Google Toolbar

I thought I would give a short little review of a nifty little program that's 100% free: the Google Toolbar. It downloads and installs very quickly, and attaches itself to your browser. The Google toolbar allows you to search Google from anywhere on the internet, without having to go to Google first. It also allows you to search the site, go to Google's ODP-fed directory and search its Deja Vu newsgroups directly from the toolbar. But what makes this tool so nifty is the PageRank graph and the ability to get additional page info, such as backwards links and a cached snapshot. The PageRank graph is what intrigued me to try it out. Now you can see just how popular Google considers any page on the Internet to be, provided Google has spidered and indexed it. It's a fun little add on to Internet Explorer and allows you to get a quick and easy snapshot of your competitor's pages. The main drawback is that it's another toolbar that takes up browser window space. However, you can move other parts of IE's toolbars around so that you can minimize the number of toolbars that IE displays. The other drawback is that it does not support Netscape, for those of you that use it. For a more complete description about the features included in the Google toolbar, visit these two pages: http://toolbar.google.com/button_help.html and http://toolbar.google.com/menu_help.html.To download and install the Google toolbar, visit this page: http://toolbar.google.com/.

***About Bill Gentry: Bill Gentry has been a professional Web designer since 1999 and a Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing specialist with Look Sharp Designs since February 2000. Earning a Bachelor's of Science in Geology and a Master's of Business Administration in addition to his employment as an Aircraft Armament Systems Specialist for 10 years contributed to his attention to detail.

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