The search goes on for Google tips

If you use Google often, you may discover, like many others, that the Google-plex is one humongous, never-resting organism. It’s worthy of an advanced college course, just to dig through the assorted business plans and nifty tools that keep popping up.

You may have noticed that the default Google start page can be customized, if you sign up and create an account. That option allows for all sorts of modifications and add-on search tools (such as a direct link to Wikipedia).

But if you’re a business and your Web presence depends on the results your company gets on Google, then you don’t have time to take an advanced course. You need to pay attention, as best you can, to the workings of Google and how other people have learned to take advantage of its features.

Among the better blogs studying and covering Google is Googletutor.com, which describes itself as “tutorials, tips and advice for Google users.”

It has an ongoing forum devoted just to Google tips. The link to the Google search manual is helpful; so is “voyeur heaven,” a category offering assorted tips on using Google to find obscure material on the Web.

For a zippier read and for a different, sometimes insider, look at Google, one of the best is the Matt Cutts blog — www.mattcutts.com/blog.

Cutts works for Google at its Mountain Home center; as a result, it’s just a little more techie than the average reader needs. But his answers on why things happen on the world’s most popular search engine are usually very insightful.