What is Google?

Google is a search engine. A search engine is a program that searches for and identifies items on the Internet that correspond to keywords specified by the user. Google typically uses a program called web crawlers or spiders to discover publicly available webpages and display results to the user.

What can you find on Google?

There are number of different items you can come across when using Google, such as:

• Grey Literature
• Articles
• Websites
• News
• Videos
• Wikipedia
• Images
• Maps

However, what you find is in many ways dependent on how you are searching for it! It is common for people to use semantic searching, or a “regular language” search. Instead of connecting only keywords, semantic searching is connecting concepts within context and intent to showcase results that are relevant to your search.

However, if you have an in-depth research question you want to answer, then your approach to inquiry requires much more critical thinking and self-reflection.

The Caveat of Google

It’s important to note that, like academic databases, Google and other search engines are owned by for-profit corporations. The difference between databases and search engines is that search engines privately engage in algorithmic conduct to protect their competitive advantage.

This extends to how search engines’ revenue stream is largely built around advertising revenue, as opposed to the subscription-based model of academic databases. Monetization or paid content, user data and clicks, and corporate policies are what influences the design of Google searching, not necessarily overall relevancy or quality of the results.^[1]

Google, as well as other search engines and social media algorithms, can also function as black boxes, which means that users and even employees may not see exactly how they work. As users, this means you will not be able to predict when your search results are impacted by biases, and it’s difficult to know how to fix those biases. This is why implementing strong search strategies can help improve the quality of results when you use Google!

Helpful Resources when Searching on Google

Google Algorithm

• How Google’s search works
• Google’s search algorithm, with helpful current 3rd parties’ analysis on its updates that influence its algorithms (such as these articles from BBC or Wired)
• Track the latest content with Google Alerts (this requires an account!)

Techniques to find Diverse Voices using Search Engines

Search Terms

To find more diverse voices on the topic you are researching about, consider using a range of inclusive terms in your search strategy. There are many voices that are excluded from academic databases and search engines like Google that can and do contribute important knowledge to the research conversation.

Formal controlled languages (like Subject Headings) which libraries, databases, and other institutions use may not follow self-chosen terms, which reflects in the results you might find in the inquiry process. Search terms may evolve over time as community-based needs and preferences change. This requires reflection in your search process on any community-preferred and colloquial language, and an openness to explore ways of finding these terms (ex. Using and parsing through hashtags on social media).^[2]

You may see the advanced techniques below that can support an effective search strategy, read more on harmful vocabulary you may come across in your search process, as well following other resources provided in our “As You Research” series!

Advanced Search Mechanics

• Filetype: limits search results to specific type of file (ex. PDFs, Word Documents, Powerpoint presentations, etc.)
• .site: restricts search to specific website or domain (ex. .org, .edu, .gov, or other specific orgs)
• Boolean Operators: commands used in searches to combine keywords and refine results, such as…
• AND: combines both specified terms from search results
• OR: gives either specified terms from search results
• NOT (-): excludes specified terms from search results
• “Quotes”: use quotation marks around inquiry to search for exact phrases in the exact order you need, since Google may leave search terms out to fetch more results
• Filter: click through the options to filter results by date, region, language, last updates, usage rights, and more.
• Truncation: using * as a wildcard or fill-in-the-blanks during your searching (ex. “The * who * Me movie” should have “The Spy Who Loved Me” in the top search results). Please note this only applies to full words, not partial words (ex. “Canad*” will not bring up alternative terms like in other databases, which may bring up “Canada” OR “Canadian”)
• Num..range: search results within range of numbers (ex. “best actress oscar winners 2010..2015”)

Caption: “Google Searching” from Western Libraries Open Educational Resource “Knowledge Justice in the Helping Professions: From Theory to Practice”. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.