Using Google's Special Technology Searches

As you've no doubt surmised, Google's University Search works by restricting the search to a specific domain, using the (hidden) site: operator. Well, there's nothing stopping Google from using a similar strategy to offer other site- and topic-specific searcheswhich leads us to our next batch of special searches.

Knowing that a large number of people use the Internet to search for computer- and technology-related information, Google has created several technology-related special searches. You can use these specialty searches to find technical support, software updates, downloadable software, and other computer-related information and services.

There are four of these technology-related searches, each focused on a specific computer platform. These searches include

• Google Microsoft Search (www.google.com/microsoft), shown in Figure 8.3, which searches the main www.microsoft.com domain and other Microsoft-related sites.

  Figure 8.3. Google Microsoft Search.

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• Google Apple Macintosh Search (www.google.com/mac), shown in Figure 8.4, which searches the main www.apple.com domain and other Apple-related sites.

  Figure 8.4. Google Apple Macintosh Search.

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• Google Linux Search (www.google.com/linux), shown in Figure 8.5, which searches a variety of Linux-related sites.

  Figure 8.5. Google Linux Search.

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• Google BSD Unix Search (www.google.com/bsd), shown in Figure 8.6, which searches a variety of sites that specialize in the BSD version of the Unix operating system.

  Figure 8.6. Google BSD Unix Search, for Unix users.

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As an example, if you go to the Google Microsoft Search page and enter windows media center as your query, the first results, as you can see in Figure 8.7, come from Microsoft's own website. But other prominent results come from Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows, Matt Goyer's Media Center Blog, The PodcastNetwork (for The Media Center Show podcast), the Wikipedia, ZDNet News, and so on. The results are tightly focused, culled from legitimate technical websites, and are happily free of personal website clutter.

Figure 8.7. The results of a Google Microsoft Search.

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You get similar results from each of the other specialty technology searches. When you're looking for technical or computer-related information, this is a great shortcut to the most useful results.