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| Customizing Your Results by Using Preferences |
You can customize the way your search results appear by configuring your Google global preferences, options that apply across most Google search services. To change these options, click on the Preferences link, which is to the right of Google's search box, or visit www.google.com/preferences.
From the Preferences page, specify your global preferences, including
- Interface Language: the language in which Google will display tips, messages, and buttons for you
- Search Language: the language of the pages Google should search for you
- SafeSearch: automatic filtering and blocking of web pages with explicit sexual content
- Number of results: how many search results are to be displayed per page
- New Results Window: when enabled, clicking on the main link (typically the page title) for a result will open the corresponding page in a new window
When you set your preferences, Google stores your settings in a "cookie" on the computer you are using. Google doesn't associate that cookie with any other computer you use. So, if you want Google to work similarly on all the computers you use, you will need to set these preferences on each one of them.
The set of languages in which you want to allow messages and labels, text on buttons, and tips to be displayed. Your choice of interface languages is much larger than the "translate" set of languages (those that can be translated into your interface language) and includes relatively obscure languages, such as Catalan, Maltese, Occitan, and Welsh, and frivolous languages, such as Bork, bork, bork!, Elmer Fudd, Hacker, Klingon and Pig Latin.The interface language is configured on the Preferences page. The pull-down menu allows you to choose from over 80 languages.
Interface Language
Display Google tips and messages in:
If you do not find your native language in the pulldown above, you can
help Google create it through our Google in Your Language program.
Note: If you don't find your preferred language in the list, you can volunteer to translate Google's help information and search interface into that language via the Google In Your Language program, which you can find out about by visiting services.google.com/tc/Welcome.html.
If you select an interface language other than English, when using Google Web search you will be given the option of searching the entire web or just pages written in your interface language. For example, with French as the interface language the search box looks like this:
Note: Most non-English Google home pages have a "Google.com in English" link in case you can't read the rest of the page.
By default, Google Web search includes all pages on the Web. You can choose to restrict your searches to those pages written in the languages of your choice by setting the search language.
If you want to restrict results to a single language for a few queries, consider using Google's Advanced Search page, see the section on Sharpening Your Results.
Google's SafeSearch filters out sites with pornography and explicit sexual content. Moderate filtering, the default, is set to exclude most explicit images from Google Image search results but not Google Web search or other Google search services.Number of Results
Google's philosophy is to filter no more than necessary, i.e., as little as possible. Google considered adding the capability to filter other controversial content besides pornography, e.g., hate speech, anarchy, bomb making, etc. But these are much more difficult to filter automatically. For example, if you try to filter hate speech, you may filter out sites that discuss hate speech.
An important setting, located near the bottom of the page, is "Number of Results." By default, Google returns just 10 results for a search. You can change the number of results displayed per page to 20, 30, 50, or 100. If you find yourself scrolling through pages of results, consider increasing the number of results Google displays on each results page.New Results WindowIn practice, however, if pages of interest to you aren't within the first 10 or 20 results, consider refining your query instead of sifting through pages of less relevant results. To simplify such refinements, Google includes a search box at the bottom of the page you can use to enter your refined query
The Number-of-Results setting applies to Google's Web, Groups, News, Froogle, and Directory search services. It does not apply to Images and Answers.
After you set the Results Window option on the Preferences page, when you click on the main link (typically the page title) for a result, Google will open the corresponding page in a new window.Exercises These problems give you practice in setting preferences. After you've changed your preferences, run a couple of searches to see the results of your changes.
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