Internet Search Tools

Now, way back when, the term "computer" actually referred to a real person who performed numerical calculations. So today I’m going to give you some really good tips about how you can achieve better search results.

The Internet is a very big place – so big - it’s virtually impossible to accurately say how big it really is. And search engines like Google and Yahoo are only indexing a small part of the entire Internet content. Out of an estimated 5 million terabytes of content - that continues to grow every day – Google has only indexed about 170 terabytes.

So let me show you some simple techniques that will really make a difference and save you some time. First of all, Quotation marks are your friend – get in the habit of using them. If you just type in Vancouver Canada Winter Olympics Athletes– you’ll get vastly different results than if you typed in “Vancouver Canada” + “Winter Olympic Athletes.”

Quotation marks tell the search engine to only bring back pages that include the terms exactly how you typed them. Otherwise, the search engines will just locate the individual words – whether they’re together or miles apart. This little tip will save you a lot of time and frustration.

If you need to search deeper – you can also look into searching directories, use metasearch engines, or do a bolean search.

A good, general, common sense approach is to start with a large search engine and then branch out with some of the smaller engines and directories.

You can also search some of the "invisible web" - that giant part of the Internet that search engines and directories don't have direct access to, like databases.

Here are a few sites that can help:
Direct Search site by Gary Price
Invisible Web Directory
The Resource Discovery Network
The University of California (InfoMine)
The Virtual Library

There are many, many sites that are set up to dig into the Invisible Web. The University of Kansas's ProFusion metasearch engine provides topical deep Web searches. CompletePlanet.com is a directory of "over 70,000+ searchable databases and specialty search engines."

The SJSU Academic Gateway is a fabulous resource that enables you to get into not only San Jose public libraries, but the San Jose State University library as well. In addition, there are governmental (US) databases such as Ask Eric, which provide access to over 3000 educational resources (organized by category), and the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Here are a few other search tips:

1. Use the 'site:' command to search individual web sites
2. Search for file formats like PDF, PPT or XLS to narrow down and focus your search.
3. Use the OR command in combination with the site: command to search more than one site or type of site. For example,
"carbon emissions trading" filetype:ppt site:ac.uk OR site:gov.uk
4. Try to use more than one source and double check the accuracy of the information with independent sources.
5. Use books, they’re also excellent for historical information. As well as Amazon, try Google Books (http://www.google.com/books/) for older texts, and Live Books (http://search.live.com/books/).
6. Use services such as Zuula or Intelways to remind you of the different types of information that are available and their appropriate search engines. Type in your search once and click on the search tools one by one.
7. Build your own Google Custom Search Engine for collections of sites that you regularly search, to create a searchable subject list.
8. Try good old fashioned Boolean. Yahoo, Exalead and Live support AND, OR, NOT and 'nested' searches, but don't go overboard. Remember to type in the operators as capital letters, otherwise the search engines will ignore them as stop words.
9. Use social bookmarking services to track down other people's research lists on a subject like del.icio.us, or Digg, etc.
10. Use the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) at http://www.archive.org/ for pages, sites and documents that have disappeared. Ideal for tracking down lost documents, seeing how organizations presented themselves on the Web in the past, and for collecting evidence for a legal case.

You’ve also got to remember that navigation is an important part of the digital landscape – you’ve got to stratagize and show your team how to take advantage of the tools available.