1. Advanced Tools for Effective Internet Searching
WRANGLING THE WEB
Advanced Tools for
Effective Internet Searching
Internet Legal Research CLE
March 29, 2010
Good Morning. My name is Wendy Moore and I am the Acquisitions Librarian at the UGA Law Library. Anne Burnett is unable to join us today due to other duties at the Law School, however, I am going to present the information prepared in her paper – plus a few extra tools that I think will help you retrieve useful results in your Internet searching.
Wendy E. Moore
Acquisitions Librarian
Alexander Campbell King Law Library
University of Georgia School of Law
Anne E. Burnett
Foreign & International Law Librarian
Alexander Campbell King Law Library
University of Georgia School of Law

2. Just add words and ‘click’…
comScore.com
Feb 2010
65.5%
Google is a great way to retrieve information – you often get the information you are looking for.
According to comScore.com’s Feb 2010 survey results, Google is being used in 65.5% of searches conducted, so you are not alone if you go to Google first – I certainly do.
Where people go wrong is that they often stop searching altogether if their one Google search fails to retrieve the desired document or information. We are going to look at some of the many options you have to refine your Internet searching to get better results.

3. Google Search Tools II. Google Search Tools
We are going to start by focusing on Google’s Search Tools, which allows the searcher to place numerous limits on the results returned by a search query. By either using a code in the basic search box, for example putting text in quotes to look for words as a phrase, or utilizing the features in the Advanced Search boxes, you can craft a narrowly-focused search query that will return a higher percentage of relevant pages.
Google Search Tools

4. - Exclude Words Exclude words:
use the minus sign directly in front of words you do not want to appear in your search results.
Lhasa -apso finds sites about the Tibetan city
and not the dog.

5. define: Find Definitions
type “define:” followed by the word you want defined, here we are trying define:mulct
Google provides definitions it obtains in free Internet dictionaries and glossaries, including the URLs to those resources so you can check them out for yourself.

6. * Wildcard Operator Use wildcard operator:
use an asterisk (*) to formulate a search query asking Google to fill in the blank.
Here I use the * to fill in for an unknown party to a case involving Monsanto.
Note that the * operator works only on whole words, not parts of words. It can be handy for identifying needed facts such as in this example:
Christopher Columbus died in * retrieves numerous sites providing the year of Columbus’ death (it was 1506, by the way).

7. site: Specific Website
Searching a specific web site:
The “site:” limiter also allows the researcher to further limit the search by limiting the results to pages within a specific web site. Type “site:” followed by the webpage URL you want to limit your search to.
Here I did a search for constitutional law site:
which only retrieved sites with that term on the UGA School of Law website.
I don’t have to use the entire web address, if I wanted to say broaden my search to all uga.edu websites, now pulling up resources that weren’t in our previous list.

8. site: Specific Domain Search a specific domain:
We can take this same site: search feature a set further and use it to limit our results to pages within a specific domain by typing “site:” before the desired domain abbreviation. For example, a researcher may desire only pages assigned a government, or .gov, domain. A search of improving school lunch site:.gov
will only retrieve pages with the .gov domain.
We can combine the exclude minus sign search with the site: search.
By placing a minus sign in front of the same search we will retrieve pages from all domains but the typed one, so that improving school lunch -site:.com will pull up sites with .edu, .org, and .gov domains while excluding those with a “.com” domain.

9. Limit by Language Limit by language:
Under the Advanced Search link next to any Google search box,
One can access Google’s Advanced Search Form that allows researchers to limit search results by one of over 40 languages.
Simply choose the language in the drop down box.

10. combine site: with language limit
When searching for foreign materials or websites, I find that specifying both a language and a country-specific domain often retrieves the best results.
For example, a search for bananas industry site:.sv
limited by English in the drop down box retrieves a relevant list of pages about El Salvador’s banana industry on Salvadorian websites but in English.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) provides a complete list of domain extensions at .

11. Language Tools Not only can you limit by language,
but also Google has translation resources under Language Tools
One can have a webpage translated by just putting in the URL
One can cut and paste in a piece of text and get a translation
Most notably one can input a search in English, then Google translates your search into the languages you want, runs the search, and then translates the results back to you in English.
For example I can once again search for “banana industry” but have that search done in Spanish and the results come back to me in English. One can also access these translation tools under Google Translate under the “more” link at the top of the page.

12. 1..2 Number Range Limit your results by a number range:
Google allows you to specify a specific number range by placing two periods between the desired numbers.
A search for diabetes research theoretically retrieves results limited to diabetes research from those two years.
Not just for dates you can use any numbers,
here I’ve searched for Sony DVD player $50..$100. The number range limiter works best when the search engine can ascertain from the context of the query exactly what is being limited.

13. filetype: File Type
Under the Advanced Search Form you can limit your results to a specific file type, such as Mircosoft PowerPoint .ppt or Adobe Acrobat .pdf.
Here searching for bankruptcy CLE limited to PowerPoint, I can find presentations. The code filetype: can also be input in the search box to achieve these results.
Once again one could combine a minus sign to get results that excluded the PowerPoint format.

14. + Force Exact Word
Google assists searches by automatically including results for certain synonyms and variant spellings and abbreviations. To bypass this automatic expansion of your search query and force Google to return results including only the exact word as typed, place a + directly in front of the word.
For example, a search for +feline diseases will only return results including the word “feline” whereas the same search without the plus symbol would also return results with the word “cat” even if the word “feline” was not included.

15. phonebook: Google Phonebook
Find street addresses and phone numbers:
If any search you do in Google includes a name and city or state, Google automatically searches and displays publicly listed phone numbers and addresses at the top of results pages.
You can force Google to limit its search to only a phone listing search by typing “phonebook:” followed by the name and city or state of the person you seek.
For example, a query of phonebook: John Smith New York NY will retrieve the phone numbers and addresses of over 40 John Smiths with listings in New York City.

16. related: Find Pages Similar
Page-specific tools – Find pages similar to the page
You can use the related: to make Google search for webpages that are similar in content to a webpage that you know the URL address to already.
In this case I put related: and it brought up websites for news media outlets, both public and commercial.

17. link: Link to the Page
Page-specific tools – Find pages that link to the page
Using the search link: with a URL address will find webpages that link to the webpage you have listed.
Here I have searched for the UGA Law Library homepage, and now have a list of webpages that link to our homepage.
You can also access these two page-specific tools, related: and link:, in a search box at the bottom of the Advanced Search Form.

18. Web +Show options…
Clicking on +Show options at the top of your search results list…
will pop open easy ways to refine your search without leaving your results screen.
These allow you to do the related search that we just looked at,
to limit by when a webpage was last updated,
And to access special searches by Google, some of which we are going to look at next

19. Google Special Products
In addition to basic web searching, Google offers a variety of products designed to search specific types of documents. We are going to look at a few examples of Google’s special products.
You can find a full listing of Google Products under the “more” link at the top of any Google search page – just click on “even more”.
Google Special Products

20. Google Scholar Google Scholar (now with legal opinions!)
Google Scholar searches articles, theses, books, and abstracts from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Of particular interest to us is that in November 2009 Google Scholar expanded to include the full text of legal opinions and journals from US federal and state district, appellate, and supreme courts. Researchers must choose between the Articles collection and
the Legal Opinions & Journals collection by clicking the desired radio button under the search box.
Here are the results under Legal Opinions & Journals for my search on dog fighting. The legal information available in Google Scholar is still growing. As of late January 2010, Google Scholar included opinions for US state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950, US federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy courts since 1923 and US Supreme Court cases since 1791.

21. more Google Scholar
The Advanced Search Form for Google Scholar allows the researcher
to limit the results to federal court decisions or to those from specified states.
Google Scholar also serves as a citator by
linking to the cases which subsequently cite the displayed case, as well as linking to articles about the case and other versions available.
Google includes the following disclaimer on their Legal Opinions page:
Legal opinions in Google Scholar are provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied on as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed lawyer. Google does not warrant that the information is complete or accurate.
Remember, do not assume that the results include all relevant case law on a specific legal issue! This collection on Google Scholar should serve solely to give you an idea of the law or to help you locate a specific case.

22. Google Images Google Images http://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en
If you seek a image, Google Image Search might quickly locate what you need. You can switch to an image search from a basic web search,
just by clicking on the word “Images” at the top of every search screen, and it will re-run your search in Google Images.
Here are my search results for Sonny Perdue. Many employers include employee photos on their sites. Photos also show up frequently on sites posted for conferences, sporting events, and other gatherings. Try looking yourself up!

23. Google Blog Search Google Blog Search http://blogsearch.google.com/
Legal blogs can be an excellence source of cutting edge commentary and analysis on current legal topics. Google Blog Search can help you find blog entries on a specific topic.
The familiar Advanced Search Form is also available for researchers desiring more control over the search.

24. Google Patent Search Google Patent Search
Google Patent Search covers over 7 million patents available from the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued between 1790’s and end of Its strength over the USPTO’s website is the ability to search the entire full-text of patents, allowing one to locate a specific patent without knowledge of its issue date or number or to just browse for ideas!
Here is a search for my great-grandfather and the location Iowa, which when sorted by date,
pulls up patents he was awarded. Needless-to-say, the family didn’t get rich off of these!

25. Google Trends Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends
Google Trends allows you to compare the frequency of Google searches over time on up to five words. Enter the search terms, separated by a comma, and Google Trends returns a graphic representation of those search terms. Here I entered NCAA, basketball, women, Georgia
and it returned a graphic representation of the number of queries for each of these terms in the United States.
Not surprisingly, all these terms peak in March of each year.
You can see a little peak in the word Georgia in August 2008 – which is when Russia invaded the country of Georgia. Basketball also peaked a little at that same time, due to the 2008 Olympics.
You can also limit your results to a specific time-frame, to see a more detailed graph.

26. Beyond Google IV. Beyond Google
People rely heavily on Google for their Internet searching, but it is by no means the only game in town. Competitors like Microsoft’s Bing seek to compete head-to-head with Google in the search engine market (although as of Feb 2010 Bing is only being used for 11.5% of searches according to comScore.com, still less than Yahoo!). Other products aim to fill niches not specifically occupied by Google. Next we are going to look at some of these other search engines.

27. Bing Bing http://www.bing.com/
Microsoft launched its Bing search engine in May 2009 to much fanfare from the software giant – I’m certain you have all seen the commercials. Bing replaced Microsoft’s “Live Search” search engine. The biggest difference between Bing and Google appears to be in the appearance and features on the search results page. Otherwise, they are much more similar than those commercials would lead you to believe.
Here is our search for Lhasa apso again
Bing organizes results into categories, including: Images, Biography, Facts, Quotes, Speeches, Issues, Sports, Entertainment, Videos, and more. The search terms entered drive which categories display in the search results. There are also popular searches that would further narrow this search suggested.

28. Bing Travel Bing Travel
Like Google, Bing also offers some Special Products you can search on specific topics.
One of the most interesting that Bing features is Bing Travel.
It retrieves travel information from a wide-variety of online travel agencies and once you have found the deal you are looking for, it will link you to that travel website to book your reservation directly.
The most unique feature that Bing Travel offers is a Price Predictor feature based on their gathered Rates & Fares History. Looks like I’m going to wait to buy those tickets to Omaha!

29. Bing vs. Google Bing vs. Google http://www.bing-vs-google.com/
Some like the stunning images on Bing’s home page, while others prefer the cleaner look of the Google page. If you are trying to do a thorough search, you will probably want to search both of them. Bing vs. Google is a metasearch website that allows you to enter one search query and
retrieve side-by-side results from both the Bing and Google search engines. This is a very nice website and you can easily add it to your web browser search box.

30. Wolfram|Alpha Wolfram|Alpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Described as a “computational knowledge engine,” Wolfram|Alpha is supposed to compute answers to the factual questions submitted via its search box.
In fact instead of a search button there is a button with an “=“ sign and the mouseover “compute”.
Here I asked for Georgia population in 2000 and got a specific answer, not a list of websites. This is how Wolfram|Alpha is strikingly different from either Google or Bing, although Bing is trying to deliver some of the fact delivery featured in Wolfram|Alpha.
It will do math for you as well, such as the square root of pi.
The “New to Wolfram|Alpha?” section gives many ideas of what this could be useful for.
Wolfram|Alpha launched in early 2009, and so far reviews have been mixed. Its apparent strength, so far at least, is in making data computable and represented in charts and graphs.

31. Legal Research Engine at Cornell
The pioneers at Cornell’s law school and library have been providing access to legal materials via the internet for many years. Their Legal Research Engine continues to provide keyword access to these materials
using one of four search boxes: Legal Research Guides, the Legal Internet (which covers entries from their e-newsletter InSITE that gives descriptions of legal webpages), Academic Blawgs, and I Want It All!

32. USA.gov
Usa.gov
If you are looking for government information specifically, then start your search at USA.gov,
which allows you to search all government websites, including federal, state, local, and tribal websites for rules, reports, and regulations needed in your legal research.
The Government Information by Topic section is a great way to browse available information by subject if you aren’t certain where to start a search.

33. Invisible Web search engines only index part of the Internet
not all information is on the Internet
search engines only index part of the Internet
some data only exists on the Internet when a database is queried
some data is only available to paying subscribers
Sometimes no matter how many search engines or advanced search options you use, you still can’t find the information you are after. It is good to remember the following:
not all information is on the Internet
search engines only index part of the Internet
some data only exists on the Internet when a database is queried
some data is only available to paying subscribers

34. Look for RESOURCES not webpages
Google often can find you the information you want, but sometimes to get the information that you need you need to look at resources that Google and other search engines can’t index, such as other databases or streaming live information. Here is an example of inserting the word “database” in your search box to retrieve webpages that contain databases you can search for information,
such as this historical currency rate database.
Each of our presentations today will show you websites that have information available at them that you cannot retrieve with a simple Google search. I have several in my Business Resources presentation this afternoon…

35. DocStoc and Scribd DocStoc and Scribd http://www.docstoc.com/
As I mentioned earlier, sometimes things on the Internet are invisible because they are only available to paying users or subscribers. Two such examples are fee-based sites DocStoc and Scribd, both of which serve as iTunes-type shops for materials and documents from numerous different publishers. Customers can purchase books, forms, and business documents at these document marketplaces.

36. Keep on Searching!
Remember while a basic Google search often gets you what you need, when it doesn’t, try
Google Advanced Search Tools and Special Products
Use other search engines, like Bing or Wolfram|Alpha,
or identify web-based data resources to search
Taking the initiative to search beyond basic Google will provide you with confidence that you are locating the information you need and will make your Internet searching more successful.

37. THE END
The End
Are there any questions?