The Google Web search is not the only Google search. In performing a Google test, consider searching groups (USENET newsgroups). This is a significantly different sample and represents, for the most part, conversations in English conducted by people who are not deliberately trying to sell products or reach a mass audience. Other things being equal, a "groups" search will typically return very roughly 1/5 as many hits as a "Web" search. Because group and Web searches have very different "systemic biases," hit numbers are not comparable. Nevertheless Group searches are particularly helpful in identifying entities whose Web presence may have been artificially inflated by promotional techniques; it is suspicious if a phrase gets, say, 100,000 Web hits but only 20 Groups hits.
USENET postings are date-stamped and have been archived for over twenty years, making them more useful than Web searches as a record of recent history. Using a Groups "advanced search," it is possible to restrict a search by date, which can help in identifying how recent the widespread use of a term is.
Google News searches can assess whether something is currently newsworthy. One characteristic of Google News is that whereas it is easy and inexpensive to create websites or post to USENET, it is harder to convince a Google news source to run a story. Thus Google News, in comparison to Web or Groups, is less susceptible to manipulation by self-promoters. Note that Google News indexes many "news" sources that reflect specific points of view, and many news sources that are only of local interest.
Depending on the subject, advanced search functions may be useful. For example, adding "site:gov" or "site:edu" will restrict your search to U.S. government sites or U.S. college and university sites.
Other tools that may be useful for research include Google Scholar, which searches academic literature.
Google Book Search can be valuable. As part of the world of print, Google Book Search has a pattern of coverage that is in closer accord with traditional encyclopedia content than the Web, taken as a whole, is; if it has systemic bias, it is a very different systemic bias from Google Web searches. Multiple hits on an exact phrase in Google Book Search provide convincing evidence for the real use of the phrase or concept. Google Book Search can locate print-published testimony to the importance of a person, event, or concept. It can also be used to replace an unsourced "common knowledge" fact with a print-sourced version of the same fact. Amazon.com's "Search Inside The Book" also can be used.
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
Video: GTAC 2007: H.Ziv & K.Windbladh - Specification based Testing (The 2nd Annual Google Test Automation Conference (GTAC) at our New York office. Hadar Ziv and Kristina Windbladh. Specification-based Testing.)
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