What makes an advanced Google search more advanced? When you do a regular Google search a word or phrase is typed into a search box, and results about the search topic magically appear. Sometimes though these results may not be exactly what the user is looking for, which is where the advanced search can be helpful. Advanced search allows the user to type in a specific phrase, and searches for the phrase as it appears. When the phrase "wild weedle appears" (referring to the Pokemon) is typed into the standard Google search, only the first result is the same as the advanced search results. In the standard results the next results appear from sites like the Wikipedia page for the Pokemon Weedle, and other online sources that anyone can update, whereas in the advanced search it only searches for the phrase "wild weedle appears" and does not give information that may not be relevant. It also has a feature that allows the user to specify words they do not want to see come up in their search results, and even has a tool in which to set the reading level of the pages that are found though the search. Although it some people think that the regular Google search is perfectly suitable, like Danielle Sekel, a senior at Wyoming Seminary who said "I have never used advanced google search, nor have I ever felt the need to."
Internet databases are also great tools to use, that are perhaps more reliable than a simple Google search. Databases can give a user access to information such as news paper articles spanning across decades, where in a Google search that usually will not be found. The only downside to databases is that the good ones usually cost money to use, which could be fine depending on how much they are actually used. For someone who does not research frequently although it may be a bit more difficult sometimes the Google Advanced search should be perfectly suitable, but if research is frequently done on historical topics, data bases could be quite helpful, and do not require spending hours upon hours scanning through old newspapers and books in a library. When I talked to Nikki O'Meara, a Misericordia graduate in psychology she brought up another possible downside to the advanced search feature "I like the advanced Google search. It's not difficult to use at all! This is coming from someone who grew up using computers though...someone who can hardly type www.google.com into their browser to search at all would have a hard time with the extra steps of course." But luckily there is still a regular Google search that is nice and simple for the not so tech savvy generations. All in all both the advanced Google search and databases are wonderful tools for the online community to use.