Out-Googling Google: Finding What Google Misses Karen Blakeman Internet Search & Retrieval Strategy Adviser UKeiG UK September 20151Karen Blakeman Internet Librarian International

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 September 2015Karen Blakeman

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: –site:  Not very up to date  site: command erratic 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Work this one out Why does site:charity-commission.gov.uk grants give 2160 results and Site:charity-commission.gov.uk grants give: 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Google is a temperamental beast  Do not attempt to apply logic to the way it works – therein lies the path to madness 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Other search engines...  Different coverage  Different search features  Different algorithms for sorting results  Compare search engines – 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Google vs Yahoo 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Yahoo web search   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 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

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: (47 pages) –Yahoo link: (403) linkdomain: (1960) linkdomain: –site: (1690) 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

AlltheWeb Livesearch   Owned by Yahoo  Results appear and change as you type  Suggests alternative search strategies as you type  Refine results by filetype and site/domain 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Exalead   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 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Ask   Formerly Ask Jeeves  Teoma now redirects to Ask  Web, news, local search, images, movies, blogs, feeds  Suggestions for narrowing down or expanding your search 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Windows Live   Was MSN Search  Results tend to be more consumer oriented  Has the most up to date database  Good link and linkdomain command –link: (1247) –linkdomain: –site: (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 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman Windows Live – web search

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman 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 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Current News  Individual publications, BBC, radio (audio), television (audio)  Last 30 days –Google News –Yahoo News and click on News linkhttp://search.yahoo.com/ –Ask – Accoona and click on news optionhttp:// has SuperTarget 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Archive news  Older than 30 days –Accoona searches free news sites –Google News Archive 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 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Blogs and RSS  Google 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 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Audio & Video  Google Video (?)  Yahoo  Ask  Bllinkx – 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Audio & Video 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Images  TASI –  images.google.com  search.yahoo.com – images tab  Ask – images tab  Windows Live 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Images  TASI –  images.google.com  search.yahoo.com – images tab  Ask – images tab  Windows Live  Flickr.com –check the license – 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman Morguefile.com

commons.wikimedia.com 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman 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 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Clusty.com 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

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 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman

Why the Google site search oddity? 24 September 2015Karen Blakeman Site:charity-commission.gov.uk grants

Karen Blakeman