Beyond Google
Advanced Websearching
Evergreen Training 2.9.2008
Ines Seidel, Finpro

Plan for Today
1. You and the Question
2. Google & Other Search Engines
3. Coffee anyone?
4. Invisible Web, Useful Sites & Tools
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Efficient data gathering is a success factor for
projects!
Secondary Data
Data Story
‘The Question’ ‘The Answer’
Gathering Lining
Primary Data
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Be a Detective
• Ask lots of questions
• Stay flexible
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• Have the satisfaction of your
client in mind
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What?
• Open question vs. Closed
question?
• Key words; synonym search
terms; likely phrases
• What form could the data have
on a webpage (e.g. table,
picture, list of conference
participants,…be creative!)
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Who and where?
• Who would write about or collect
information you need (e.g.
statistical offices, associations,
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banks,…)
• Where could the data you need
be? (e.g. annual report, market
research report, ranking,PhD
thesis…)
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The Best Tool: Your Brain
• Doublecheck you understand the task
• Be aware of constraints – time and
money
• Have a focus – don„t get lost in ocean of
data
• Analyze as you go – findings that have
implications on focus/hypothesis/search
strategy need immediate attention
• Be critical - check data quality & source
 Transform data into intelligence
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Brainstorming Exercise
What are the dominant ways to treat asthma in South
Africa?
• What?
• Who?
• Where?
What do these questions mean for your search strategy?
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Plan for Today
1. You and the Question
2. Google + Other Search Engines
3. Coffee anyone?
4. Invisible Web, Useful Sites & Tools
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Is something wrong with ?
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Exercise: How to make results more relevant?
• Check your Google Preferences (language, number of hits per
page)
• Advanced search options: e.g. search for surveys/reports
about success factors for software implementation in
organizations using various options
• Simple Search e.g. pages about market shares of search
engines :
• Phrase searching with „…“
• Reverse order of search terms – what happens?
• Enter some search terms two or three times – what
happens?
• Proximity search with * e.g. „search engines“ * statistics
• Include Filetype: e.g. „search engines“ „market share“
+filetype: pdf
• Google images: Search for „search engine“ „market shares“
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Preferences
• Adapt language settings to current needs
• Display more than 10 results – danger of missing
relevant (but not so high ranking) content
• Open search results in separate browser – easier to
refine search strategy
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Advanced Search: Using Alternatives
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Advanced Search – some options
637.000 hits
6.650 hits
539.000 hits
318.000 hits
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Google Images: Sometimes great for
finding stats
Always follow up
source if you rely on
others„ graphics!
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Advanced search options only???
• Start broad, narrow
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down later
• Try several
approaches
The Phone forever • There is more to
love 
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Google
• Google Toolbar
• Google Cheat sheet
• Google Alerts
• Google Scholar
• Not to forget: Google News, Google Images, Google
Blog Search
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Google Alternatives
• Try them on!
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Thumbshots Ranking
• Start: http://ranking.thumbshots.com/
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Exalead
• Start: http://www.exalead.com/
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Zuula
• Start: www.zuula.com
• Compare search results across search engines, for
blogs, pictures, videos, news
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Exercise: Google Alternatives?
• Go to http://ranking.thumbshots.com/ - compare
results for a search term of your choice. How much
overlap is there between search results of 2 selected
search engines?
• www.exalead.com: search for search engines –
study suggestions for refining search on the right.
Try some of them
• www.zuula.com: search for “top search engines” –
note how result pages differ (e.g. sponsored links,
availability of related searches)
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Plan for Today
1. You and the Question
2. Google + Other Search Engines
3. Coffee anyone?
4. Invisible Web, Useful Sites & Tools
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The Invisible Web
= also referred to as deep or hidden Web
= internet content that is not indexed by
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search engines (e.g. because
registration needed)
= assumed to be 500 times larger than
visible web
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How to access the invisible?
Be a Detective (again!)
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• Directories
• Specialized Search Engines
• Topic specific databases
• Format specialists: Videos,
Microblogs, Powerpoint,…
• Web2.0: Social Bookmarking,
Blogs,..
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Exercises: People Search
• Which sites does the Librarian‟s index to the internet
(www.lii.org) recommend for people search
(attention: very slow page! Alternative: look in google
for “people search engines”)
• Try one or two of people search engines searching
for „Jorma Turunen“ and your own name
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Exercise: Crowdsourcing Answers
• Go to Yahoo Answers
http://answers.yahoo.com/.
• Search for questions that have already been
answered – use Advanced Search e.g. Russia
– Category Business & Finance:
• What type of questions? How helpful are the
answers?
• When would you use Yahoo Answers?
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Exercise: Finding Relevant Blogs
• Go to www.alltop.com (a directory for blogs)
• find the category “social media”
• Can you find recent blogs/postings that are relevant
for newspapers?
• When would you read these blogs?
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Exercise: Is this the WTO homepage?
• Check www.gatt.org; have a look at information at
www.alexa.com
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Still time?
• Try to find specialist search engines for a topic of
your choice
• Try out www.Cuil.com – search engine that started a
few weeks ago as THE Google competitor
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Thank-you!
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