Beating Google into Submission

Beating Google into Submission Karen Blakeman Online Information 2011 #online11 karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk Twitter: @karenblakeman Slides available at http://www.rba.co.uk/as/ and also on authorSTREAM and Slideshare 30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Disclaimer: the content of these slides was correct on November 24 th 14.59 GMT, using google.co.uk via Chrome, and signed into one of my Google accounts. Of course, a lot of it will have changed by now!! 30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk

Google knows best 30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk Hewish mild Google decided to change my search to Jewish mild = Google decides that coots are lions – changed a search for coots mating behaviour to lions mating behaviour

Coots mating behaviour = lions mating behaviour
A Google experiment?
we think Google assumed coots was a typing error for cats and then did a synonym search on cats
See:
Google decides that coots are really lions http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/02/12/google-decides-that-coots-are-really-lions/
Update on coots vs. lions http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/02/21/update-on-coots-vs-lions/
Google still thinks coots are possibly cats (or cows) http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/07/google-still-thinks-coots-are-possibly-cats-or-cows/
Exact search when
the term coots was repeated
the order of the search terms was changed
Thanks to Arthur Weiss and Susanna Winter for their help with this oddity
30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk

Google's Collateral Damage: SEO Cat & Mouse Game http://www.seobook.com/learn-seo/collateral-damage.php 30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk
Google revenues
- $29.321 billion ($8.505 billion net)
- Q1+Q2+Q3=$27.301 billion ($7.032 billion net)
2011 Financial Tables - Google Investor Relations http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html

How Google works
“ Dear Bing, We Have 10,000 Ranking Signals To Your 1,000. Love, Google”
http://searchengineland.com/bing-10000-ranking-signals-google-55473
Over 200 hundred “signals”
Each may have over 50 variations
/

Google knows us so well 30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk Google personalises and tailors your results depending on your location, computer, browser, past searches, what you have looked at in the past, your +1s, your blocked sites, Google experiments, your Google+ account, your other social networks, what you do on your android phone, what you had for breakfast...and anything else it can find by rummaging around in your Google dashboard. Check your account’s dashboard at http://www.google.com/dashboard/

Google includes social media 30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk

Google is good at....
Localisation
Country versions give priority to local content
Localisation at town/city level
may have to tell Google where you are based
don’t have to tell Google my town if I am looking a local restaurant, taxi or plumber
especially useful when using a mobile device
Personalisation? Varies from person to person as to whether it is useful
Image search
Maps
Google Finance
Overall coverage and rolling out features worldwide

BUT.......what I see on my screen for a search is not what you’ll see on yours.
This affects how we advise users and clients on the best search strategy.

No plus sign any more and Google ignores “...”
Dear Google, stop messing with my search : http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/11/08/dear-google-stop-messing-with-my-search/

Google does a “soft AND”
“ When you do a multi-term query on Google (even with quoted terms), the algorithm sometimes backs-off from hard ANDing all of the terms together.......it’s clear that people will often write long queries (with anywhere from 5 to 10 terms) for which there are no results. Google will then selectively remove the terms that are the lowest frequency to give you some results (rather than none)....Soft AND is a way to reduce the overall frustration and give the searcher something to examine (and with luck, a chance to reformulate their query).”
Dan Russell
http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/11/08/dear-google-stop-messing-with-my-search/#comments

We now have Verbatim search
Run your search first and then select Verbatim from the left hand menu on your results page
Appears that you can include advanced search commands in your strategy e.g. OR and the tilde (~) for synonyms
Google: Verbatim for exact match search http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/11/18/google-verbatim-for-exact-match-search/

30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk “ Normal” search Verbatim (identical to &pws=0) Chrome Incognito Google web searches

Use the results sidebars
These help you focus your search
Vary depending on type of search e.g. web, news, images
Open up the "more" options to see everything

Translated pages for a different perspective
Google suggests languages from context of search but you can choose your own
Your search is translated and the results are translated into your original language

Google sidebars 30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk Images Videos News Books Blogs

Where have cached and similar gone? 30/11/11 www.rba.co.uk Hover over a result and a "preview" of the page should appear to the right together with cached and similar links

Block sites that you never, ever want to see again!
Use with caution – Google may use your blocked sites as a ranking "signal" for other searchers
Sign into your Google account
Run your search, click on a result, return to results and a block option is made available
Site will be blocked from all your future searches regardless of topic

Learn advanced search commands
Advanced Search screen (now hidden under cog wheel in upper right hand corner of the screen)
Do more with commands
For example selecting file type ppt on the Advanced Search screen will only search for ppt and not pptx
Use filetype command instead, for example
zeolites environmental remediation filetype:ppt (35 results)
zeolites environmental remediation filetype:ppt OR filetype:pptx (42 results)

Essential commands
filetype:
site:
inurl: and allinurl:
intitle: and allintitle:
related:
Numeric range search
[1 st number]..[2 nd number] [unit of measurement (optional)]
1..7 kg

Keeping up to date
Inside Search http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/
Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
Search Engine Land http://searchengineland.com/
Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com/
Boolean Black Belt-Sourcing/Recruiting http://www.booleanblackbelt.com/
Karen Blakeman’s Blog http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/
Phil Bradley's weblog http://philbradley.typepad.com/

http://oedb.org	1106
http://www.rba.co.uk	405
http://lonewolflibrarian.wordpress.com	187
http://paper.li	59
http://www.scoop.it	29
http://www.alldaykids.com	22
http://lanyrd.com	20
http://librarians.collected.info	8
http://happyski.wikispaces.com	8
http://www.onlydoo.com	7
http://pimpyourcareer112011.wikispaces.com	7
http://elearning.nil.org.pl	6
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http://a0.twimg.com	3
http://us-w1.rockmelt.com	3
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http://flavors.me	2
http://tweetedtimes.com	1
http://www.comtel.in	1
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	1
http://alexandrebernardes.blogspot.com	1

Beating Google into Submission

by Karen Blakeman on Nov 30, 2011

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