Here is the video YouTube guide that accompanies this page
Google Search Basics
iGoogle – customize your Google home page; I use the “Box Of Links” gadget to bookmark my favorite sites
Google Search Basics (Official) – the best advice is “use the words that are most likely to appear on the page”
Google Advanced (Official) – many additional options are available
Google Help: Cheat Sheet (Official) – a quick list of tips from the company itself
Google Guide: Advanced Operator Reference (Unofficial) – a more comprehensive guide to smarter searching
The Google Toolbox
Google Images – if you find yourself doing a Google search for pictures of something, try clicking on images
Google Maps – Harford Community College (as of 7/25/10, this map is very outdated – see the volleyball court?)
YouTube Introduction To The Wonder Wheel – this works great to help find new angles for research paper topics
Google Public Data – a collection of visualizations of data that is put out by other organizations, including the U.S. Census Bureau
Google Scholar – I don’t recommend using this site because you are likely to find a great article and then discover that the full-text version costs $24.95
Google Books – this allows you to not only view sample pages of the book but also search the entire book, though the search results are very limited and don’t allow you to view the entire page (see the link to skim through a great book about procrastination)
More Google Products – including Google Docs, Google Finance, Google Labs, and Google News
Google For Educators – there is even a Google Teacher Academy
Google as a Global Superpower
“Don’t be evil” – the “unofficial” motto of Google
Google China – Google helped China’s government to censor keywords, including “Tiananmen Square Massacre”, and according to the official Google statement at the time (see the link), “our current approach to China is consistent with this mantra [“Don’t be evil”]. Our hope is that our mix of measures, though far from our ideal, would accomplish more for Chinese citizens’ access to information than the alternative”
“Miserable Failure” – this example shows one way that the algorithm calculates rank
Google Flu Trends – based on the volume of symptom-related searches
Google Goggles – here is the YouTube video demonstration of how this mobile application works
Google Government Requests – this shows the number of times that governments have requested information from Google and how many times they have requested censorship of keywords, broken down by country
Google Shopping – Google makes a lot of money off of these results
Google For Webmasters
Google Analytics – I use this easy-to-set-up service to track the user statistics of my website (free account required)
Google Webmaster Tools – webmasters can submit their sites directly to Google (free account required)
Google’s Official Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (.pdf) – this stresses the importance of tagging pages, especially the title of each page
Google Ranking Factors: Search Engine Optimization Checklist (Unofficial) – it’s interesting to see how many variables are involved in the Google search algorithm
Google Sites – I haven’t used this service, but it apparently allows users to create websites for free (free account required)
Google’s Website Optimizer – this Google service allows you to run experiments on your website, though I believe that a Google Analytics account is required
Googletestad – what is the “Google Test Ad”? One of the great unsolved mysteries of the Internet
Google AdWords Keyword Tool – this tool allows anyone to simply enter keywords to see the search volume and relative competition (these stats are shown for a list of related keyword results as well – give it a try)
Google Insights – this is another way to analyze search trends, and Google specifically points out that this information can be utilized by marketers
Google Guest Lecturers
Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn – this was the first one I watched, and I was hooked
Mindfulness Stress Reduction, and Healing – also with Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Inner Conditions for Authentic Happiness – this is another interesting one, with Matthieu Ricard
Google’s YouTube Channel – here is the complete list of Google video
Google’s TechTalks YouTube Channel – here are the TechTalks only
David Allen: Getting Things Done – this one is amazing – he sounds like a salesman who has been using the same script for decades, but he points out that he wouldn’t have been doing this for so long if it didn’t work (I particularly like the advice that it’s crucial to have some kind of external calendar system because the brain’s design doesn’t work well for keeping track of appointments)