Think you know how to use a search engine? These three handy tips will help you get even more out of your Googling experience.Tip 1: Glean a snapshot of Google in time
Tip 2: Search a particular date range
Tip 3: Add Google to your toolbar or desktop
Tip 1: Glean a snapshot of Google in time
Turning to Google itself for a definition of zeitgeist, (define:zeitgeist), there's consensus that it refers to "the spirit of the times." And Google Zeitgeist is just that: a mirror that the Web -- according to Google -- holds up to us, providing a snapshot of the week, month, or year that was.
A typical weekly Google Zeitgeist lists the top 10 gaining and declining queries and some handpicked statistics such as top Google News queries or popular sequels; fun facts (Tour de France vs. Wimbledon); aggregate information gleaned about Googlers, including operating systems, Web browsers, and languages; and any other trends that the Zeitgeist crew cares to delve into.
It takes only a few moments of visiting Google Zeitgeist before you're itching to go back a little further in time: the week your second child was born, the month of the Olympics, the year you graduated from high school. Click the "Archived information available here" link to browse the Google Zeitgeist Archive of updates for every week, month, and year since January 2001.
Weekly Zeitgeist updates actually started in June 2001, at the same time the monthlies switched from PDF to HTML format. The monthlies and year-ends provide more detail with trend graphs and also further break down searching by country, from Korea to Canada and points in between.
While Google Zeitgeist's statistics aren't earth-shattering (for example, "Searches for 'iraq' more than doubled on March 19, the date that Operation Iraqi Freedom began" -- imagine that!), it does provide you a snapshot of what the world in aggregate (55 billion searches in 2003) found interesting enough to look up.
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If Google Zeitgeist piques your interest, you might try the Yahoo Buzz Index, a similar collection of statistics around popular Yahoo searches: the day's top movers, overall and by various Yahoo categories; most viewed and e-mailed Yahoo news items; and a market-trend-like chart (click the View Complete Chart link associated with any of the buzz listings on the front page) of leaders and movers, according to the buzz score.
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