Google, according to its co-founder Larry Page is something that "understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want." Google is a search engine that has constantly sought innovation and improvisation. As a result, Google developed its own serving infrastructure and breakthrough PageRank™ technology that changed the way searches are conducted. Google was the first general search engine that provides access to pages at the time they were indexed, designated as "cached" pages. Google is also the only search engine that searches for some characters. As of Sept. 2003, it would search for the ampersand & and the underscore _ characters by themselves or as part of a character string (Notess, 2004). Google handles numbers in some special ways and can search for a range of numbers. When it searches for numbers, it also finds numbers with and without commas. Number searches and number range searches can be combined with other terms and can be included in phrase searching. A number range search, like most other Google searches, will also find pages that do not contain the number but are linked from other pages that contain the number in the linking anchor text.”
     Most search engines utilized a handful of large servers that often slowed under peak loads for the search operations. Google employed linked PCs to quickly find each query's answer. The innovation paid off in faster response times, greater scalability and lower costs. The software behind Google's search technology conducts a series of simultaneous calculations requiring only a fraction of a second (Nystedt, 2006). Google uses PageRank™ to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important. It then conducts hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, Google is able to put the most relevant and reliable results first. Google's search engine also analyzes page content in fonts, subdivisions and the precise location of each word. The speed with which the results are returned is very impressive. Though a basic Google search answers most questions, it is possible to customize everything from the language of the interface to the format of the pages Google returns as results (Notess, 2004). Users can search for images, multiple file types, pages in Czech or Turkish, posts to Usenet, phone numbers, airline flight info or categories in the Open Directory. By using the preferences page, users can also select the number of results returned and filter out adult content. There's much more to what Google offers, from an amazing spell checker to tools for translating web pages from one language to another or from HTML to a format readable by most mobile devices. To use Google's built-in calculator function, one can simply enter the calculation into the search box. These attributes make Google very special.
     There are a few limitations in Google. There are limited search features: no nesting, no truncation, does not support full Boolean. Link searches must be exact and are incomplete. Only indexes first 101 KB of a Web page and about 120 KB of PDF. Google's top results are claimed to be heavily skewed toward shopping sites, if the user is looking for something that is sold online. Multiple search terms are processed as an AND operation by default. Phrase matches are ranked higher. It does not yet support the AND operator, NOT operator, or full Boolean searching with the ability to nest operators. Google has no case sensitive searching. Google has language, domain, date, file type, and adult content limits. The date limit, added in July 2001, has only three options are available: Past 3 Months, Past 6 Months, or Past Year. Google ignores frequent words.
     Searching on the Google is easy and simple. Choose the right search terms. Start with the obvious. Its advisable to use multiple search terms. There is no need to capitalize letters or use terms such as 'and, if, or" etc. Phrase searches are effective when the user is searching for proper names. Use of minus sign denotes a meaning the user wants to avoid. The "I'm feeling lucky' button takes the user to the most relevant website Google has found for thee query.
     Google will refresh its entire index approximately every 30 days. The ht:/Dig search engine is re-indexed twice a week.