Beyond Google: Advanced Internet Search Tips and Tricks

Beyond Google: Advanced Internet Search Tips & Tricks
NGS FAMILY HISTORY CONFERENCE, 2009
Raleigh, NC
JORDAN JONES
E-mail: jordan@genealogymedia.com
Web: genealogymedia.com
Blog: genealogymedia.com/blog/

ONE MUST START WITH A DISCUSSION OF ACCESS …
1 – Access: Search and Navigation

The Librarian’s Definition
“The availability of or permission to use records.”
– Archives & Records Management Handbook, Oregon State U., http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/archives/handbook/definitions/
“… the purpose of librarianship – enabling people to identify, locate, and use the information that will meet their … needs.”
– The Information Professional’s Glossary, SIRLS, Arizona State U., http://www.sir.arizona.edu/resources/glossary.html
© 2008 GenealogyMedia.com
3

The Web Technologist’s Definition
For web sites, access similarly describes the permission and ability for people to “identify, locate, and use information.”
In July 2008, Google’s search bots had reached 1 trillion unique URLs (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-knew-web-was-big.html).
So with this much content, how do you access the genealogical information you’re looking for?
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Web Access
Navigation – That is, clicking through a pre-defined path in a website to find the information you need.
A good navigation path is like a searchlight in fog.
Search – Search is especially helpful:
If you do not even know what website to use, or
If you need to find information on a website and do not know how to navigate to the information.
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Design for Access
A good web designer will focus on improving customer success through both paths (search and navigation) to the information
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How search Engines work,
and kinds of searches
2 – Search
7

How Search Engines Work
Web-Crawling “Spiders”The search engine has computer programs “crawl” through all the links on the web
CachingSome web search applications (such as Google) store (cache) all the pages they crawl
IndexingThe search engine creates and manages an index of all the words found on the pages crawled
RankingLinks delivered are ranked in terms of relevance, popularity, authoritativeness and other criteria: The Secret Sauce.
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The Search Cycle
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Word Searches
Word (Implicit AND)If you list two words, such as Jane Graham, find pages that include “Jane” and “Graham”.Google/Yahoo: Jane Graham
Word (Explicit Inclusion) Google includes plurals and synonyms in searches; both Google and Yahoo ignore common words.
To instead ignore plurals and synonyms on Google
To include common words on both Yahoo and Google, preface a term with a plus (+) sign.
Google: Jane Graham +genealogy
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Phrase and Boolean Searches
Phrase Find pages that include “Jane Graham”Google/Yahoo: “Jane Graham” Often, you would use this with the Boolean OR command
Boolean ORFor both Google and Yahoo, OR must be in all caps.Google/Yahoo: “Jane Graham” OR “Graham Jane”
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Proximity Searches
Proximity / WildcardFind pages where “Jane” is near “Graham”.Google: Jane * Graham OR Graham * Jane [where * = up to 2 words]
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Yahoo & Google Search Shortcuts
Yahoo Shortcuts are pre-coded quick ways to get specific kinds of information:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/
Google Search Features operate in a similar way:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/features.html
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Example Yahoo & Google Search Shortcuts
defineGet a dictionary definition of a termYahoo/Google: define genealogy
factsProvides the Columbia Encyclopedia entry along with other search resultsYahoo: Sir Walter Raleigh facts
convertConverts one unit of measure (weight, measures, temperatures) to anotherYahoo/Google: convert 28 lbs to stones or 150 USD in EUR
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Example Yahoo & Google Search Shortcuts
area codeFind an area code for a localeYahoo: Raleigh area code Yahoo/Google: 919
zip codeProvides the Zip Code or Codes for an areasYahoo: Raleigh zip code
Local search Yahoo/Google: cemetery Raleigh or cemetery 27601
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Advanced Searches
Synonym or “like”Limit results to pages including synonyms of your search term or phrase. Google: “Jane Graham” OR “Graham Jane” ~genealogy
WildcardsExpand results to allow wildcards (*_?) to replace one or more characters or words. The use of wildcards varies widely from site to site. Google: * stands for up to two words
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Site- and Domain-Class-Specific Searches
Site-specific Limit results to pages on a specific site Google/Yahoo: site:usgenweb.org
Site-class specificLimit results to pages in a certain domain class, such as .org or .govGoogle/Yahoo: site:.org
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Exclude Sites / Soundex
Exclude Specific Site Find pages, but exclude a specific site.Google/Yahoo: Gregg –site:www.usgennet.org
Soundex – Available on many genealogy websites, and not only for census records.
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Exclude Words and Phrases
Exclude WordLimit results by excluding pages that include a particular word. Google: –murder
Exclude PhraseLimit results by excluding pages that include a particular phrase. Google: –“Jane Graham”
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Most Sites Have Search Tips
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Read the Tips

Follow a predictable path for Predictable Results
3 – Search Methodology
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Search Methodology
Look for advanced search pages Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/web/advancedGoogle: http://www.google.com/advanced_search
Read the site’s search guidelines
Yahoo: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/Google: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/
Experiment!
If your search fails to yield results, map out strategies to refine searches to be either more or less specific
Plan your more complex Internet searches the way you would plan a trip to a major repository
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Google Advanced Search
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Google Advanced Search Additional Items
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Yahoo Advanced Search
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Google Alerts
You can have Google search in the background and send results on a regular basis:
http://www.google.com/alerts/
Search News, Blogs, Web, Video, Groups or Comprehesive
Get results when Google finds them (“as-it-happens”), daily or weekly
Results are delivered to your e-mail
26

Google Alerts
27

Using a search engine to its Potential
4 – A Sample Search
28

Finding Jane Graham
Facts: Jane Graham, was born in 1811 and died unmarried in 1854. She lived her life in Monroe County, VA (now WV).
Q: How do I search for her?
29
A: By increasing the specificity of my search.

Jane Graham (1.45 Million)
30

“Jane Graham” (50,600)
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“Jane Graham” “Monroe County” (287)
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“Jane Graham” “Monroe County” 1854 (193)
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“Jane Graham” “Monroe County” 1811..1854 (1o5)
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Google Page Date Search
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Expandable Portion of Advanced Search Window for Page Date, Numeric Range and other settings

“Jane Graham” “Monroe County” 1811..1854 This Year (28)
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A Caveat About “Page Date” Searches on Google
Stephen Morse points out that Google is really tracking when they indexed a page, not when the page was last modified.
Probably a better search for the age of a web page is Stephen Morse’s:
http://stevemorse.org/google/googledate.html
But, even this can be deceptive, as any changes on a page would cause it to appear modified, and this will not apply to database-driven pages.
37

Site-specific search on Google and Yahoo and searches at Newspaperarchive.com and footnote
4 – Additional Search Examples
38

Searching a Specific Site
Say I want to know all of the mentions of the surname “Gregg” on the US GenNet site for Nance County, NE
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/county/nance/
Google/Yahoo:
Gregg site:www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/county/nance/
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Results of the Site-Specific Search
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NewspaperArchive.com Basic Search
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Jane Graham

NewspaperArchive.com Basic Search Results
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3,251 hits

NewspaperArchive.com Advanced Search
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Jane Graham 1853-1855

NewspaperArchive.com Advanced Search Results
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F00tnote.com Basic Search Results
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36,602 Hits

Footnote Advanced Search
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Name, Date Range, and Specific Collection

Footnote Advanced Search Results
47

Stephen P. Morse’s One-Step Web Pages
No discussion of Internet search for genealogists would be complete without a discussion of Stephen Morse’s One-Step Web Pages at:
http://www.stevemorse.org/
Morse uses “deep linking” to skip past multiple search pages and get directly to the content.
One great example is that the One-Step site allows you to search Ancestry (if you have an account) with surnames of fewer than 3 letters. It does this by sending 26 searches for each letter you don’t specify.
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Responses to questions received in advance …
Questions
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Other Search Sites of Note
Microsoft Live Search – http://www.live.com/
Dogpile – http://www.dogpile.com/
Google Book Search – http://books.google.com/
Google Scholar – http://scholar.google.com/
Google Patent Search – http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en
Internet Archive (Way Back Machine) – http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Live Roots – http://www.liveroots.com/
WorldCat– http://www.worldcat.org/
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Contact
Jordan Jones
jordan@genealogymedia.com
These slides, and the handout, are available at: http://www.genealogymedia.com/talks/

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Beyond Google: Advanced Internet Search Tips and Tricks

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Beyond Google: Advanced Internet Search Tips and Tricks — Presentation Transcript