Matt Refghi's Blog » search

Google’s Cache Feature Improved By User Script

Matt Refghi — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:00:02 +0000

When looking at search results in Google, you may have noticed a link titled “Cached” that appears alongside most results.

Here’s how Google explains the feature:

Google takes a snapshot of each page examined as it crawls the web and caches these as a back-up in case the original page is unavailable. If you click on the “Cached” link, you will see the web page as it looked when we indexed it. The cached content is the content Google uses to judge whether this page is a relevant match for your query.

Whenever I encounter a search result that isn’t loading when clicked, I try using the “Cached” link. As Google warns, it isn’t necessarily up to date, but it usually reveals what I need: the content that made the page a relevant search result. As great as this feature is, if you click on any of the links within the cached page, Google will automatically try to load the live version, not the cache. If you’re accessing the cache because the site is down, this will likely fail.

Fortunately, I recently read a post on Lifehacker that solves the above problem through the use of a user script called Google Cache Continue Redux. Once installed, it will make a button appear next to all links, when you’re viewing a cached page. This allows you to keep browsing in cached mode, if desired, making the cache feature all that more powerful.

To install the script within Google Chrome, simply visit the page and click “Install”. With Firefox, the same approach is possible; however, you first have to install the Greasemonkey plugin, and restart the browser. Opera supports user scripts as well, but the instructions are a bit longer, so I suggest looking at their documentation.

Searching With Images

Matt Refghi — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:36:59 +0000

All over the web, countless images can be seen. For the longest time, I took the presence of images for granted. That is, until I found an image I really liked, to the point where I wanted to know where it originated. My intention was to seek out additional images from the same photographer. Alas, I soon discovered that finding an image based solely on the visual content isn’t very straightforward. Back then, I was unable to find the source.

To simulate the problem I had, consider this image:

Photo by ZeroOne.

If I didn’t link to the photographer’s page, or even mention his name, how would you know where the image came from? Sure, the filename can be a hint, but it may have been modified. After all, the image you’re seeing is hosted on my server, not by a third party. So, aside from the filename, you could try searching for the image by describing it with words. Hopefully someone added proper keywords somewhere, and you may be able to find it with that. While those two methods could work, they really aren’t reliable.

Thankfully, I found something that will greatly complement the above two techniques: A reverse image lookup search engine. That’s right, give it a photo, and it tells you where it is being used. The service is called TinEye, created by Idée Inc.

In their own words:

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.

TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. It is free to use for non-commercial searching.

source: their About page.

As a demonstration, here’s what the first search results look like when I search for the above image.

TinEye allows you to either upload an image, or provide a link. In this case, I uploaded the image.

As you can see, it already pointed me to a few domains… and there are more where that came from: 37 total. As it turns out, the first result points exactly to where I got the image, from the photographer’s Flickr page. Nice.

With the Flickr page in hand, an idea struck me. What if I fed TinEye the Flickr page URL, would it know how to find the image?

Yep. TinEye is one clever robot.

The answer is yes. It actually presented me with thumbnails of images it found on the page, and asked me to choose which I wanted to search with. No need to give it a direct path to an image, it’s smarter than that. I have to say, I’m impressed. Clean interface, simple controls, and flexible input – and all I did was try their most basic functionality. Definitely a company to keep my eye on.

An Easier Way to Search for Domain Names

Matt Refghi — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:04:09 +0000

In the past, whenever I wanted to search for available domain names, I checked with individual domain registrars. While this worked, it really wasn’t optimal- every time I wanted to check another domain’s availability, I had to press Back in my browser, re-enter a domain, re-submit the request, and then I’d know. Most websites were set up like this, unfortunately. Furthermore, if I wanted to compare domain registration fees, I’d have to check multiple websites.

I’m happy to say that these inconveniences are now no longer an issue. The solution lies in a site called Instant Domain Search. The webpage aims to facilitate the process of searching for a domain, and to do so, it:

searches automatically as you type
lists different rates from leading registrars
lists domains names that are for sale

Check it out:

Personally, I’m never going back to the old method.