Google is widely held to be the most fast and efficient search engine for looking up simple words or phrases, and is, frankly, a wonder of the world (or at least the Internet). Rather than relying on the contents of a page to determine its own position in the ranking for any given search, a page's position is determined by how many links there are to it on the Internet. These links in turn are ranked, with links from more popular pages (ie those that are well-linked-to themselves) weighted higher than pages with few links.

The overall effect of this is to give very accurate and quick searches first time - and if you are looking for company or well-known brand, for example, you'll be sure to get its homepage in the top five responses, and usually it's sitting there right at the top¹ - that's because the most referenced page for a big company name is usually their own homepage, especially from other well-established companies.

Google's capabilities can be put into your own webpage, with 5 flavours ranging from an affiliate programme (which pays you a small amount each time it is used), to a free version, to a $2,000 dollar per month 'Gold' version which can serve 8 million queries a year!

Google also has a whole host of additional capabilities, including:

• Multiple Language Searches - you can choose which languages you search for.
• Caching - Google caches webpages, so even if the page has since moved or been deleted, you can still see the version Google bookmarked.
• Number of Results - You can choose the number of results Google returns, between 10 and 100.
• Open Directory - Netscape's Open Directory has been integrated into Google, so if there are Open Directory entries for your search terms, these will show up. Realnames is similarly supported.
• SafeSearch - a 'SafeSearch' option is available, to prevent children from finding adult material.
• Similar Pages - a 'similar pages' option finds², well, similar pages really.
• Email Results - you can even email the results to a friend. Marvellous.