Super Searcher Tips - Bates Information Services · Super Searcher Tips Mary Ellen Bates Apr 17,...
Transcript of Super Searcher Tips - Bates Information Services · Super Searcher Tips Mary Ellen Bates Apr 17,...
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Super Searcher Tips
Mary Ellen BatesApr 17, 2018BatesInfo.com
@mebs
Search tips & tricks
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Don’t get complex
Too many terms = lower resultsDon’t use long OR statements
Graze, don’t just dig deep
Trust Learn to love relevance ranking
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Test multiple versions
what is home depot’s market strategy2,530,000 results
home depot market strategy1,460,000 results
“market strategy” “home depot”133,000 results
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Test different words
Industry/specialized terms
Geographic/linguistic differences
Process or outcome
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Use “context” words
OverviewHow to OR tutorial OR helpDatabase OR data setReviewsFigure OR chart OR graph
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ID new info sources
Open data sets underlying researcharticles
Dryad (datadryad.org) and ICPSR(icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb)
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Get creative with Ngram
Find most frequent words next to aword, over time
*_NOUN termterm *_VERBterm=>term [one term modifyinganother]
books.google.com/ngrams
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*_NOUN nurse
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drink=>*_NOUN
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Search news chyrons
Archive.org’s Third Eye projectSuper-fast-breaking newsOCR of lower 1/3 of broadcast screenCNN, BBC, Fox, MSNBCFeed at:twitter.com/tracey_pooh/lists/third-eye
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Use AI to find more like this
Iris.aiInput an article or TED Talk URLIt looks for related papers/talks
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Re-think Wikipedia
Wikimedia survey of motivation“The topic was mentioned in media”“The topic interests me; I want tolearn more”
These are eager learners! How canyou catch them?
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Clients don’t know what toask for
What other data sets would behelpful?
What is your client not asking youfor?
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Search engine strategies
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How you ask matters
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Consider Bing for answers
Multiple answers/sources
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Test Google’s word variants
Roughly same results for desk,desks, and desk OR desks
Very different results for zoonoses,zoonosis, zoonotic, andzoonoses OR zoonosis ORzoonotic
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Test Google’s adjacency
For terms you want closely related,try all these:
word1 word2word1–word2“word1 word2”
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Test mobile vs desktop results
Google is trying to help…If mobile, you probably want to speak aquery & go somewhereIf desktop, type a query and dosomething online
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Test mobile vs desktop
What words would you use if youspoke your search out loud?
Natural language vs Boolean logic
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Watch Google Images
Adding page title to images in SRPFaster answersMobile only right now (note a trendhere?)
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Google makes it hard toleave homeFormerly, could use local version of
Google (google.co.uk)
Now, overridden by your location
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How to leave home…
Or use a VPN and tunnel to that country
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What about privacy?
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See what Google knowsabout youtakeout.google.com/settings/takeout
“Archives may take a long time (hoursor possibly days) to create”
See ads you clicked, use of Assistant,all your searches, etc.
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See what Facebook knowsabout youFacebook.com/settings
Click “Download a copy of your Facebookdata”
See ads you clicked, declined friendrequests, events invited to, etc.
Not comprehensive
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Embrace Google’s brain
Google monitors your searches
Feature AND bugExpands search to find related infoFilters search to limit the perimeters
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…or go privateDuckDuckgo.com – Bing-based
StartPage (ixquick.com) – Google-based)
Gibiru.com – Google-based, and “thepreferred Search Engine forPatriots”
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Peekier.com
Anonymous search engineMostly Bing, and its own crawl
Preview images of the results
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Model good info behavior
Know the pros AND cons of socialmedia platforms
Know your clients’ info habitsOffer better news feeds
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Two handy tools
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Preview shortened URLs
checkshorturl.comType in short URLSee the expanded version, screenshot, description
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PrintFriendly.com
Creates a printer-friendly version ofa web page
Edit out images, extraneous matter,change font size
Bypass DRM pop-ups
Browser plug-in, too
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Find Mary Ellen Bates at:
[email protected]: @mebsLinkedIn: maryellenbatesFacebook: maryellenbatesBatesInfo.com
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