What can Google do for you? The no-frills search engine has taken the Internet by storm. But if you're using it just for simple Web research, you're tapping only a fraction of its potential.

When preparing for her daughter s birthday party, a Florida woman thought it would be fun for the children to play with spray string. But during the party, a can of the string fell onto the cake's lit candles and ignited in what one person called "a gigantic fireball." The accident left an 11-year-old girl with serious facial burns.

After the girl's mother talked to a lawyer, the lawyer's paralegal researched the company that made the string. The paralegal uncovered a wealth of information--including details about an earlier recall of the product, because it could catch fire, and a video produced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, showing government tests where spray string hitting a lit candle turned into a flamethrower.

Using traditional legal research methods, uncovering this information would have taken months or even years. In this case, it took only about an hour. How did the paralegal do it? By using a powerful litigation research tool, one that's available to all but overlooked by many: Google.

Internet users use Google more than any other search engine. (1) "Googling" has even become a recognized verb. (2)

In an age where the start-ups that survived the dot-corn Big Bang have become multifaceted, billion-dollar stars, Google retains a refreshing simplicity. Its home page (www.google.com) is still little more than a search box, without the usual cacophony of ads and links.

Maybe because of its universality and ease of use, Google doesn't strike most people as a serious research tool. Cite Google in lieu of expert witnesses and you are liable to earn little more than a judge's scorn?Yet many researchers and investigators say Google is their first--and sometimes last--online stop. Some judges even rely on Google as legal authority. (4) There is much more to the site than its 6 billion-plus indexed items. (5)

Revealing the invisible Web 

An article on Google that appeared in the Washington Post described the search site as this century's answer to Melvil Dewey's library cataloging system. (6) In fact, Google repudiates traditional classification systems, embracing the principle "Search, don't sort." (7)

Google scans the Web to create and maintain a gigantic index, which it can then search in a fraction of a second. (8) Instead of locating a site by noting how many times a keyword occurs on it, Google revolutionized searching by finding the site based on the number of other sites that link to it. Traditional keyword searches look at what a particular Web site is saying, while Google locates sites based on what other people are saying about the sites.

Google changed not only the way we search but what we search. Millions of files in formats that were common to users remained dark to search engines. Google brought this "invisible Web" into the light. It can read 13 different file formats, including Adobe Acrobat (more commonly known by the documents' file extension, .pdf), PowerPoint, Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, and Corel WordPerfect. (9) You do not even need to have these applications yourself; Google offers the ability to "view as html" in your browser.

One of this feature's benefits is in tracking down experts. Investigators can often trace hard-to-find professionals through fragments of information such as e-mail addresses or phone numbers that pop up in message boards

and other informal settings. Google can also turn up older articles, comments, and statements by these experts: It has indexed nearly a billion posts from Usenet bulletin boards dating back to 1981.

Niches and advanced searching

There is a drawback to this enormous cache of information: A simple keyword search can return millions of results. But, while Google does not sort information, it can narrow it down to a manageable size. Try some of the following strategies.

Google Book Search (http://books.google.com) limits your search to book texts and Google Scholar (http:// scholar.google.com) to scholarly literature. The latter includes part of the PubMed database developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information. This is a useful gateway to medical information, but advanced users might be frustrated by its reliance on MEDLINE, which has only 1 million or so of the 15 million records available on PubMed. (10) It is primarily useful as a starting point.

Also, Google ranks the articles by its algorithms--assumptions of relevancy--not by date, so you'll have to double-check that your results show the most recent developments.

Less well known is Google Uncle Sam (www.google.com/ig/usgov), a niche search engine that plows through government and military sites. It does have some weak spots: It excludes some government agencies--for instance, the Postal Service (www.usps.com)--and includes state government sites that use .gov addresses. Bookmark the site because Google does not promote Uncle Sam on any of its featured pages, except as an option in its advanced search form.

If you want law-related articles, go to Google-powered LawCrawler (http:// lawcrawler.findlaw.com), which is the search engine for West Group's FindLaw site (www.findlaw.com), the Web's most visited legal site. (11)

For more advanced searches, you can also use traditional search strategies, including looking for sites by using Boolean logic, which is a way of constructing database queries with operators such as AND, OR, and NOT. Click on "Advanced Search" at the Google Web site. A form will allow you to connect and exclude words and specify variables such as language, file format, or date (referring to the date the Web page was updated).

To perform an advanced search from the search box or the toolbar (about which, more later) you can use some Boolean operators and connectors such as or (uppercase only "OR") (www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html) and not ("-") (www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html). There is no need to use "and" because Google only returns hits with all the search terms entered. Also, Google automatically favors sites in which your search terms appear as a phrase, but you can use quotation marks to ensure that only sites including an exact phrase are returned.

For very specific results, restrict your search to the titles of Web sites by using the field "in title:" before your search. The field "site:" restricts the search to a certain Web site, and "link:" shows you which other Web sites link to the one you're interested in (www.google.com/intl/en/help/operators.html).

Google will work as a dictionary if you use the query "define:" before a word or phrase, and as a calculator if you enter an equation. The calculator function can show you dates ("2006 in roman numerals"), answer important questions ("How many teaspoons in a cup?"), help plan your commute ("12 miles / the speed of light"), or convert currency ("5 pounds in dollars").

On a really practical level, Google can track items sent by Fed Ex, UPS, and U.S. mail; airline flight numbers; patent numbers; street addresses; and even vehicle ID (VIN) numbers. (These and other fields can be found at www.google.com/intl/en/help/features.html.) You can also sign up for "Personalized Search," which orders results according to your past search patterns (www.google.com/accounts/Service Login? service=hist&hl=en&continue=http://www.google.com/psearch&nui=1). You will need a Google or Gmail account.

Finally, give the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button a try sometime. This will bypass the search results altogether and take you directly to the number-one hit. This feature has been subject to "google-bombing"--the practice of Internet users manipulating keyword search answers to get the result they want. (12) Enter "miserable failure" on the Google home page and click "I'm Feeling Lucky" for an example of googlebombing.

Google toys

The Google toolbar may be the simplest and most useful of all Google's resources (http://toolbar.google.com/index_xp.html). It takes the soul of Google--the search box--and puts it at the top of your browser, from where you can start a search. If you are using Firefox's Mozilla browser, you will see a search box already in the toolbar.

Google Desktop (http://desktop.google.com/about.html) searches files stored on your computer, in e-mails, and on Web pages you have visited. However, there are other desktop search options that offer advantages over Google's. Copernic's free desktop search tool, for instance, is consistently rated higher by major computer publications (www.copernic.com). (13) Google Alerts is an easy-to-use service that sends you e-mail updates of a particular search (www.google.com/alerts).

Google offers many features for mobile phones. A Google search in your phone's browser will give you the choice of Web pages reformatted to fit your screen or sites specifically designed for mobile phones. Go to Google Mobile to get these features (http://google.com/mobile).

Google Maps is a download (www.google.com/glm/getstarted.html) that will locate local businesses and includes maps with step-by-step directions. At press time, Google Maps was available only for most Java-enabled phones. If you have Cingular or Sprint service, chances are you can use Google Maps--find out by visiting www.google.com/glm/getstarted.html.

Those without Java or browsers on their phones can still get local information from Google through text messaging or SMS (Short Message Service) (www.google.com/sms). Just enter your search as a text message and send it to "GOOGL" using the shortcode "46645" (a shortcode is basically a short telephone number).

For instance, if you send the text message "copy services 20007" to U.S. short-code 46645, you'll get a list of the businesses offering copy services in the 20007 zip code area. Google will use text-messaging to get the results to you.

Googlusion

"Googling" is so ubiquitous that it is easy to belittle. How can a few simple keystrokes compare to real books and pay-for-use databases? It is true that we often overlook resources that are not right at our fingertips: Libraries, commercial firms, the government, and others offer resources that Google cannot. But to dismiss the Internet is to dismiss a vast wealth of research possibilities. Google, and the zeal it has inspired in its competitors, are supercharging these possibilities.

Notes

(1.) Press Release, Nielsen//NetRatings, Nielsen//NetRatings Announces May U.S. Search Share Rankings (June 20, 2006), available at www.nielsen-netratings.com/pr/pr_060620.pdf (last visited July 27, 2006); see also Danny Sullivan, Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Ratings (Jan. 24, 2006), available at http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156451 (last visited July 27, 2006).

(2.) AM. DIALECT SOC'Y, 2002 WORDS OF THE YEAR (2003), available at www.americandialect.org/index.pbp/amerdial/2002_words_of_the_y (last visited July 26, 2006).

(3.) "The court made it clear that unless respondent Simonson would produce expert medical witnesses who supported her position, this hearing would not degenerate into a 'Google trial.'" Borenstein v. Simonson, 797 N.Y.S.2d 818, 824 (Sup. Ct. 2005).

(4.) See, e.g., Goldschmidt v. N.Y. State Afford able Housing Corp., 380 E Supp. 2d 303, 316 n. 12 (S.D.N.Y. 2005); City of Jefferson v. Cingular Wireless, LLC, No. 04-4099-CV-C-NKL, 2005 WL 1384062, at *4 (W.D. Mo. Jun. 9, 2005); Declan McCullagh, Search Engines Take the Stand (May 13, 2004), available at http://news.com.com/search+engines+take+the+stand/2100-1032_35211658.html (last visited July 26, 2006); see also Munster v. Groce, 829 N.E.2d 52, 61 n.3 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005).

(5.) Press Release, Google, Google Achieves Search Milestone with Immediate Access to More Than 6 Billion Items (Feb. 17, 2004), available at www.google.com/press/pressrel/6billion.html (last visited July 26, 2006).

(6.) Cynthia L. Webb, Google--21st Century Dewey Decimal System, (Dec. 14, 2004), at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A632812004Dec14.html (last visited July 26, 2006).

(7.) See, e. g., www.gmail.com.

(8.) Google, Corporate Information--Technology Overview, at www.google.com/corporate/tech.html (last visited July 27, 2006).

(9.) Google, Frequently Asked Questions--File Types, at www.google.com/help/faq_filetypes.html (last visited July 26, 2006); see also Google, Google Help Center--File Types, at www.google.com/help/features.html#pdf (last visited July 26, 2006).

(10.) See, e.g., Jim Henderson, Google Scholar: A Source for Clinicians?, 172 CANADIAN MED. ASS'N J. 1549, 1549 (June 7, 2005), available at www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/172/12/1549?etoc&eaf (last visited July 26, 2006).

(11.) Findlaw, About the Company, at http:// company.findlaw.com (last visited July 26, 2006).

(12.) Marissa Mayer, Googlebombing 'Failure,' Google Blog (Sept.16, 2005), at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/googlebombingfailure.html (last visited July 26, 2006).

(13.) See, e.g., DanVerton, Are Desktop Search Programs Ready for Prime Time ?, PC WORLD (Nov. 23, 2004), at www.pcworld.com/arficle/118686-1/article.html (last visited Aug. 8, 2006); Robert Vamosi, Find It Fast: Eight Apps That Search Your Hard Drive (updated Mar. 22, 2005), at http:// reviews.cnet.com/4520-3684_7-5536376.html (last visited July 26, 2006).

Beyond Google

Several pages would be needed to cover all the features available from Google. A full list is available at www.google.com/intl/en/about.html.

Other search engines have sought to match Google. Yahoo--a former Google partner--and Microsoft's MSN now offer many similar functions in their own search engines. Both Wahoo and MSN have adopted uncluttered search interfaces that are remarkably similar to Google's (http://search.yahoo.com; http://search.msn.com).

Ask.com is trying to compete by kicking Jeeves, its butler mascot, out of the mansion, despite an extreme makeover that saw the venerable servant lose 20 pounds and gain a tan (www.newscom.com/db/PRN/prnphotos/docs/040/903.thm).

There are also meta-search engines that scan other search engines and combine the results. Two of the most popular with attorneys and research experts are Dogpile and Clusty. Dogpile, from InfoSpace, Inc., combines results from Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask (www.dogpile.com). You can also compare the different search engines' results side by side by clicking on the tab of the engines you wish to compare. Clusty, from Vivisimo, Inc., tries to go one step further by taking the combined results of several search engines (Google is not one of them) and clustering them into different subject groups (http://clusty.com).

Looking back

Part of the Internet Archive's ambitious project to create a massive digital library, the Wayback Machine attempts to archive the Internet, letting you see what a Web site looked like on any given day in the past (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php). You can browse through 55 billion pages dating back to 1996, with more text than all of the world's largest libraries combined.

It may seem odd to think of an Internet site named after Rocky and Bullwinkle's time-traveling device as an important legal research tool. But computer company Dell used it to seize DellComputersSuck.com in a cybersquatting case; Playboy Enterprises, Inc., used it to win a trademark infringement suit; and EchoStar Communications used it to successfully defend itself in a breach of contract case. And in February 2004, a judge in a Canadian murder case declared a mistrial after past comments posted by the prosecution's star witness were recovered through the Wayback Machine and Google's cache, damaging her credibility. (See David Kesmodel, Not Fade Away, Wall St. J., July 27, 2005, at A1.)

DAVID RATCLIFF is the deputy director of ATLA's Research Department.