Google Homepage

Search engines are more than a luxury, these days, they are a necessity for most Web surfers. Many people have the Google homepage as their default browser setting. However, there is now a way to completely personalize the home page of your favorite search engine site.

iGoogle

iGoogle is a search page that allows you to customize it in many ways. You can check your email from the page, and there are also many other gadgets that you might wish to have. These gadgets make it very convenient to use the service.

News Headlines

You may enjoy keeping up with the latest news. From your page, you easily can view the top stories that are currently making the news. You also can watch news videos.

Weather

It is simple to keep track of your local weather conditions and forecasts, with the weather gadget. You also can keep track of any weather conditions that you like. It is not hard to change the settings.

Your Home Page Browser Settings

You may wish to make iGoogle the start page on your browser. This way, it will go to your personalized home page, whenever you start your browser. It is not difficult to make this setting, but it is even easier from your personalized web page. There is a link on the page that will take care of this for you. All you have to do is click the link and it will change the settings on your browser.

How to Customize Your Page

Customizing your page is not hard, but you will need to have a Google account. If you do not have one, go to the upper right hand corner of the page and click on the “sign in” link. It will take you to a page to sign in to your account, but there will also be a link to sign up for the service.

It does not cost any money to sign up, and you can enjoy a free email account, called Gmail. The account has many important features that you may appreciate. Not only that, you have full access and the ability to preview your mail, from your customized home page.

Once you sign up for the service, you will have the option of choosing your interests, and page theme. Each category that you choose will place a gadget on your page, so that you may enjoy that feature. For example, if you check “sports” you will see a gadget that has sports scores and information to click on.

Editing Settings

The Settings feature is very handy and not difficult to use. Each gadget has two areas to click on the upper right hand corner of the gadget. When you click on the first edit link, it gives you the option to edit, delete, minimize, or share the gadget. It also has a link to click that will take you to similar gadgets, in case you are interested in adding to your home page.

The edit link that is farthest to the right, opens up the gadget in large size and allows you to edit even more things. For example, if your click the far right edit link of the time gadget, you will see a map of the world. You can search for any address in the world from the search bar, or simply drop a pin on the map.

From the full size edit feature, you also have a menu on the left hand side. Click on the “weather” option and you will have all of your local weather conditions. You also have a forecast summary for the next five days. Click on a summary for a more detailed description. You also will have a complete summary of your current weather conditions complete with wind speed, visibility, and dew point. There is also an interactive map of your vicinity, with the temperatures in all of the towns and cities.

If you click on the Gmail link on the left hand menu, you will instantly be taken to your email inbox. There is no need to sign in to your account. You also do not have to leave the web page to read your mail.

Summary

You can customize your Google homepage with the iGoogle feature. This makes searching the Web, a lot more convenient than a standard search engine site. It is very easy to customize your page, once you sign in to the service. You can choose the theme of the page, and gadgets like weather, news, and sports. You also can easily access your Gmail from the same page. These are only a few things that you can do with your Google homepage options.