You may be interested to know that you can customize the way you see your google search results by signing up for a Google Account.  If you have Gmail, or if you’re a webmaster or web marketer, you likely already have one.

After you’ve signed up for your Google account, you’ll want to look over in the upper right hand corner.   You’ll see a link that says Settings, which presents you with two more choices when selected:  Search Settings, and Google Account settings.

Click on Search Settings, and you will see  a page which lets you configure how you’d like to search Google.  It’s pretty standard:

• Interface Language / Search Language: Select your language preferences.
• SafeSearch Filtering: If you’re at work you definitely want to keep the SafeSearch filter on!
• Number of Results: I always view 100 results at a time.  It saves me the hassle of clicking next… next… next… endlessly.
• Results Window: You may find it convenient to open results in a new window.  I often do.  And if you don’t like it you can change it back later!
• Query Suggestions: Because my job involves web marketing and data analysis, I opt to keep the suggestions on, as it can be very useful to see what Google thinks are associated with my search terms.
• Search Wiki: this basically lets you give an up arrow to certain pages and domains in search results so that if your domain or page shows up for that search term, it will show up on top of the first page, making it easy to find if you’re doing keyword research or some other marketing research.  However, if you just want to see what comes up naturally, you have to turn it off, as everything you move up to the top will be there for that keyword search in the future, unless you turn it off or move it back down again.

The next thing you’ll want to do is go back to settings in the upper right hand corner, and this time, you’re going to customize your Google Account Settings. Here, you will see numerous options.  I’ll discuss a few of the basics here.

The first thing you should do is click on “Change password recovery options” and make sure that, if you should ever forget your password, you will be able to reset it.

Next, over on the left, click on Edit Profile.  Fill out as much information as you are comfortable with, and select whether your full name should be searchable.  At the bottom, you will find a bio area, as well as a Links area to link to your websites.  (if you’re really cool, you’ll link to GreenWebDesign.com and/or 50StatesClassifieds.com! 

If you have a Picasa, Flickr, or other photo service account, click on the Photos tab to link it to your Google Account.

Back at the main Google Accounts page (which you can always find by going back to http://www.google.com/accounts), scroll down to My Products.

You may already have some products showing here, such as: AdSense, Analytics, Checkout, Google Affiliate Network, Knol, Notebook, Picasa, Sites, Voice, Webmaster Tools, AdWords, Blogger, Docs, Health, Local Business Center, Orkut, Profiles, Subscribed Links, Wave, youTube, Alerts, Calendar, Gmail, iGoogle, Merchant Center, Page Creator, Reader, Talk, and Web History.

If you don’t have any products, you should “Try Something New”, where you can click on things you haven’t signed up for yet.  Try some stuff out and see how it goes!

The rest of this section, you can explore on your own!  Feel free to ask specific questions if you get stuck on something.

Ways to search Google more effectively using custom queries:

When you’re searching for something really specific, try putting quotation marks around it.  For example, “Green Web Design”.

If you’re looking for something and the search results are too broad, try a plus sign!  For example, Green+Web+Design

If you read something on a particular website, but can’t remember how to find it again, try searching just in that domain.  For example, in google, type this into the search box:  site:greenwebdesign.com marketing and you’ll see that you only get results from GreenWebDesign.com which contain the word marketing.

If you’d like to find some pages that are similar to a page, enter this into the search box:

related:http://www.greenwebdesign.com/

Webmasters: If you would like to find out when Google last visited a page on your website, you can do so by entering the following text into the search box at google.com:

cache:http://www.greenwebdesign.com/  OR  cache:http://www.greenwebdesign.com/index.html

There are many other ways you can search using custom search queries, but these will probably be more than enough for most people.

You’ll also find lots of fun Google Goodies at:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

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Jessica Franke is the owner of Green Web Design, a full service Website Design, Web Hosting, Domain Registrar, and Online Marketing firm.  She is also the owner of 50 States Classifieds, and has been providing Free Classifieds online since 2002.  For more articles written by Jessica Franke, visit her blog.

Perhaps you are getting ready to plan a family reunion or other type of event, but don’t know how to find your long lost cousin earl or aunt sally so you can invite them.  Why wait til summer, when you can put these cold winter months to good use and try to track them down online!

The best place to start?

I recommend starting your people search by signing in at Facebook.com, Myspace.com, classmates.com, and other popular social networking websites.  Do a search for your relatives, and see if you can find them easily.  If so, offer up a thanks to the Internet and get back in touch.

Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy.

If you find several different pages of results for the name, and one or more doesn’t have a picture, here’s the general idea:

scroll through all of the results and see if the people with pictures are the person you’re seeking.

If not, take a second look at the list, this time looking more closely at those with no pictures, to see if you recognize them in the details – a mutual friend on their friends list, or perhaps you’ll find that they’ve become a fan or friend of the restaurant you used to meet at every tuesday afternoon at 1pm.

If you can’t find this type of helpful information in any of the profiles, and there are only a couple of results that you’re unsure of, it doesn’t hurt to send a quick message to a few of them.

Remember to state any other names (maiden name, married name, siblings, etc) that they might have known you by;  State any other names you knew them by;  thank them for their time, and wait for a reply.

Don’t be offended if you don’t hear back right away – many people only signed up because someone talked them into it initially, and they may not have been back to their profile in ages.

Next, go to Google. com type in their name and see what you come up with.  In most cases, you’ll get gazillions of results, none of them what you wanted.  You just need to know how to ask!

If you go to Google.com and search for john doe, you’ll get way too many results to find the one you’re looking for, in most cases.  Instead, search for “john doe” with quotation marks around it, or or john+doe+chicago with plus signs instead of spaces.  Keep it simple – by using the quotations, you’re telling google to look for that exact phrase, letter for letter, no ifs, ands or buts.  if your search criteria is too strict, and you add quotation marks around it,  you likely won’t get any results at all.  On the other hand, when using + signs, you’re searching for john AND doe in one page, but even if nothing matches exactly, you’ll still see some results.

Remember, even if you can’t find them the first time, that doesn’t mean they’re not out there, or that they won’t be some time in the future.  If you try again every 3-6 weeks, eventually, you may just find them!

If you don’t, why not give Family Heritage Consulting a try?  Ron Kolb is a professional Genealogy Researcher, whose skills can be just as valuable for finding the living!

Above all, Good Luck with your search!

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Jessica Franke is the owner of Green Web Design, a full service Website Design, Web Hosting, Domain Registrar, and Online Marketing firm.  She is also the owner of 50 States Classifieds, and has been providing Free Classifieds online since 2002.  For more articles written by Jessica Franke, visit her blog.

Parallel Solutions

Promote Your Page Too

If you have tons of social networking profiles and need to keep them all straight, this site is for you.

http://www.dandyid.org

DandyID serves as a single reference point to your Flickr, Twitter, LinkedIn & over 250 other services!

If you’re like me and have at least 100 different social networking profiles, then you *need* this. What it basically does is shows you a huge list of social networking sites. You enter in your user id for each site and it automatically creates a page that links to all of your profiles in one handy spot.

As if that isn’t cool enough, you can then create a widget for your blog, website, etc. that you can use to link to your profiles easily.

There are several different widgets and styles, but this is my favorite:

I noticed that it didn’t have startupnation listed, but I was able to easily and quickly suggest the site to them.

It will probably take me 2 weeks to finish entering all of my different profiles, but with the handy widget that automatically updates (above) I can just enter them once at DandyID – no need to update this, or any other page when I am done!

I’m actually pretty impressed.

I have been updating 50 States Classifieds tonight and have added some great new features!

In addition to our Free Classifieds services, now members can also create a public profile. A public profile is a great way to list your shipping terms, your physical store location if you have one, or other pertinent information about your business, services, or products.

Register for an account and post a free ad today!

If you’re one of my clients and you’re not on my blogroll, let me know you’re here and I’ll add you!  Also, if you would like access to post your latest news in my “client blog entries” section, please call or email me.

Social Networking Websites that we enjoy. If you decide to sign up, add us to your friends list!

• Myspace
  
• YouTube
  
• StumbleUpon
• Del.icio.us
• Care2
• Digg
• Faves
• LinkedIn
• Squidoo
• Change.org
• Xing
  
• Yahoo Mash
• Ryze
  
• Rapleaf
• Direct Matches
• Urban Melt
• Startup Nation
• The Bubbler
• Orkut
  
• Twitter