Google offers a variety of services and tools besides its
basic web search. This is a list of Google's services and tools.
Google Services
Google Alerts
Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there
are new Google results for your search terms. Google currently
offers three types of alerts: 'News,' 'Web,' and 'News & Web.' A
'News' alert is an email that lets you know if new articles make
it into the top ten results of your Google News search. A 'Web'
alert is an email that lets you know if new web pages appear in
the top twenty results for your Google Web search. A 'News &
Web' alert is an email that lets you know when new articles
related to your search term make it into the top ten results for
a Google News search or the top twenty results for a Google Web
search. Google Alerts are available in plain text as well as
[HTML].
Google Alerts Website (http://www.google.com/alerts)
Google Answers
In April
2002,
Google launched a new service called "Google Answers". Google
Answers is an extension to the conventional search rather than
doing the search themselves, users pay someone else to do the
search. Customers ask questions, offer a price for an answer,
and researchers answer them. Researchers are screened through an
application process that tests their research and communications
abilities. Prices for questions range from $2 to $200; Google
keeps 25% of the payment, sends the rest to the researchers, and
charges an additional $0.50 listing fee. Once a question is
answered, it remains available for anyone to browse for free.
This service came out of beta in May 2003
and presently receives more than one hundred question postings
per day. Google states that asking questions about google is not
allowed on Google Answers.
Google Answers Website (http://answers.google.com)
Google Catalogs
As of late August, 2004, Google's catalogs search feature is
in the beta stage. Numerous (over 6,600 at the time of this
writing) print catalogs are archived on Google as scanned image
files. Through the use of character recognition, users can
search for a text string in these catalogs in a fashion similar
to how they would for materials on the general web. Matching
results are displayed through thumbnails of the page(s) on which
the text was found, with the specific area of the page where the
search result is found shaded in a yellow box. Another image
file next to the thumbnail, a shrunk version of the highlighted
area on the thumbnail, highlights the exact location of the
search result. Users can then access the page of the catalog (as
a larger graphic file) and change pages by using a navigation
bar positioned above the page image. It might be worth noting
that one can access the catalogs without a search as well.
Google Catalogs Website (http://catalogs.google.com)
Google Directory
The directory is a subset of the links in Google's database
arranged into hierarchical subcategories like an advanced
Yellow Pages of the web. The original source of the
directory, and the categorization is the
Open Directory Project (ODP).
[1] (http://dmoz.org/),
which publishes a easily parsed version of its database in
Resource Description Framework format for other sites, like
Google, to use for derivative directories.
Google Directory Website (http://directory.google.com)
Froogle
In December 2003,
Google announced
Froogle, a
price engine-like
spin-off that searches online stores for particular products.
This site had been active in
beta for some months. It is now offered in
Wireless Markup Language (WML) form and can be accessed from
cellphones or other wireless devices that have support for
WML. Froogle organizes its results by relevence, and they do not
accept payment for products to show up first. You may choose to
browse through the merchandise categories listed on Froogle's
home page until you find exactly the item you want to buy.
Froogle Website (http://froogle.google.com)
Google Groups
Google maintains a
Usenet archive, called Google Groups (formerly an
independent site known as
Deja News). Google is currently testing a new version of its
Groups service, which archives
mailing lists in addition to usenet posts, using the same
interface as Gmail (see below). Formally knows as "Google Groups
2," the new version of Google Groups is much more advanced than
the last, letting you more easily join a group, make a group,
and track your favorite topics.
Google Groups Website (http://groups.google.com)
Google Images
In
2003, Google announced Google Images, which allows users to
search the web for image content. The keywords for the image
search are based on the filename of the image, the link text
pointing to the image, and text adjacent to the image. When
searching for an image, a thumbnail of each matching image is
displayed. Then when clicking on a thumbnail, the image is
displayed on a frame at the top of the page and the website on
which that image was found is displayed on a frame below it,
making it easier to see from where the image is coming.
Google Images Website (http://images.google.com)
Google Labs
Google Labs consists of all of Google's experimental
technologies. Located at
http://labs.google.com/, Google Labs is akin to a directory
page that links to all Google technologies under development or
in beta that have not yet been made widely available. From the
Google Labs home page, a user can access Google Suggest, Google
Desktop Search, and other web technologies.
Google Labs Website (http://labs.google.com)
Google Local
Google Local helps you focus your search on a specific
geographic location. Sometimes you want to search the whole
worldwide web, and sometimes you just want to find an auto parts
store within walking distance. The service lets you search for a
"What" such as pizza
and a "Where" such as
Poughkeepsie, NY. The purpose of Google Local is to help
people find local businesses. Not only does Google Local display
the website of the businesses, but often times it will display
the phone number and address, too. Google Local was introduced
to the Google home page a few weeks ago and is now the basis of
Google Maps.
Google Local Website (http://local.google.com)
Google Maps
On
February 8,
2005,
Google introduced a
Beta release of an online
map
service called
Google Maps, which currently only covers the USA
and
Canada. It can interact with Google Local to restrict
results to a certain areas. The service features draggable maps,
a location search, and turn-by-turn directions. It has received
early praise for the speed of its operation, produced by the
pre-rendering the maps it uses (see
this analysis (http://jgwebber.blogspot.com/2005/02/mapping-google.html)).
It currently only works with
Internet Explorer and
Mozilla-based browsers like
Firefox. Google also recently added support for Apple's
Safari web browser.
Google Maps Website (http://maps.google.com)
Google Mobile
Allows users to search using Google from wireless devices
such as
mobile phone and
PDAs.
Google Mobile Website (http://mobile.google.com)
Google News
Google introduced a
beta release of an automated news
compilation service, "Google News" in April 2002.
There are different versions of the aggregator for more than 20
languages, with more added all the time. To quell any charges of
reporting bias, it is fully automated with no human editors.
The service covers the news articles that appeared within the
past 30 days on news websites in the language concerned, from
various countries; for the English language it covers about
4,500 sites, for other languages less. It provides around the
first 200 characters and links to the full article. Some of
these websites require a subscription; in that case this is
noted in the Google News summary of their articles.
Google News provides searching, and the choice of sorting the
results by date and time of publishing (not to be confused with
date and time of the news happening) or grouping them (and also
grouping without searching). In the English version, there is an
option to tailor the grouping to a selected national audience.
Users can request Google News Alerts on various topics by
subscribing while using key words. An email
is sent when a news article matching the request comes online.
Users can now customize the displayed sections, their
location on the page and how many stories are visible with a
JavaScript based
drag and drop interface. Stories from different editions of
Google News can be combined to form one personalized page, with
the options stored in a
cookie.
Google News Website (http://news.google.com)
Google Personalized
This service allows users to create a profile based on their
interests. Future search results are prioritized based on this
information.
Google Personalized Website (http://labs.google.com/personalized)
Google Print
In August 2004, Google announced its new "Google Print"
service. This tool searches the contents of books submitted by
publishers and displays matches above web matches on the search
result page. It offers links to purchase the book, as well as
content-related advertisements. Google will limit the number of
viewable pages from any book through user-tracking. As of early
January 2005,
this service remains in the beta stage. This feature is similar
to a service offered by
A9.com.
In December 2004, Google announced an extension to its Google
Print program
[2] (http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/12/all-booked-up.html).
It is a non-exclusive deal with several high-profile university
and public libraries, including the
University of Michigan,
Harvard (Widener
Library),
Stanford (Green
Library),
Oxford (Bodleian
Library), and the
New York Public Library. According to press releases and
university librarians, Google plans to have approximately 15
million
public domain volumes online within a decade.
[3] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/technology/14google.html?hp&ex=1103086800&en=9d5c79b92752adff&ei=5094&partner=homepage)[4] (http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/print_library.html)[5] (http://print.google.com/googleprint/library.html)[6] (http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/27080.htm).
Google Print Website (http://print.google.com)
Google Scholar
In November, 2004, Google released "Google Scholar", which
indexes and searches academic literature across an array of
sources and disciplines. Results are ranked by "relevance",
which is based largely on the number of citations and in this
sense is similar to PageRank.
Google Scholar Website (http://scholar.google.com)
Google Special
Allows users to perform special searches such as U.S.
Government Search, Linux Search, BSD Search,
Apple Macintosh Search, and a
Microsoft Windows Search.
Google Special Website (http://www.google.com/options/specialsearches.html)
Google Suggest
A new feature called Google Suggest Beta was
introduced (http://www.google.com/googleblog/2004/12/ive-got-suggestion.html)
on
December 10,
2004.
It provides an
autocomplete functionality that gives the user suggestions
as they type.
JavaScript is used to rapidly query the server and update
the page for each keystroke that the user types. The feature
quickly drew widespread praise as an impressive innovation, and
so far competitors have not offered anything similarly
real-time. The Google Suggest website is available at
a special URL (http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en)
linked from the Google Labs site.
It was also quickly noticed that Google attempts to avoid
suggesting potentially offensive searches. For instance, there
are no suggestions for searches containing the word
porn, but there are many for pr0n and other
variations that aren't on the
blacklist. Although pr0n (with a zero) is allowed,
pron is on the blacklist, which has the side-effect of not
suggesting searches containing any words that include pron
such as
apron,
mispronunciation,
pronunciation or
prone. Unlike pron and sex, the word
ass
is only blacklisted when it appears with a space after it, so
words containing ass such as associated are
suggested. The blacklist also includes the word
lesbian, but not
faggot,
nigger,
shit,
or several other words that are often included on
profanity blacklists.
Google Suggest Website (http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en)
Google University
Allows users to search within certain University domains.
Google University Website (http://www.google.com/options/universities.html)
Google Video
On
January 25,
2005,
Google introduced a beta of Google Video, allowing users to
search through
television content based on title, network or a
closed caption transcript. The Google Video website is at
video.google.com
Google Video Website (http://video.google.com/)
Google Web Search
Googles most famous creation is the
Google search engine.
Google.com
has indexed over 8
billion
Web sites, has 200
million requests a day and is the largest search engine on
the Internet. The search engine allows you to search through
images, products (Froogle),
news, and the
usenet archive. It uses a proprietary (including the
infamous
PageRank system) to return the search results. A culture has
grown around the very popular search engine and the word
to google has come to mean, "to search for something on
Google."
Google Home Page (http://www.google.com)
Google Tools
Blogger
In
2003, Google acquired the
Pyra Labs and
Blogger services. Formerly premium features that needed to
be paid for were made available for free by Google. The tool,
Blogger, is a service to make
weblog publishing easier. The user does not have to write
any code or worry about installing server software or scripts.
Nevertheless, the user can influence the design of his blog
freely.
Blogger Website (http://www.blogger.com/)
Google Browser Buttons
This tool allows users to put links to Google services in
their
web browsers.
Google Browser Buttons Website (http://www.google.com/options/buttons.html)
Gmail
On
April 1,
2004,
Google announced its own free
webmail service,
Gmail,
which would provide users with 1000
megabytes of storage for their mailboxes and would generate
revenue by displaying advertisements from the AdWords service
based on words in users' e-mail messages. Owing to
April Fool's Day, however, the company's press release was
greeted with much skepticism in the technology world. Jonathan
Rosenberg, Google's vice-president of products, re-assured
BBC News by saying "We are very serious about Gmail." When
Gmail was announced, the storage space available was vastly more
than that of most other free
webmail providersfor example,
Microsoft's
Hotmail only offered 2 MB, and
Yahoo!'s Mail service offered 4 MB. In response to Gmail,
these limits have been upgraded, to 250 MB. There has been a
great deal of criticism regarding Gmail's privacy policy. Most
of the criticism was over Google's plans to add
context-sensitive advertisements to e-mails by automatically
scanning them.
Gmail Website (https://gmail.google.com/)
Google Language Tool
This tool allows users to use Google in many different
languages.
Google Language Tools Website (http://www.google.com/language_tools)
Google Web API
The Google Web API (or
Google Web Services) is Google's public interface for registered
developers. Using
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), a programmer can write
services for search and
data mining that rely on Google's results. Also, websurfers
can view cached pages and make suggestions for better
spelling.
By default a developer has a limit of 1,000 requests per day.
This program is still in Beta phase. Google is one of the few
search engines to make its results available via a public API;
Technorati is another good example. Some popular
implementations of the Google Web API include the alerting
service
Google Alert (http://www.googlealert.com),
or
FindForward (http://www.findforward.com),
as well as the Google Dance Tool, which monitors when Google is
spidering the Internet.
Google Web API Website (http://www.google.com/apis/)
Google Programs
AdSense
AdSense enables text or image advertisements to be displayed
on Web sites that want ads to help raise money. The ads are
administered by Google and generate revenue on a per-click basis.
Google utilizes its search technology to serve ads based on Web
site content, the user's geographical location, and other
factors. Those wanting to advertise with Google's targeted ad
system may sign up through
AdWords.
AdSense Website (https://www.google.com/adsense/)
AdWords
AdWords is a service that allows advertisers ads appear on
any Google search page, GMail
e-mail or AdSense page if certain keywords are displayed using a
self-service system. The AdWords service is Google's largest
source of income. The advertiser pays Google per click and there
is a bidding system to determine ad ordering.
AdWords Website (https://adwords.google.com/select/)
Google Downloads
Google Browser
After Google registered "gbrowser.com" speculation began that
it plans to release an Internet browser to compete with
Internet Explorer. Executives have been secretive about
whether they intend to develop a browser. A spokesman hinted
that, "[Google believes] in reinventing the wheel with respect
to browser technologies." Google has recently hired
Adam Bosworth, a
Microsoft former employee who helped write
Internet Explorer, and Joe Beda, the man who has been
working on Microsoft's next generation graphics engine. Google
has also recently hired
Ben Goodger the lead developer of Mozilla Firefox. Mozilla
is most well known for their Firefox web browser. With the 1.0
version of the
Mozilla Firefox browser, the default home page is set to a
web page hosted by Google. Further speculation involves Google
modifying either
Netscape,
Mozilla or Firefox browsers.
Google Deskbar
In December 2003,
Google launched the beta version of the Google Deskbar, a search
tool which runs from the
Microsoft Windows
taskbar, without a
browser having to be open. It can return film reviews, stock
quotes,
dictionary and
thesaurus definitions, plus any pre-configured search of a
third-party site (e.g. eBay
or
Amazon). In November
2004,
Google launched an API
for Google Deskbar.
Google Deskbar Website (http://deskbar.google.com/)
Google Desktop Search
Known internally under the
codename Puffin, Google Desktop Search enables
desktop search. It runs locally on a
PC and will index all
Microsoft Outlook,
Outlook Express,
Netscape Mail,
Thunderbird
emails, text documents,
Microsoft Office documents,
AOL Instant Messenger conversations,
Internet Explorer,
Mozilla,
Firefox,and
Netscape history on that PC, PDF,
music, images, video, and allow the user to search them from a
browser.A plugin feature has been released which allows
developers to code their own applications into the
catalog.Google Desktop Search is an extension of Google Search.
After indexing a user's files, his or her local results will
turn up on normal Google search on his or her local computer.
Google Desktop Search does not store users' files on the web
and users' personal information is not sent to Google.
Google Desktop Search was likely developed in response to
file and Web search capabilities that will be offered in the
next major release of
Microsoft Windows, codenamed
Longhorn (slated for release in 2006) features that
directly compete with Google's core Internet search business.
Currently, Google Desktop Search does not support Google's "Did
You Mean" feature. For example, if a user lets it look up his or
her computers for "chicke", it will not ask whether he or she
meant 'chicken'.
Desktop Search received much attention because it may allow
reverse engineering of Google's proprietary
search algorithm.
Google Desktop Search Website (http://desktop.google.com/)
Keyhole
On
October 27,
2004,
Google acquired Keyhole, a company creating online satellite
maps that has the ability to view geographical information in 3D
view. Keyhole does cover the entire globe with satellite imagery
but not high resolution. They will focus on the larger and
initially US metropolitan areas. Keyhole has the largest
commercial imagery database online in 3D today. It covers over
80 major metropolitan areas and thousands of cities. The
satellite imagery, aerial photography, elevation data, street
vectors, business listings, together are worth millions of
dollars. The data is updated every two to three years on average.
Keyhole Website (http://www.keyhole.com)
orkut
Though not mentioned on the Google homepage, orkut
is a service hosted, created and maintained by Google engineers.
Orkut is a
social networking service, where users can list their
personal and professional information, create relationships
amongst friends and join communities of mutual interest.
Affinity engines, a company based in Palo Alto, has filed a
lawsuit accusing that
Orkut Büyükkökten, a co-founder of the company, illegally
took the code, which he wrote for the company, for use in Google[7] (http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,64046,00.html).
There is some speculation saying that orkut and Gmail are
part of a Google effort to gather information about their users,
with the intention of offering a better
personalized search service in future. Google already has a
personalized search in Google Labs.
orkut Website (https://www.orkut.com/)
Picasa
On
July 13,
2004
Google acquired Picasa, software for management and sharing of
digital photographs. Since then, Google has released the latest
edition of the software with Picasa2. The aim of the software
was to make photo editing simple and easy to use. Picasa has
also been integrated with Google's Blogger and Gmail services.
It is free to download.
Picasa Website (http://www.picasa.com).
Google Toolbar
This addition to
Microsoft
Internet Explorer 5 or later adds Google's searching
capabilities in a
toolbar in the
web browser. The latest version includes
pop-up ads blocking, automatic filling of forms, the ability
to show the Google PageRank value for the current page being
viewed, and
SpellCheck,
AutoLink and the
WordTranslator. It has been criticized for being a security
risk because it updates itself without user intervention.
A separately downloadable add-on for the toolbar allows
participation in
Google Compute, a
distributed computing project to help scientific research.
Other browsers, such as
Mozilla,
Mozilla Firefox,
Opera, and
Safari, have built-in search tools that offer the same
functionality. Mozilla Firefox also has its own version of the
Google Toolbar, the Googlebar, which is developed independently
of and is not supported by Google or the Mozilla Firefox
developers. It expands upon the official Google toolbar to the
point that the only feature not replicated is the Google
PageRank functionality. There are other tools that bring the
pagerank functionality to Mozilla and Firefox, including a
modification of Googlebar. Googlebar has also been built into
Safari for
Apple Computer's new
Mac OS X
operating system.
Google Toolbar Website
