Books & Videos

Google Hacks

100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tricks

By Rael Dornfest, Tara Calishain

Publisher: O'Reilly Media

Release Date: February 2003

Pages: 352

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The Internet puts a wealth of information at your fingertips, and all you have to know is how to find it. Google is your ultimate research tool--a search engine that indexes more than 2.4 billion web pages, in more than 30 languages, conducting more than 150 million searches a day. The more you know about Google, the better you are at pulling data off the Web. You've got a cadre of techniques up your sleeve--tricks you've learned from practice, from exchanging ideas with others, and from plain old trial and error--but you're always looking for better ways to search. It's the "hacker" in you: not the troublemaking kind, but the kind who really drives innovation by trying new ways to get things done. If this is you, then you'll find new inspiration (and valuable tools, too) in Google Hacks from O'Reilly's new Hacks Series.

Google Hacks is a collection of industrial-strength, real-world, tested solutions to practical problems. The book offers a variety of interesting ways for power users to mine the enormous amount of information that Google has access to, and helps you have fun while doing it. You'll learn clever and powerful methods for using the advanced search interface and the new Google API, including how to build and modify scripts that can become custom business applications based on Google. Google Hacks contains 100 tips, tricks and scripts that you can use to become instantly more effective in your research. Each hack can be read in just a few minutes, but can save hours of searching for the right answers.

Written by experts for intelligent, advanced users, O'Reilly's new Hacks Series have begun to reclaim the term "hacking" for the good guys. In recent years the term "hacker" has come to be associated with those nefarious black hats who break into other people's computers to snoop, steal information, or disrupt Internet traffic. But the term originally had a much more benign meaning, and you'll still hear it used this way whenever developers get together. Our new Hacks Series is written in the spirit of true hackers--the people who drive innovation.

If you're a Google power user, you'll find the technical edge you're looking for in Google Hacks.

Chapter 1 Searching Google
1. Hacks #1-28
2. What Google Isn’t
3. What Google Is
4. Google Basics
5. The Special Syntaxes
6. Advanced Search
7. Setting Preferences
8. Language Tools
9. Anatomy of a Search Result
10. Specialized Vocabularies: Slang and Terminology
11. Getting Around the 10 Word Limit
12. Word Order Matters
13. Repetition Matters
14. Mixing Syntaxes
15. Hacking Google URLs
16. Hacking Google Search Forms
17. Date-Range Searching
18. Understanding and Using Julian Dates
19. Using Full-Word Wildcards
20. inurl: Versus site:
21. Checking Spelling
22. Consulting the Dictionary
23. Consulting the Phonebook
24. Tracking Stocks
25. Google Interface for Translators
26. Searching Article Archives
27. Finding Directories of Information
28. Finding Technical Definitions
29. Finding Weblog Commentary
30. The Google Toolbar
31. The Mozilla Google Toolbar
32. The Quick Search Toolbar
33. GAPIS
34. Googling with Bookmarklets
Chapter 2 Google Special Services and Collections
1. Hacks #29-35
2. Google’s Current Offerings
3. Google Directory
4. Google Groups
5. Google Images
6. Google News
7. Google Catalogs
8. Froogle
9. Google Labs
Chapter 3 Third-Party Google Services
1. Hacks #36-40
2. Of Google, but Not Google
3. Tinkering with the UI
4. Expanding the Options with the Google API
5. Thinking Way Outside the Box
6. XooMLe: The Google API in Plain Old XML
7. Google by Email
8. Simplifying Google Groups URLs
9. What Does Google Think Of...
10. GooglePeople
Chapter 4 Non-API Google Applications
1. Hacks #41-49
2. Don’t Try This at Home
3. Building a Custom Date-Range Search Form
4. Building Google Directory URLs
5. Scraping Google Results
6. Scraping Google AdWords
7. Scraping Google Groups
8. Scraping Google News
9. Scraping Google Catalogs
10. Scraping the Google Phonebook
Chapter 5 Introducing the Google Web API
1. Hacks #50-59
2. Why an API?
3. Signing Up and Google’s Terms
4. The Google Web APIs Developer’s Kit
5. Using the Key in a Hack
6. What’s WSDL?
7. Understanding the Google API Query
8. Understanding the Google API Response
9. Programming the Google Web API with Perl
10. Looping Around the 10-Result Limit
11. The SOAP::Lite Perl Module
12. Plain Old XML, a SOAP::Lite Alternative
13. NoXML, Another SOAP::Lite Alternative
14. Programming the Google Web API with PHP
15. Programming the Google Web API with Java
16. Programming the Google Web API with Python
17. Programming the Google Web API with C# and .NET
18. Programming the Google Web API with VB.NET
Chapter 6 Google Web API Applications
1. Hacks #60-85
2. The Ingenuity of Millions
3. Learning to Code
4. What You’ll Find Here
5. Finding More Google API Applications
6. The Possibilities Aren’t Endless, but They’re Expanding
7. Date-Range Searching with a Client-Side Application
8. Adding a Little Google to Your Word
9. Permuting a Query
10. Tracking Result Counts over Time
11. Visualizing Google Results
12. Meandering Your Google Neighborhood
13. Running a Google Popularity Contest
14. Building a Google Box
15. Capturing a Moment in Time
16. Feeling Really Lucky
17. Gleaning Phonebook Stats
18. Performing Proximity Searches
19. Blending the Google and Amazon Web Services
20. Getting Random Results (On Purpose)
21. Restricting Searches to Top-Level Results
22. Searching for Special Characters
23. Digging Deeper into Sites
24. Summarizing Results by Domain
25. Scraping Yahoo! Buzz for a Google Search
26. Measuring Google Mindshare
27. Comparing Google Results with Those of Other Search Engines
28. SafeSearch Certifying URLs
29. Syndicating Google Search Results
30. Searching Google Topics
31. Finding the Largest Page
32. Instant Messaging Google
Chapter 7 Google Pranks and Games
1. Hacks #86-92
2. The No-Result Search (Prank)
3. Google Whacking
4. GooPoetry
5. Creating Google Art
6. Google Bounce
7. Google Mirror
8. Finding Recipes
Chapter 8 The Webmaster Side of Google
1. Hacks #93-100
2. Google’s Preeminence
3. Google’s Importance to Webmasters
4. The Mysterious PageRank
5. The Equally Mysterious Algorithm
6. Google’s Ad Programs
7. Keeping Up with Google’s Changes
8. In a Word: Relax
9. A Webmaster’s Introduction to Google
10. Generating Google AdWords
11. Inside the PageRank Algorithm
12. 26 Steps to 15K a Day
13. Being a Good Search Engine Citizen
14. Cleaning Up for a Google Visit
15. Getting the Most out of AdWords
16. Removing Your Materials from Google

Colophon

Books & Videos

Google Hacks

100 Industrial-Strength Tips &amp; Tricks

Read on Safari with a 10-day trial

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Searching Google

Hacks #1-28

What Google Isn’t

What Google Is

Google Basics

The Special Syntaxes

Advanced Search

Setting Preferences

Language Tools

Anatomy of a Search Result

Specialized Vocabularies: Slang and Terminology

Getting Around the 10 Word Limit

Word Order Matters

Repetition Matters

Mixing Syntaxes

Hacking Google URLs

Hacking Google Search Forms

Date-Range Searching

Understanding and Using Julian Dates

Using Full-Word Wildcards

inurl: Versus site:

Checking Spelling

Consulting the Dictionary

Consulting the Phonebook

Tracking Stocks

Google Interface for Translators

Searching Article Archives

Finding Directories of Information

Finding Technical Definitions

Finding Weblog Commentary

The Google Toolbar

The Mozilla Google Toolbar

The Quick Search Toolbar

GAPIS

Googling with Bookmarklets

Chapter 2 Google Special Services and Collections

Hacks #29-35

Google’s Current Offerings

Google Directory

Google Groups

Google Images

Google News

Google Catalogs

Froogle

Google Labs

Chapter 3 Third-Party Google Services

Hacks #36-40

Of Google, but Not Google

Tinkering with the UI

Expanding the Options with the Google API

Thinking Way Outside the Box

XooMLe: The Google API in Plain Old XML

Google by Email

Simplifying Google Groups URLs

What Does Google Think Of...

GooglePeople

Chapter 4 Non-API Google Applications

Hacks #41-49

Don’t Try This at Home

Building a Custom Date-Range Search Form

Building Google Directory URLs

Scraping Google Results

Scraping Google AdWords

Scraping Google Groups

Scraping Google News

Scraping Google Catalogs

Scraping the Google Phonebook

Chapter 5 Introducing the Google Web API

Hacks #50-59

Why an API?

Signing Up and Google’s Terms

The Google Web APIs Developer’s Kit

Using the Key in a Hack

What’s WSDL?

Understanding the Google API Query

100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tricks