| Title: | Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools |
| Authors: | Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest |
| Publisher: | O'Reilly |
| Pages: | 318 pages with index. |
| Reviewer: | Shawn Carroll |
| Synopsis: | Google Hacks is a great resource for using both google.com and the google API. This books includes examples in perl, java and PHP. The final chapter is worth the price of admission alone. |
| Table of Contents | 1. Searching Google 2. Google Special Services and Collections 3. Third-Party Google Services 4. Non-API Google Applications 5. Introducing the Google Web API 6. Google Web API Applications 7. Google Pranks and Games 8. The Webmaster Side of Google Index |
Google.com is a search engine that came onto the web in 1998. Since then it has grown to be one of the more used search engines on the web. In April of 2002 , the Google Engineering Team released an API to their search engine technology. Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools (Google Hacks) gives the reader a background on how to use google effectively, a detailed listing of google's services, and many ways to access google.com.
I like the new Hacks series of books from O'Reilly. Each title in this series gives the reader 100 tips and tools on the topic at hand. Each tip includes a brief description of the hack and a complexity rating. In Google Hacks the authors give each tip a complete walk through, with many including a full code listing.
The two chapters on Third-Party and Non-API google introduces the reader to new ways to get at google data that many users may not have thought of before. Hack 37 is an explanation of how to get google web searches via email. There are six hacks that if used and abused will get your IP address banned from google, so use at your own risk.
The chapters on the google API make up the meat of the book. The API is used to offer ideas to show the reader what is possible with the API. For those that are more visually minded, hack #64 is about the TouchGraph Google Browser. TouchGraph is a Java applet allows the user to start with a page and then it graphically shows pages that are similar to it. For the non-perl inclined, hacks are included, with full source code, for Python, Java, C#, and PHP.
Anyone who programs web applications and manages websites needs to get this book, if only for the final eight hacks in the book. One hack (#95) delves into the PageRank algorithm that google uses to rank web pages. Hack 96, 26 Step to 15K hits a day, should be required reading for anyone wanting to start a web site and have it take off.
At $24.95, this book is a great buy. It doesn't suffer from any glaring editing problems, and is very useful to anyone using google.com.