Google Hack pdf

Search engines for large collections of data preceded the World Wide Web by decades. There 
were those massive library catalogs, hand-typed with painstaking precision on index cards and 
eventually, to varying degrees, automated. There were the large data collections of professional 
information companies such as Dialog and LexisNexis. Then there are the still-extant private, 
expensive medical, real estate, and legal search services.  
Those data collections were not always easy to search, but with a little finesse and a lot of patience, 
it was always possible to search them thoroughly. Information was grouped according to 

established ontologies, data preformatted according to particular guidelines.  
Then came the Web. 
Information on the Web—as anyone knows who's ever looked at half-a-dozen web pages knows—
is not all formatted the same way. Nor is it necessarily particularly accurate. Nor up to date. Nor 
spellchecked. Nonetheless, search engines cropped up, trying to make sense of the rapidly-
increasing index of information online. Eventually, special syntaxes were added for searching 
common parts of the average web page (such as title or URL). Search engines evolved rapidly, 
trying to encompass all the nuances of the billions of documents online, and they still continue to 
evolve today.  
Google™ threw its hat into the ring in 1998. The second incarnation of a search engine service 
known as BackRub, the name "Google" was a play on the word "googol," a one followed by a 
hundred zeros. From the beginning, Google was different from the other major search engines 
online—AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, and others.  
Was it the technology? Partially. The relevance of Google's search results was outstanding and 
worthy of comment. But more than that, Google's focus and more human face made it stand out 
online.  
With its friendly presentation and its constantly expanding set of options, it's no surprise that 
Google continues to get lots of fans. There are weblogs devoted to it. Search engine newsletters, 
such as ResearchBuzz, spend a lot of time covering Google. Legions of devoted fans spend lots of 
time uncovering documented features, creating games (like Google whacking) and even coining 
new words (like "Googling," the practice of checking out a prospective date or hire via Google's 
search engine.)  
In April 2002, Google reached out to its fan base by offering the Google API. The Google API 
gives developers a legal way to access the Google search results with automated queries (any 
other way of accessing Google's search results with automated software is against Google's Terms 
of Service.)