ‘Channel 5 TV Guide 11th March’. However if you type something like ‘my neighbour keeps putting her gold fish on my wall and I find it offensive so I want to know what I can do to combat this as it’s every day and my rights as a tenant aren’t being respected’… You’re probably going to get things like fish tanks, online wallpaper sales, army combat techniques and some official guidelines on landlord and tenant law along with a bunch of other random stuff.
So Google can only understand simple requests?
Not necessarily. It’s not that your requests have to be simple, it’s that they have to be succinct. For example, searching ‘black and white trainers’ will bring you online stores where you can buy different brands or black and white trainers. Typing in ‘latest black and white trainers’ will bring you black and white trainers for sale, as well as websites with the latest styles and fashion advice on ‘how to wear the latest style of trainer’. We say just stuff your foot in but hey… we’re more geek than chic. If you were to type in ‘black and white trainers worn by Michelle Rodriguez in LOOK magazine’, chances are you’ll find a picture of Michelle Rodriguez wearing said black and white trainers in a photo published by LOOK magazine along with several other photos of Michelle Rodriguez in black and white trainers. See where this is going? You have to give Google something solid to work with. You wouldn’t just shout a garbled salad of random sentences at someone in the street and expect them to understand you.
So I need to narrow things down?
Yes. If your neighbour actually is being bizarre with her goldfish and annoying you by using your wall as a hang-out spot for ol’ Nemo – MARLIN WE FOUND YOUR SON! – then you have some options. You could Google ‘problems with my neighbour’, ‘my neighbour is annoying me’ or ‘being cruel to goldfish’. The results you would get returned will be much more useful and more often than not, are a stepping stone for even more options. The internet is gargantuan and the wealth of knowledge available to you is astonishing however you can also find a lot of old tosh on there. Anyone can upload anything to the internet, fact or fiction, so keep that in mind.