Introduction: Founded in 1995 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google is the web’s most used web search engine; it receives hundreds of millions of queries each day. Its purpose is to aid people in finding what they are looking for in the web as accurately and quickly as possible. To do this, it uses a system, called “PageRank,” to rank web pages and determine which web pages most closely match the search criteria. It then provides the user with all the results found in order of the importance established by the PageRank system. Overall, Google Inc., which owns the Google search engine, offers a wide variety of services, such as Google Maps, Gmail, etc; however, this guide will only refer to the search engine.

Features: Google’s most important feature is it accurateness and speed in finding and delivering results to a search. When compared to other web search engines, Google is one of the fastest and most accurate search engines; which is why it is so widely used. There are several other features though. One of the features Google provides is a definition link for every word in the search. For example, if you search “red cars” there will be a link for red and a link for cars. If you click the link, the link will take you to its definition. Furthermore, Google has an integrated calculator. If you search a mathematical problem, such as “55+2” for example, the search engine will provide you with the result of the problem. Google also contains other similar features that work in the same way, which include a unit and currency converter. With Google you can also search images, news, maps, and much more.

Tips and Tricks: The key to use Google is to use the right keywords when searching. You want to make sure you only use the most important words when searching for something and exclude unnecessary words. That means you need to be specific, but not too specific. For example, when searching for the difference of plasma and LCD TVs, you want to come up with the least amount of search words that most strongly convey what you are looking for; in this case a good search criteria would be “plasma vs. LCD.” It is as easy as that. If your results are not coming out so nicely you can also do an “advanced search.” Click on advanced search and you will have several options to make your search even more specific, therefore getting more accurate results. Furthermore, you can accommodate Google to your needs by changing your preferences in the preference page. You can change language, safety filter, number of results per page, etc. Another feature of Google is its “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature. This feature allows a user to skip the results page and go directly to the first result listed by Google; making the search even easier and faster.

Newbie Friendly Rating: Google is fast and effective. Its searches, most of the time, provide the most accurate listings that you are going to find in the web. Not only that, it has several features which make the overall service very satisfying. In addition, it is extremely user-friendly and easy to use. Given all of these, Google has got a rating of 10 out of 10.