< Google Manual

Before you get started using Google, you should check your preferences. You can do this by going to the main Google search page at Google.com, and clicking on the Preferences link to the right of the search field.

Here you will be able to change the the settings that will define your Google Web Search user experience.

Interface Language: Set the language in which you want the interface to communicate with you. Pretty self-explanatory. Note that the Google programmers had a little fun here and included the Elmer Fudd and Klingon languages.

Search Language: While English pages are the most prevalent, web pages are written in all languages. By default, Google will search without regard for language. It’s not going to translate a search word to search pages in another language, but it will look for the search term in any web pages written in any language. To keep this default selection make sure that Search for pages written in any language is selected.

Google recommends searching all languages, but why clutter up your search results page with site you won’t be able to read. I prefer to select only the languages I know how to read. You may select any number of languages here.

SafeSearch Settings: As everyone is aware, there are an overwhelming number of sites on the web that are not appropriate for kids, or most people for that matter. A search without safeguards in place can surely give you an unexpected eyeful.

Google’s SafeSearch setting lets you set up a safeguard to stop the inclusion of such sites in your search. Your choices are:

• Moderate filtering excludes most explicit images from Google Image Search results but doesn’t filter ordinary web search results. This is your default SafeSearch setting; you’ll receive moderate filtering unless you change it.
• Strict filtering applies SafeSearch filtering to all your search results (i.e., both image search and ordinary web search).
• No Filtering, as you’ve probably figured out, turns off SafeSearch filtering completely.

Number of Results: Set how many results you wish to see per page.

Results Window: Set whether or not to open search results in a new browser window. Default is no.

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