The document provides an overview of techniques for effective web searching such as thinking about primary and secondary concepts, using related words and operators like tilde and asterisk in Google searches, and strategies for refining searches like focusing on title keywords, source domains, and file formats. Several alternative search engines are also introduced that take different approaches such as clustering results or ensuring privacy.

1. TIPS AND
STRATEGIES
FOR EFFECTIVE
WEB
SEARCHING
Gwen Harris
(March 26, 2012)

2. AGENDA – EAC - TORONTO
1. thinking person's approach to search
2. 5 features to make you a power Google
user
3. 3 methods to get good results faster
4. a few alternative search engines

3. THINKING FIRST

4. WORDS MATTER
 Order of words makes a difference in results
ranking. Natural phrasing is better because ...
 A rare term finds rare items, scientific terms
find scientific papers, medical … legal ...
 Context words will disambiguate the meaning.
 Stock terms identify the type of document you
want.
 What do you expect from the words you use?

5. CONCEPTS MATTER
 Primary / dominant concept – what is your
core topic?
 Secondary concept – what modifies or supports
the core topic? What do you want to know
about it?
 Does anything connect these concepts?
 Work outwards – flex one concept at a time –
add another concept to refine.

6. EXAMPLE 1 – SMART METERS
 Question: Is the electromagnetic field (EMF)
from smart meters hazardous to health?
Primary: “smart
meters” electricity Secondary: health
hazards, effects
electromagnetic

7. EXAMPLE 1 - QUERIES
 Most important first: “smart meters” electricity
health hazards
 Natural phrasing: health hazards of “smart
meters” for electricity
 First 10 results: top 2 are the same, 2 are
unique for each set, and ranking is different.

8. EXAMPLE 2 – BICYCLE PATHS
 Question: Do bicycle paths or lanes have any
influence on cycling rates?
Primary: bicycle Secondary:
ridership, cycling bicycle/bike paths
rate, cycling growth and lanes
Increase

9. EXAMPLE 2 - QUERIES
 Capture concepts: increase bicycle ridership
using bike lanes and paths
 Add stock term: statistics bicycle ridership
using bike lanes and paths

10. QUOTING A STUDENT
 Once you have identified (at least provisionally)
the primary and secondary concepts involved in
a search you are in a position to do two things:
you can manipulate the words you are using to
search for the concepts and you can apply
other strategies to focus on particular instances
of the concepts.

11. 5 FEATURES AT GOOGLE

12. RELATED WORDS AT GOOGLE

13. RELATED WORDS AND MATCHING

14. TIPS ON USING RELATED WORDS
 All search engines do word variants to some
degree. But Google is best at it.
 Engine retrieves and ranks results with the
expanded word set.
 Watch for bolded words – you may not want
some.
 Think about the words – there may be another
you want to use – eg preparedness.

15. TURN RELATED WORDS OFF
 Google – put word inside
quotation marks. Eg
“preparation”
 Google – use Verbatim
 Bing and Yahoo – put + in
front. Eg +preparation

16. 5 UNIQUE FEATURES TO GOOGLE
1. Highly semantic – as we have seen
2. Tilde ~ the synonym operator
3. * as wildcard and proximity operator
4. Number range
5. Judge a page by its images

17. GOOGLE: ~ THE “FUZZY OPERATOR”

18. * AS FILL-IN-BLANK

19. * AS WILDCARD BETWEEN WORDS

20. GOOGLE NUMBER RANGE NUM..NUM

21. JUDGE A PAGE BY ITS IMAGES

22. ALSO PAGE PREVIEW

23. USING OR
 Why: to expand a concept.
 When: after you have a sense of the search
results and have identified important words to
express the concept.
 How: one concept at a time, and just 2 or 3
terms that pertain to that concept.

24. PREPARE OR PLAN

25. COMPOUND A CONCEPT

26. 3 METHODS FOR BETTER
RESULTS

27. REFINE YOUR SEARCH
1. What words would be in the perfect page title?
2. Who would have information about this?
3. What format would it be in?

28. TITLE TAG
 Format – intitle:<your word or “a phrase”>
 Question: preparing for climate change in
ontario
Primary: “climate Secondary:
change preparations,
planning,
adaptation
Ontario

29. INTITLE:”CLIMATE CHANGE”

30. ADD INTITLE:ONTARIO

31. CHANGE FOCUS

32. WHO WILL HAVE IT?
 Do you want Canadian? Use the .ca country
code – site:ca
 What does the Ministry of Natural Resources
have? Use site:mnr.gov.on.ca

33. MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES

34. WHAT FORMAT?
 Use filetype: to ask for particular format.
 pdf used universally to publish reports,
brochures, papers
 ppt and pps for presentations
 doc word documents
 Xls for spreadsheet

35. LIMIT TO PDF

36. ALTERNATIVES TO GOOGLE

37. ALTERNATIVE ENGINES
 Duckduckgo – ensures privacy, no spam
 Blekko – slashtag, no spam
 Carrot2.org – metasearch and clusters results
 Allplus.com – metasearch and clusters results
 Topsy – social media

38. DUCKDUCKGO

39. DUCKDUCKGO
 Full privacy – no  Smaller database –
tracking or sharing uses own
 Has Canadian crawl, Blekko, Bing
content.
 Generally higher
quality – blocks
spam. Duckduckgo.com
 Syntax for intitle,
site, filetype.
 Search suggestions

40. BLEKKO – SLASHTAG ENGINE

41. BLEKKO
 Avoids content farms  Smaller – 3 billion
– no span  Bans some good
 Sites handpicked and sites
categorized  Weak on Canadian
 Slashtags signify the content.
category  Takes time to learn
 Create your own  Less syntax – does
topics have site:
Blekko.com

42. CARROT2 - CLUSTERING

43. CARROT2.ORG
 Meta-search of  Only brings back 100
Google, Bing, Yahoo, results.
Ask
 Clusters results –
can see aspects of
topic
 Visual display - maps Carrot2.org
 Good for first
search, broad sweep.

44. ALLPLUS - CLUSTERING

45. ALLPLUS
 Metasearch –  Clusters derived from
Google, Bing frequently occurring
 Clusters – more phrase.
granular  Small number of
 Universal – images, results
video, news, twitter,
blogs
 Good for first sweep. Allplus.com

46. TOPSY – SOCIAL MEDIA

47. TOPSY.COM
 Indexes social media  As with all social
 Feeds from media, reader
Twitter, Facebook, Go beware.
ogle-Plus, Youtube
etc.
 Uses influence
algorithms to identify Topsy.com
importance
 Provides buzz

48. THANK YOU
 Questions?
 Internet News Blog
http://www.websearchguide.ca/netblog/
 Web Search Courses at iSchool Institute – 1-day
classroom, and 6-week online
 Email goharris@websearchguide.ca