Out-Googling Google: Finding What Google Misses Karen Blakeman Internet Search & Retrieval Strategy...

Out-Googling Google: Finding What Google Misses

Karen Blakeman

Internet Search & Retrieval Strategy Adviser

UKeiG UKhttp://www.ukeig.org.uk/

http://www.ukeig.org.uk/blog/

http://ukeig.xwiki.com/

19 April 2023 1Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk

Internet Librarian International 2006

http://www.rba.co.uk/ili/

http://www.ukeig.org.uk/

















http://www.rba.co.uk/ili

Is this a Google-bashing session?

No Erm... yer, but no, but yer, but..

(to quote a certain Monday morning presentation)

When you are using Google, make sure you are using the right “bit”– news, blogsearch, images etc.

Use the advanced search options to get the best (?) out of Google

But....

19 April 2023 Karen Blakeman www.rba.co.uk 2

What is wrong with Google?

Results vary from day to day OR command does not really work similar/related pages limited Numeric range search erratic Synonym search not reliable or consistent link command extremely limited

– cannot always combine commands • e.g. link:www.rba.co.uk –site:www.rba.co.uk

Not very up to date site: command erratic


Work this one out

Why does

site:charity-commission.gov.uk grants

give 2160 results

and

Site:charity-comm ission.gov.uk grants

give:


Google is a temperamental beast

Do not attempt to apply logic to the way it works – therein lies the path to madness


Other search engines...

Different coverage Different search features Different algorithms for sorting results Compare search engines

– http://ranking.thumbshots.com/


http://ranking.thumbshots.com/



Google vs Yahoo


Yahoo web search

http://search.yahoo.co.uk/ Results compare favourable with Google’s, sometimes

better Results are ranked in a different order to Google Boolean AND, OR, NOT and parentheses Indexes first 500 K of a document Superior link and linkdomain commands


http://search.yahoo.co.uk/



Link commands compared

Find pages that link to your known page– pages that link to one another often similar in content

– find listings that often include invisible web resources

– invaluable if you are changing your domain name or restructuring your site and you need to know who links to you

Link command– Google

• link:www.rba.co.uk (47 pages)

– Yahoo• link:http://www.rba.co.uk/ (403)

• linkdomain:www.rba.co.uk (1960)

• linkdomain:www.rba.co.uk –site:www.rba.co.uk (1690)


AlltheWeb Livesearch

http://livesearch.alltheweb.com/ Owned by Yahoo Results appear and change as you type Suggests alternative search strategies as you type Refine results by filetype and site/domain


http://livesearch.alltheweb.com/



Exalead

http://www.exalead.com/ Supports wild cards

– asterisk (*) at the end of a word• pollut* finds pollute, pollutant, polluting etc.

– in the middle of a word using pattern matching• /psych.*ist/ finds psychologist, psychiatrist, pyschotherapist

NEAR - finds words within 16 terms of one another– NEAR/n finds words within n number of terms one another

• climate NEAR/3 change

Approximate spelling, phonetic search


http://www.exalead.com/



Ask

http://www.ask.com/, http://www.ask.co.uk/ Formerly Ask Jeeves Teoma now redirects to Ask Web, news, local search, images, movies, blogs,

feeds Suggestions for narrowing down or expanding your

search


Windows Live

http://www.live.com/ Was MSN Search Results tend to be more consumer oriented Has the most up to date database Good link and linkdomain command

– link:www.rba.co.uk (1247)

– linkdomain:www.rba.co.uk –site:www.rba.co.uk (4473)

Windows often neglects to advertise new search features– e.g. locating RSS feeds on a specified web site

– site:bbc.co.uk feed:bbc.co.uk



Windows Live – web search


Windows Live – Academic

Should you be using Google et al?

Think type of information– news, official company information, statistics

Evaluated subject listings– Intute (formerly Resource Discovery Network), Alacrawiki.com

Reference sources– Wikipedia, Answers.com, Encarta

– Google Scholar

– Scirus

– Academic Live

– Ingenta Connect

Structured databases e.g. STN, EINS, Thompson etc


Current News

Individual publications, BBC, radio (audio), television (audio) Last 30 days

– Google News • http://www.google.com/news/

– Yahoo News• http://search.yahoo.com/ and click on News link

– Ask• http://www.ask.com/

– Accoona • http://www.accoona.com/ and click on news option

• has SuperTarget


Archive news

Older than 30 days– Accoona

• searches free news sites

– Google News Archive• http://www.google.com/archivesearch

• some sources going back 200 years

• many articles are priced (check other sources before you buy for free options or it may be cheaper to use LexisNexis pay as you go)

– some web based news sources and individual publications go back several years and are free

– priced options such as Factiva and Lexis Nexis credit card pay as you go


Blogs and RSS

Google Blogsearch– http://www.google.com/blogsearch

Ask – Blogs and feeds Windows Live – Feeds

– also the feed: command

Yahoo– Advanced Search & file format RSS/XML

Exalead– limit search to RSS feeds

Blog and feed search engines– Technorati, Blogpulse


Audio & Video

Google Video (?) Yahoo Ask Bllinkx

– http://www.blinkx.tv/


Audio & Video


www.visit4info.com

Images

TASI– http://www.tasi.ac.uk/advice/using/finding.html

images.google.com search.yahoo.com – images tab Ask – images tab Windows Live


Images

TASI– http://www.tasi.ac.uk/advice/using/finding.html

images.google.com search.yahoo.com – images tab Ask – images tab Windows Live Flickr.com

– check the license

– http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons



Morguefile.com

commons.wikimedia.com



NASA

Cross searching the search engines

Search several tools with one search Can’t use the advanced search features of the

individual search tools Clustering

– Killerinfo.com, Clusty.com


Clusty.com


http://www.trovando.it/

Top tips from searchers

1. It isn’t your fault if Google doesn’t work There are plenty of other excellent and often better search

tools

2. Google Make sure that you are using the advanced search features

to the full and that you are using the right part of Google for example News for current headlines, Images, Blogsearch etc

3. Experiment with the cross-search engine tools Clusty, Killerinfo, Trovando.it


Why the Google site search oddity?


Site:charity-commission.gov.uk grants

Karen Blakemanhttp://www.rba.co.uk/ili/[email protected]

Out-Googling Google: Finding What Google Misses Karen Blakeman Internet Search & Retrieval Strategy...

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