2. AGENDA – EAC - TORONTO
1. thinking person's approach to search
2. 5 features to make you a power Google
user
3. 3 methods to get good results faster
4. a few alternative search engines
4. WORDS MATTER
Order of words makes a difference in results
ranking. Natural phrasing is better because ...
A rare term finds rare items, scientific terms
find scientific papers, medical … legal ...
Context words will disambiguate the meaning.
Stock terms identify the type of document you
want.
What do you expect from the words you use?
5. CONCEPTS MATTER
Primary / dominant concept – what is your
core topic?
Secondary concept – what modifies or supports
the core topic? What do you want to know
about it?
Does anything connect these concepts?
Work outwards – flex one concept at a time –
add another concept to refine.
6. EXAMPLE 1 – SMART METERS
Question: Is the electromagnetic field (EMF)
from smart meters hazardous to health?
Primary: “smart
meters” electricity Secondary: health
hazards, effects
electromagnetic
7. EXAMPLE 1 - QUERIES
Most important first: “smart meters” electricity
health hazards
Natural phrasing: health hazards of “smart
meters” for electricity
First 10 results: top 2 are the same, 2 are
unique for each set, and ranking is different.
8. EXAMPLE 2 – BICYCLE PATHS
Question: Do bicycle paths or lanes have any
influence on cycling rates?
Primary: bicycle Secondary:
ridership, cycling bicycle/bike paths
rate, cycling growth and lanes
Increase
9. EXAMPLE 2 - QUERIES
Capture concepts: increase bicycle ridership
using bike lanes and paths
Add stock term: statistics bicycle ridership
using bike lanes and paths
10. QUOTING A STUDENT
Once you have identified (at least provisionally)
the primary and secondary concepts involved in
a search you are in a position to do two things:
you can manipulate the words you are using to
search for the concepts and you can apply
other strategies to focus on particular instances
of the concepts.
14. TIPS ON USING RELATED WORDS
All search engines do word variants to some
degree. But Google is best at it.
Engine retrieves and ranks results with the
expanded word set.
Watch for bolded words – you may not want
some.
Think about the words – there may be another
you want to use – eg preparedness.
15. TURN RELATED WORDS OFF
Google – put word inside
quotation marks. Eg
“preparation”
Google – use Verbatim
Bing and Yahoo – put + in
front. Eg +preparation
16. 5 UNIQUE FEATURES TO GOOGLE
1. Highly semantic – as we have seen
2. Tilde ~ the synonym operator
3. * as wildcard and proximity operator
4. Number range
5. Judge a page by its images
23. USING OR
Why: to expand a concept.
When: after you have a sense of the search
results and have identified important words to
express the concept.
How: one concept at a time, and just 2 or 3
terms that pertain to that concept.
27. REFINE YOUR SEARCH
1. What words would be in the perfect page title?
2. Who would have information about this?
3. What format would it be in?
28. TITLE TAG
Format – intitle:<your word or “a phrase”>
Question: preparing for climate change in
ontario
Primary: “climate Secondary:
change preparations,
planning,
adaptation
Ontario
32. WHO WILL HAVE IT?
Do you want Canadian? Use the .ca country
code – site:ca
What does the Ministry of Natural Resources
have? Use site:mnr.gov.on.ca
34. WHAT FORMAT?
Use filetype: to ask for particular format.
pdf used universally to publish reports,
brochures, papers
ppt and pps for presentations
doc word documents
Xls for spreadsheet
37. ALTERNATIVE ENGINES
Duckduckgo – ensures privacy, no spam
Blekko – slashtag, no spam
Carrot2.org – metasearch and clusters results
Allplus.com – metasearch and clusters results
Topsy – social media
39. DUCKDUCKGO
Full privacy – no Smaller database –
tracking or sharing uses own
Has Canadian crawl, Blekko, Bing
content.
Generally higher
quality – blocks
spam. Duckduckgo.com
Syntax for intitle,
site, filetype.
Search suggestions
41. BLEKKO
Avoids content farms Smaller – 3 billion
– no span Bans some good
Sites handpicked and sites
categorized Weak on Canadian
Slashtags signify the content.
category Takes time to learn
Create your own Less syntax – does
topics have site:
Blekko.com
43. CARROT2.ORG
Meta-search of Only brings back 100
Google, Bing, Yahoo, results.
Ask
Clusters results –
can see aspects of
topic
Visual display - maps Carrot2.org
Good for first
search, broad sweep.
45. ALLPLUS
Metasearch – Clusters derived from
Google, Bing frequently occurring
Clusters – more phrase.
granular Small number of
Universal – images, results
video, news, twitter,
blogs
Good for first sweep. Allplus.com
47. TOPSY.COM
Indexes social media As with all social
Feeds from media, reader
Twitter, Facebook, Go beware.
ogle-Plus, Youtube
etc.
Uses influence
algorithms to identify Topsy.com
importance
Provides buzz
48. THANK YOU
Questions?
Internet News Blog
http://www.websearchguide.ca/netblog/
Web Search Courses at iSchool Institute – 1-day
classroom, and 6-week online
Email goharris@websearchguide.ca
Editor's Notes
Electricity – adds context to explain the type of smart meter.Electromagnetic is the technical term – could use that instead of electricity – would add contextDon’t use EMF instead of electromagnetic because could mean something else. But could bump up importance of electromagnetic by using both.Keep health hazards / health effects natural.
Takes a couple of searches to find the phrase bicycle ridershipGoogle will take care of variants for bicycle, bike.Need to capture the implied third concept of cause and effect.Primary depends on what you most care about – is it to find ways to increase ridership, or to promote bike paths?
The * at end of series of words also good for forcing proximityMake sure there is a space before and after.
Select from side panel – more search options.
Google searches for results with climate change in title, and Ontario anywhere, but it will rank those that also have Ontario in the title higher.Note: third results does not have Ontario in the title but is about Ontario.
Eg – see features with -- intitle:"climate change" ontario preparedness
Eg – to see slash tags available for a search – put / at end – eg - "climate change" ontario /
