Google GroupsWritten by Jakob Jelling
Some very early users of Internet - not worldwide web as we know it today - but Internet from early 1980s, will have heard of, and likely used, Usenet. This was collective name applied to text-based electronic bulletin boards that were used to communicate in days before web and email existed, and that are still in use today. The Usenet posts were first collected and organized for worldwide web use in 1995, by a company called Deja News. In 2001, Google bought Deja News and applied their considerable search expertise to Usenet posts. The result is Google Groups. There are well over 30,000 Google Groups today. These are hosted on servers all over world, and Google Groups provides a browser-based interface to them, as well as creating searchable archives. From a very clean interface, users may search any of various subsections of Google Groups. In same way a clothing web site may be divided into sections for men's, women's, and children's wear, Usenet is divided into sections such as biz (business related), comp (computer related), humanities (art, literature related), and so on. From there, subsections may be divided into more specialized sub-topics where necessary.
| | Help your visitors zero in with Site-Flavored Google searchWritten by Jakob Jelling
As Google has gained in their search reputation past few years, many webmasters have added a Google search box to their pages. This is meant to provide a quick path for visitors to continue their search, should they not find what they're looking for on original site. To help these webmasters provide even more service to their visitors, Google is currently beta-testing a new feature called Site-Flavored Google Search. A site-flavored search will allow searchers to view results more closely related to site where they started their search. For example, a webmaster for an auto parts site can fill out a profile to tell Google about their site. Searchers from that site can then use Google search form to view search results more closely related to automotive topics than a general search might provide. A search from that site for "oil" might return information about various types and brands of automotive engine oil, while a generic Google search might return broader business-related results from oil refiners and industry sites.
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