Google Hacks

Visualizing Google Results

The TouchGraph Google Browser is the perfect Google complement for those who appreciate visual displays of information.

Some people are born text crawlers. They can retrieve the mostly text resources of the Internet and browse them happily for hours. But others are more visually oriented and find that the flat text results of the Internet leave something to be desired, especially when it comes to search results.

If you’re the type who appreciates visual displays of information, you’re bound to like the TouchGraph Google Browser (http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html). This Java applet allows you to start with the pages that are similar to one URL, and then expand outward to pages that are similar to the first set of pages, on and on, until you have a giant map of “nodes” (a.k.a. URLs) on your screen.

Note that what you’re finding here are URLs that are similar to another URL. You aren’t doing a keyword search, and you’re not using the link: syntax. You’re searching by Google’s measure of similarity.

Starting to Browse

Start your journey by entering a URL on the TouchGraph home page and clicking the “Graph It” link. Your browser will launch the TouchGraph Java applet, covering your window with a large mass of linked nodes, as shown in Figure 6-4.

Figure 6-4. Mass of linked nodes generated by TouchGraph

Tip

You’ll need a web ...