Just "Google" It: Google

Spot the difference

(click images to enlarge)

The same search in 3 different Google geographic locations. Very little is relevant for a primary school student searching for information on tigers. Can you see how Google changes its results to suit your country? Even the adverts and "searches related to" (at the bottom of the page) are different. There are so many results. How can you get fewer, better results? Take a look here.....

The library provides many alternatives to using Google. (see this page). Some of these will provide you with relevant, age appropriate information, so we encourage you to try using these for your research, however, we know that for many people, Google will be a good starting point for their research, and/or may be the only place that they look for information.

Why do people use Google?

• it's easy & fast
• it searches billions of URLs
• search results include a snippet of the text so that you can see if it looks relevant before entering the page

Are there any disadvantages?

• if your search is too simple you will get millions of results
• adverts are the top choices
• the results on the first pages are not necessarily the best results, they are sites that have been cleverly designed to be found first
• many results will be irrelevant and/or not age appropriate
• What Google are you searching? Different countries, different results