Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

Smarter Internet Searching Guide Introduction to Internet searching

Purpose of this guide
To introduce this Internet searching guide and give an overview of options for searching using the Internet.

Topics in the first guide

1. What will I learn? An introduction to the purpose of this guide 2. How the guide works explains how to use this guide. 3. Introduction to web searching describes the main web searching tools and how they link together. 4. Mastering your browser highlights the main features of the browser which can help you use the web more easily. 5. Choosing the best site to start your search looks at the different types of site which will help you find specialist information fast 6. What is a search engine? An introduction to what search engines are and how they work this will be followed up in more depth in later guides with tips on advanced searching. 7. What is a directory? How do these facilities, found on sites such as Google and Yahoo! differ from search engines, why are they useful? 8. The invisible web. Explains why many sites cannot be found in search engines and explains methods of revealing the invisible web. Find out more topics: The History and development of the Internet

1. What will I learn?

How much time do you spend each week searching online? If your answer is none, then youre missing out, but you may find this guide useful for the future! Otherwise, the more time you spend online each week, at work or at home, the more time these guides should save you. Either way, there is a wealth of information on the web to help support you in learning and research the Google search engine now gives access to over 3 billion pages. As the amount of information grows, having good search skills becomes more important. This guide is intended to help you save time when using the Internet to find any type of information, whether for study or pleasure. This guide will help you save time through: Using new search tools we highlight the best tools for power searching Using your current tools better we focus on using Advanced search in Google the best search tool Exploring new information sources we will highlight the best online e-business resources What wont I learn? The guide wont tell you how to use the time you have saved thats the fun part.

2. How the guide is structured

The guide is designed for online use. If you are using the paper version, then there are some additional features you can safely ignore.

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

The guide is currently made up of two parts. The different parts of each topic are listed on the home page of each guide. Use the arrows to go forwards and backwards through the different sub-sections of each topic. Within each topic there may be several individual screens so there is never too much to read on one screen. Each topic will list the different screens at the start, for this topic they are: Search icons Fast swapping between windows Refer to the top of the page to keep track where you are in the guide. Try It! For example, if you look at top of this page you will see: Smarter Searching Guide: 1. Introduction to Internet searching Topic: 2. How the Guides work Screen: 1 of 1 Now try moving to the next page and you will see the header change >> Search icons On each page you will see these icons Try it!:

This will usually be an instruction describing the activity and a link to click on such as: Visit Searchenginewatch.com, the best site to learn about how search engines work for both searchers and marketers. www.searchenginewatch.com Results:

This shows what you should see or gives an answer to a question. Activity:

These are to make the guides more interactive and to test learning Search experts tip

This summarises a handy tip for saving time or highlighting a good information source. Here, is one to get you started >> Swapping between different Windows. You will currently use the Windows Task bar at the bottom of the screen to change between different programme applications, such as Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer by clicking on them. With these Guides you will be swapping a lot between Internet Explorer windows. To save time, a useful keyboard shortcut known as Fast Alt-tabbing is to press these two keys at the same time: the Alt key (usually to the left of the spacebar) and the Tab key (usually above the Shift key). Try it!: Press Alt and Tab keys together, then release the Tab key to go through the programs or documents you have loaded until you find the one you want.

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

Find out more

More detailed information for advanced users and background information if youd like to know.

2. Introduction to web searching

This topic introduces the main software tools used by Internet users and describes how web pages are labeled. Screens for this topic The main web users tools Labelling web sites and web pages URLs and web addresses Top level domains where in the world is that web site? History and development of the web (find out more topic) Who is using the Internet in the UK (find out more topic) >> The main tools When you use the web the main tools you use are: Web browsers used to specify the pages we want to visit and display them. In the next section there are some tips on how to use these better Web servers these are used to store the web pages we read each server can host one or many web sites. Web pages constructed using a new language called Hypertext Markup language used to lay out text and graphics on-screen Hyperlinks These as blue underlined text or bold text or graphical hot spots that take us to another page when we click on them with a mouse. They are the main reason why the web has been successful its ease of linking different information sources. Acrobat PDF files these are special types of web pages which are displayed using the Acrobat reader. They are important for the web searcher since good quality information and reports are often stored in this format. There are also specialist search tools such as portals, search engines and directories. We will look at these later in this guide. Activity Put these in the order they are used when you move from one page to another when using the web. <correct order> Start web browser Click on Hyperlink Web server contacted Web page returned to browser for display >> Labeling web sites and web pages URLs and web addresses The easiest way to find a site is when you are told how to find it by a friend or colleague. You can then type its address into the Address bar at the top of your Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser. To help find information on the web, each page is given a unique web address rather like a post code. The web address was called a Uniform Resource Locator by the inventors of the web and is commonly known as a URL. URLs have a common format lets look at the example of the BBC site by knowing the different components of a URL you can save time typing them. The web address for the home page of the BBC site is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/index.html 3

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

This can be broken down into http:// This tells the web browser to retrieve a web address using a data transfer standard known as the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (http://). You can save time by omitting this in most browsers (as long as the site address starts with www). www. Most web sites have this prefix, but it is sometimes not present if content on a separate server is referred to, for example http://news.bbc.co.uk) bbc this is the name of the site .co.uk this is known as the Top Level Domain name more on these in a moment index.html this is the name of the individual page. When the name of the page is index.html or index.htm it can be omitted since the browser add this automatically. Sub-folders or directories also contain a file index.html to display their content. For example www.bbc.co.uk/sport. Search experts tip: You dont need to type in http:// or index.html they are added automatically So in this case all that needs to be typed in is: www.bbc.co.uk Try it! Type in www.bbc.co.uk to the address bar of a browser:

What you will see: The BBC site will be loaded. On other pages in the site, the address will be more complicated. This is because the BBC site, like many large sites uses a Content Management System (CMS) to make it easy to edit and publish pages. >> Top level domains where in the world is that web site? As you surf around the Internet by clicking on links, you will see the web address change as well as changes in the label used to name the site such as BBC to Google, you will also see the last part of the main name change this is the global top level domain. It is useful to monitor the top-level domain name since it helps assess the quality of the data. Common global top level domains are: .com represents an international or American company such as www.3m.com .co.uk represents a company based in the UK such as www.thomascook.co.uk .edu or .ac.uk a US university such as www.mit.edu or a UK-based university (e.g. www.leeds.ac.uk) .org.uk or .org are not-for-profit organizations or trade associations (e.g. www.foldoc.org A UK web site with definitions of information technology terms .gov.uk or .gov are government sites such as www.statistics.gov.uk .net a network provider such as www.virgin.net .int an international site, e.g. the EC site www.europa.eu.int .info a new domain introduced in 2002 which is starting to be used for informational sites Search expert tip: Sites with domain names of .gov, .org, .ac. or .uk are usually relatively independent and are often good sources of detailed, unbiased information. Activity: Place the elements of this web address for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE)in order. <correct order> http:// - web address identifier part 1 4

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

www. - web address identifier part 2 nice. main domain name org. first part of top level domain .uk/ - second part of top level domain index.html home page >>History and Development of the web Purpose: This Find Out more topic is a straightforward introduction to the Internet and World Wide Web you may know this already, but there is also some trivia which may be useful for storing up for a pub quiz. Screens for this topic: The History of the Internet and World Wide Web How is the World Wide Web structured? How are World Wide Web sites labeled? Who uses the Internet in the UK? and what are they looking at? >> The History of the Internet and World Wide Web Its generally known that the Internet is a global communication network linking millions of separate computers on different networks. It can be traced back to 1958, in the days of the cold war and space race, when Americans were concerned about defence and the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik satellite. They wanted a network to connect military bases and academic institutions which would still function if some parts of the network were destroyed. It has long been used for e-mail with the first being sent in 1973 and the Queen sending one in 1976 making Her Majesty one of the most experienced UK Internet users. The Internet didnt really take off as a consumer and business tool until the early 1990s when British Scientist Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web (WWW) as a way of publishing and sharing information amongst scientists at the CERN lab in Geneva. To see a timeline of the development of the Internet that summarises its growth visit: http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/ >> Who is using the Internet in the UK? Lets now look at some examples of different sites. Say we want to know what percentage of the UK adult population use the Internet. To answer this we can turn to research agency MORI who has a unit eMORI that publish a monthly update of who is using the Internet in the UK. Try it First go to their web site MORI.com by clicking on this link http://www.mori.com/emori and then select e-MORI Technology Tracker Survey: This hyperlink will take you to this page: http://www.mori.com/emori/tracker.shtml You can see that the web page tracker.shtml is a combination of text and graphics summarizing current Internet usage. >>..and what are they looking at? Nielsen is the best source for finding out the popular online sites. Nielsen Netratings use a panel of volunteers whose PCs are monitored to see who is watching what. They publish the top 10 sites and their visitors.

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

Try it! Find out the top 3 UK sites: Click on: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com and choose Press Centre.

4. Mastering your browser

Web browsers are used to find, view and interact with web sites. You probably know your web browser as Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE for short) or perhaps Netscapes Navigator or Communicator. But there are other alternatives that are worth exploring. You may take the functions of your web browser for granted, rather like a TV, but it is worth spending a little time thinking about whether you are using the features of your browser to full advantage. We will now review the main functions of browsers. Using the address bar Moving backwards and forwards between pages Save Favorites or Bookmarks Organise Favorites Set home page to Favorites Use History Know the shortcuts An alternative browser : Opera

>> Using the address bar

The web address bar is used to enter the web address as described in the previous section.

>> Moving backwards and forwards between pages This uses the prominent toolbar buttons showing left and right arrows.

>> Save Favorites or Bookmarks

Favourites or bookmarks are sites that are personally useful that you mark up to return to later. In Internet Explorer, Favorites are easily marked and widely used. Try It! Load any web page. Click on the Favorites menu in Internet Explorer and choose Add to Favorites. This opens the Add Favorite box. Click OK after reviewing the clarity of the page name and the page is then recorded for future access it is listed under the Favorites menu. >> Organise Favorites While most Internet users bookmark sites, a lot fewer are disciplined in categorizing bookmarks by placing them in different Favorites folders. Through a bit of forethought, sites and pages can be easily grouped into logical categories using the Organise Favorites option. (Note this may not work as well on shared machines unless the network administrator has set up your network account such that you can access bookmarks wherever you log on). Try It! As before click on the Favorites menu in Internet Explorer and choose Add to Favorites. This time, click the Create In >> button. This expands the Add Favorite box. 6

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

The option is then available to either add a Favourite page to an existing folder or to create a new folder to save Favorites to. To add a Favorite to an existing folder select the folder by clicking on it and then click the OK button. To create a new folder to save Favorites to, click on the New Folder button, enter the name of the new folder and then click the OK button.

>> Set home page to Favorites

Once you have saved many Favorites, the quickest way to find these sites is to set your home page to Favorites. This page is then loaded at startup and can be accessed at any time by pressing the Home button. Try It! To set up your home page to Favorites on a recent version of Windows (post 2000) select Tools, Internet Options and then enter: C:/Documents and Settings/<Your name>/Favorites and Click OK. Then press the Home button on the toolbar and you will be taken straight to your Favorites. Note: In most large organizational settings the home button will be automatically set up to direct you to the intranet home page. However, you may still find this tip useful for your home PC or laptop.

>> Use History

The History toolbar button enables you to visit pages previously visited. Try it! Simply click on the History toolbar button (a sundial graphic) to open the History bar. This allows you to display previous sites visited: By date (the default) By site By most visited BY order visited today Alternatively, you can search for keywords within the content of sites visited (often the quickest option)

>> Know the shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts can save time by avoiding the need to pick up the mouse. OK, it may not be much time, but calculate it across your working life-time and the time is probably frightening! Some of the most useful are: Move forward (Alt + Right arrow) Move backward (Alt + Left arrow) Open a new window (Ctrl + N) Show Favorites bar (Ctrl + I) Show History bar (Ctrl + I) Select the address bar (Ctrl + D) Add www. before a domain name and .com afterwards. (Ctrl + Enter)

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

>> An alternative browser : Opera

If you are familiar with most of the functions described here you may be surprised to know that there are alternatives to the IE and Netscape browsers. Opera (www.opera.com) is a browser used by around 5% of Internet users, including many search specialists, because many consider it superior since it: Is faster to start and load pages Includes a built in search function with a choice of search engines A simple history making it easy to search for individual sites Has the facility to control all web browser windows within Opera. The only real downside is that in the free version a small banner advert is displayed at the top of the software.

5. Choosing the best site to start your search.

To use the Internet to best effect, it helps to think about the different types of sites that are available since different types of sites can be used to find different types of information. From a web searchers point of view there are two basic types of sites: Portals and destination sites. The different screens in this topic are: What are portals? More portals for research(Find out more topic) Meta portals (Find out more topic) Meta search engines (Find out more topic) >> What are Portals? Portal sites are best thought of as the doorways or gateways to information on the World Wide Web. They are sites which provide extensive links to other sites to help you find the type of information you need. Destination sites are the sites which contain the information you need. Search experts tip: When you are planning a search, think of the type of portal listed in the table below which is most likely to contain the information you need. Try it! Visit one of each of the four types of portal in the table below so that you understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Type of portal 1. Access portal Characteristics Associated with Internet service provider (ISP) BTOpenWorld (www.btopenworld.com) Example Freeserve (www.freeserve.net) Relevance for searcher Not recommended since search services tend to focus on sponsored links.

2. Horizontal or functional portal

Range of services: search engines, directories, news recruitment, personal information management, shopping, etc.

Yahoo! (www.yahoo.co.uk ) MSN (www.msn.co.uk) Excite (www.excite.co.uk) Lycos (www.lycos.co.uk)

A range of resources are available, but not as good as specialist vertical portals for specific information

3. Vertical portal

May cover a single function such as search or news or a particular industry sector

Google (www.google.com) Construction Weekly a vertical portal for engineers, based on a trade magazine: www.constructionweekly.com Silicon (www.silicon.com) A

Google is the best search engine since it focuses on excelling on search. Specialist industry sites are often the best place to start looking for sector specific research and content.

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

portal providing content for IS managers and IT professionals.

Marketing Online (www.marketing-online.co.uk) a portal providing content about e-marketing for students and professionals.

Freepint a community for UK search specialists www.freepint.com

4. Geographical (region, country, local area)

May be: horizontal

Google UK (www.google.co.uk) Yahoo! country versions

Portals created for your own country may be best, but you may miss out on more detailed information in other countries, so these should be used with care.

vertical

Countyweb for UK regions (www.countyweb.com) OMNI a UK portal for health and medical resources (www.omni.ac.uk)

5. Meta portal

Gives access to other portals in a single location

Wonderport (http://www.wonderport.com/uk index.html ) Profusion (www.profusion.com)

These sites can be useful to set to your home page since they list all the main search and news portals and can let you search several search engines from one place.

>> More portals for research (Find out more topic) It also helps to think about these types of portal they are often rich sources of specialist information. Trade association sites These often commission their own research for their members which may be available free-of-charge International Telecommunications Union data on Internet access in every country worldwide. www.ITU.int Government sites Governments commission detailed research which is freely available on a range of topics The Office of National Statistics focuses on social and economic statistics www.statistics.gov.uk Market Research aggregators 9

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Improving performance through marketing intelligence

Some sites have been created to sell data and services to market researchers. These can contain free research since these sites also make their money through advertising. Sometimes paying for the good stuff may be the best way. MRWeb www.mrweb.co.uk Freepint a community for UK search specialists www.freepint.com >> Meta portals Meta portals are portals which link to other portals they give a high-level view of the different portals including specialist search engines SearchEngineGuide http://www.searchengineguide.com/searchengines.html Most comprehensive list of specialist search engines, arranged in Yahoo-like directory structure Wonderport http://www.wonderport.com/ukindex.html A useful list of the main portals that are likely to be useful >> Meta search engines Meta search engines pass keywords onto several different search engines (but not Google). Results are prioritised according to popularity and duplicates removed. Ask Jeeves is the best known search engine that uses this approach. The main search engines are listed here: http://www.searchenginewatch.com/links/metacrawlers.html Try it! Go to IXQuick one of the best metasearch engines and type healthcare portal http://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl? cat=web&cat=web&cmd=process_search&language=english&query=healthcare+portal Results: You will see that the top results are those sites which are highly ranked at several search engines such as www.healthlinks.net. Expert search tip: Some search professionals prefer downloadable software search tools which are usually integrated with web browsers and also link to main search engines. Copernic.com (www.copernic.com) WebFerret (www.ferretsoft.com)

5. What is a search engine?

In this topic we introduce the most important tool for the online searcher. We will answer these questions: What is a search engine? How do they work? What does the search results listing show? >> What is a search engine? Search engines help you find the web pages which contain key words you are looking for. A list of relevant pages, with their links is displayed in order of relevance. Clicking on the link then takes you through to the relevant page. They give a comprehensive index of information on the web since they index every word on every page of sites they have indexed. >> How do they work? 10

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

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Search engines compile an index of keywords on web pages by regularly sending out automatic software tools known as spiders or robots to crawl around sites that are registered with that search engine. The spider compiles an index containing every word on every page against the page address. It weights the index according to different parameters and then stores the index as part of a database on a web server. This index rather than the whole web is what is searched when you type keywords into the search engine. Find out more: For more information on technically how search engines work, see: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/search-engine1.htm For more on why search engines rank some web sites higher and how site owners optimize their sites to appear higher than others see: http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters >> What does the search results listing show? After you type in your keywords a list of matching pages (sometimes called hits) will be displayed in order of relevance. In Google, these list: The title of the page you can click on this to go through to the page An excerpt of the page containing the words you have typed in The page URL you can also click on this and the data published to web Try it! Clicking on this link shows you the results of a search engine query 1. This example shows how to find the BBC news web site keywords BBC and news http://www.google.com/search?q=BBC+news Results: You will see that BBC news site is at the top of the list: Search experts tip: Adding the name or abbreviation of country such as UK to your search keywords can help find UK specific information or portals.

6. What is a directory?
What is it? Web directories or catalogues are constructed and presented differently to search engines. Directories are not constructed automatically by robots and spiders, but are human generated. A human being will place each reference to a site in a category. After you submit your URL to a site such as Yahoo! it will be reviewed by someone and then included if it is thought to be of a suitable standard. A disadvantage of directories is that they do not give comprehensive access to all web pages. When you search a directory, you are not searching the entire web, but the list of company names, categories and for Yahoo!, the 25 word description of the site. Search experts tip: Most search engines such as Yahoo! or Google include both a search engine facility and a directory component. Try It: If you go to Yahoo! (www.yahoo.co.uk) you will see a search box at the top. Type in: BBC News. Results: You will see a list titled: Search experts tip: Only use directories if you cant find what you want using a search engine. You may find useful information or portals in this way, but it is less likely.

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The problems with directories are that most sites are in a single or limited number of categories, so that if you go to a specialist category there are very few sites listed there. Google also offers a directory at http://directory.google.com But it suffers from a similar problem of limited number of sites, which tend to be mainly US oriented, see for example: http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Healthcare/Nursing/ Activity True / False questions: 1. A directory gives a more complete view of pages on the web than a search engine Ans False search engines index every page of each registered sites, whereas as directories only list a sites name and a brief description. 2. Search engines rank sites found against keywords according to the quality of information Ans False It depends how the site has been optimized for search engines the main criteria is number of times a keyword is found which may or may not indicate quality information. 3. A portal is the same as a search engine: Ans False a search engine is a service of a portal, others may include news and directory services.

7. The invisible web

What is it? The Invisible web refers to the huge volume of online information which is not indexed by search engines. Mostly, this is information stored in databases which is displayed dynamically, on demand when a user queries the database. An example of documents on the Invisible web is publications from the Department of Health, which are held in a Lotus Notes database. These cannot be found through Google since these databases are not usually indexed by Google, but can be searched and browsed from: http://www.info.doh.gov.uk/doh/point.nsf/Publications?ReadForm. There are two main ways to unveil the invisible web: 1. Specialised directories 2. Use special keywords in search engines >> 1. Specialised directories Specialist sites list the main databases which make up the invisible web. These include: The Invisible web directory www.invisible-web.net The Invisible web catalog www.invisibleweb.com Direct Search www.freepint.com/gary/direct.htm >> 2. Use special keywords in search engines

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To make the invisible web visible use search engines to find the database. For example: Use database in search keyphrase. Searching for .NSF (the Lotus Notes database format) can also be used to find documents in this specific database).

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Smarter Internet Searching Guide 2: Mastering Google

Purpose of this second guide
The second topic goes to the heart of Smarter Internet Searching. It shows how to use search engines more effectively; through going beyond simple search queries to use advanced queries to give more relevant results. We take the example of Google, since this is arguably the best and certainly most widely used search engine for business users.

Topics in this guide:

1. Selecting the best search tool explains why Google is the best. 2. Advanced search using Google explains the most relevant options of the Google advanced search page and codes you can use to incorporate advanced search features into your standard queries. 3. Search engine search strategies Describes a structured approach to finding results fast with Google or other search engines. (find out more topic) 4. Google extras and must haves Additional tools to make you more productive (find out more topic)

1. Selecting the best search tool

Which search tools do you use now and why? The main key to success in searching is to learn the advanced search features of your favoured tool and stick to what you know. The caveat to this is that search tools can deteriorate Altavista was my favoured tool five years ago, but it has now been superseded by Google. I recommend using Google, and we will use it in these guides, since it is widely regarded as the best search engine because: 1. It returns the best matches due to its proprietary Page Rank technology (Read more at: http://www.google.com/technology). 2. It has a large index (over 3 billion web pages). This is partly why Google is named Google. Click here to find out why: http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html. 3. It is fast. Although many portals such as MSN, AOL and Yahoo! have as many visitors as Google, Google is the most popular search tool. Users return to Google because it gives the best results. Around 250 million searches are performed on Google every day far more than other search engines (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/perday.html). Search experts tip: Take care if you use Google UK (www.google.co.uk). This can be set up to only search UK sites, this will then miss sites from international companies that do not end in .uk. For example www.bt.com. Google.com also has the most recent innovations, and as we will see, can be used to search UK sites only.

2. Advanced search using Google

Using advanced search will give you better results by focusing or narrowing down your query. The best way to understand how advanced search works is: 14

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First use Google's special Advanced search page. Second learn the special Google codes or syntax that produce the advanced search results. Once familiar with them, you can type the codes into the Google Search box.

Try it! Let's take an example: A student or information systems manager is researching information on outsourcing information systems activities. They want to know about best practice for this area. In the next topic, we will look at a structured method for building up the best keywords to answer this question, but for now lets say the information we want must: Refer to outsourcing. Specifically refer to information systems outsourcing Refer to best practice or benchmarking in outsourcing Exclude reference to industry or trade associations Go to Google Advanced search (www.google.com/advanced) and then follow the stages in the four screens that follow. Google gives these main options for advanced search: >> >> >> >> 1. 2. 3. 4. All the Words Exact phrase With at least one of the words Excluding the words

>> 1. All the Words Meaning This means that the word MUST be present on the page. Equivalent code +, AND (this is not essential since this is the default in Google) Example: +ulcers

1 With All of the Words

Boolean AND Try It!: Just type outsourcing into the with all of the words box of www.google.com/advanced Results: There will be hundreds of thousands of results >> 2. Exact phrase Meaning The exact phrase MUST be present on the page Equivalent code Single or double quotes Example: wound treatment, wound treatment

2. With the Exact Phrase

Try It!: Now add information systems into the with the exact phrase box of www.google.com/advanced Results: There are still hundreds of thousands of results. The top ones combine outsourcing and information systems and these keywords are in the titles of the pages >> 3. With at least one of the words Meaning It is not essential the word is on the page, but if it is, the resulting page will be ranked higher Equivalent code OR (although this is useful for understanding complex queries, this is the default in Google, so OR is not strictly required) Example: Example: steps

3. With at least one of the words

Boolean OR Try It!: Now add the two words practice benchmarking into the with at least one of the words box of www.google.com/advanced Results: There are now around 300 results. The top ones combine now refer to specific 15

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stages of treatment in other words the procedure. >> 4. Excluding the words Meaning Excludes the specified word(s) Equivalent code Example: Example: -venous

4. Without the words

Boolean NOT Try It!: Now add association into the without the words box of www.google.com/advanced Results: The number of results is now reduced. All pages that referred to venous ulcers are now excluded. Expert searchers tip: Note that in Google, parentheses or brackets are unnecessary to combine search items. Google also does not support stemming, where you add a star to a word with different endings, so you would have to use wound OR wounds rather than woun* which is supported on some search engines.

If you were to type this straight into the Google search box, you would type: outsourcing practice OR benchmarking "information systems" -association or for clarity +outsourcing practice OR benchmarking "information systems" -association Searchers tip: Quotes are an excellent way of narrowing down the search in complex searches. They are also needed to include what Google terms Stop words which are automatically excluded from the search but sometimes useful to define a phrase, e.g. and, or, the. Activity: 1. Match these features of Google advanced search to the codes that can be typed into Google to refine search: Advanced search option With All the Words With exact phrase With at least one of the words Without the words Code + Quotes OR -

2. Which is the best search syntax to find out about trends in childhood asthma in the UK from UK government sites.

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Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

a) child children asthma number of cases +site:gov.uk b) child children asthma number of cases +site:gov.uk c) child OR children asthma "number of cases" +site:gov.uk d) childhood asthma "number of cases" +site:gov.uk Correct answer c) This returns an article from the office of National Statistics titled: New episodes of asthma: by sex and age, 1986 to 2001: Social Trends 33

3. Other Google Advanced search features

The Google advanced search page (www.google.com/advanced) offers other facilities. We will look at these: Specify a file format Specify Occurrence of keywords on web page Filter results to specific domain(s) (Site:) Date >>Specify a file format Perhaps the most useful of the Google Advanced Search features is to specify a file format. The options you can select are: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) these are often longer technical reports that may not be

included near the topic of the ranking because of the number of words they contain. Microsoft Word (.doc) again could be reports or articles that have been posted to the web in this format Microsoft Powerpoint (.ppt) often useful for summarizing approaches, or very useful if you have to prepare a presentation on a topic!

>> Specify Occurrence of keywords on web page The options include: In the title of the page. For example, intitle:outsourcing will look for web sites that have outsourcing in the title. In the URL of the page. For example, allinurl: outsourcing Search experts tip: Using these specify occurrences options is not normally necessary since Google uses the best match anyway. They can be useful for finding portals, for example allinurl:outsourcing portal. >> Filter results to specific domain(s) (Site:) This is useful if you want to show results for sites with UK registered domains only such as .co.uk, .gov.uk and .ac.uk. To do this add +site:.uk to your query. Domain filtering can also be useful if you want to display all the pages on a site which contain a key phrase. For example, we could search the archives of a site: information systems site:www.ismbc.org Search experts tip: 'Site' can also be used to limit your search to domains or specific sites. For example, if you know you want information from .gov or .org sites only, you can make your request more specific by using the site: qualifier before your search words. For example, site:.ac.uk information systems" outsourcing will only return information from UK academic (.ac.uk) web sites. >> Date This can be used to specify pages updated in the last 3, 6 or 12 months.

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Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

Search experts tip: Unfortunately this does not necessarily give up-to-date articles or research since older pages may have been refreshed recently even though the content stays the same.

3. Search engine search strategies:

We will now look at a structured approach to selecting the best keywords to type into a search engine to find the information you want. Since we are all short of time, there is a tendency to dive straight in and type a couple of keywords to find what were looking for. But if we pause before typing we will actually find our results quicker. Try the five steps below. It may take longer initially to pause and think about your approach, but soon you will naturally search in a similar way. Step 1. Be specific Step 2. Identify different concepts in your search. Step 3. Think laterally identify synonyms and alternative terms Step 4 Combine different search concepts >> Step 1. Be specific You will rarely get a good search match with just one or two words. We all know this, but there is a tendency to save time by typing fewer words. So, use more words for more accurate results For example if you're interested in a particular type of outsourcing, rather than just entering: outsourcing you could enter information systems outsourcing. Another approach is to think how you would express your search in a single sentence if talking to a colleague or librarian. Example: Where do I find information about best practice for drawing up contracts for outsourcing information systems. This identifies these key words: best practice, information systems outsourcing. >> Step 2. Identify different concepts in your search. Different concepts often include a subject object and verb. For example Example: Subject: Specific type of subject: Application: Type of information / data needed: Likely source / or publication type

Outsourcing Information systems Contracts Best practice Academic site or organisation site

Search experts tip: Think like the captioner. Think how the title of the page or caption on a figure or table would be labeled by its authors. Also think how the search terms might be referred to in a sentence.

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Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

For example: A page title: Outsourcing IS agreements Table caption: Summary of items to include in an IS outsourcing contract Body text: In this article we review best practice for outsourcing information systems. key items to include in the contract are: >> Step 3. Think laterally identify synonyms and alternative terms Example: Subject: Specific type of subject: Application: Type of information needed: Likely source / or publication type Wound treatment Outsourcing Information systems Contracts Best practice Academic site, teaching hospital or government Alternative terms IT, ICT Legal agreements Benchmarking guidelines Filter using +site:.ac.uk or +site:..edu or +site:.org

>> Step 4 Combine different search concepts The next step is review the different keywords you have generated to identify the search query: Which will commonly occur in a phrase, e.g. information systems Which are essential e.g. contracts Which are alternatives e.g. best practice OR benchmarking A Google search query string can then be devised: Try it: +outsourcing "information systems" contract OR legal site:.ac.uk (see also the previous topic on using Google Advanced Search) Activity Go to Google, try these out >> Information source strategies: Your searching strategy will naturally depend on the type of information you are looking for. So dont only think of the type of information, also think of the type of source you are using. Examples of information sources include: - Published research data academic or government - Published research report - Market information - Online news article - Supplier info - Company information information about a particular supplier - Customer information finding - Product information finding the best product for purpose Activity Put these stages of refining a search in order: <correct answer> Quick 2 or 3 keyword search Break down search into themes Find alternative words Structure complex search using quotes and + Try filtering to uk government sites using +site:.gov.uk

4. Google extras and must haves Additional tools to make you more productive
Google has several tools which can make you more productive. Of these the first two are most useful: Google Toolbar 19

Subject: Smarter Searching Online Guide

Improving performance through marketing intelligence

Google Glossary Google Answer Google Sets Tools to assess value of web pages

>> Google Toolbar

The Google toolbar is a must have add-in to Microsoft Internet Explorer which enables you to start searching using Google.com any time you have your browser open without needing to go back to the Google site each time to type in keywords. The Google toolbar also records previous searches and includes advanced search facilities. Expert searchers tip: This tool will save you a lot of time. If you havent already got it, go to http://toolbar.google.com and follow the instructions to download. >> Google Glossary The glossary is one of several tools being developed in the Google labs Great for learning about new topics. Type in a keyword and a range of definitions are provided from different sites. Try It! http://labs.google.com/glossary?q=back-office >> Google Answers If youre really short of time and have ready cash, you can get a more expert searcher to find information for as little as $2 per question. You can browse previous questions and their answers which may, in fact, answer your question. http://answers.google.com >> Google Sets This intriguing technology finds related terms which can be useful for identifying unknown members of a set. http://labs.google.com/sets Try typing in the name of three supermarkets and then press the button to return a larger set related supermarkets are then displayed as if by magic. Practical applications may be limited, but this can be used to find related information or keywords about a topic. >> Tools to help assess value of pages Google Webquotes gives ratings from other sites to help determine whether the items are worth clicking through to http://labs.google.com/cgi-bin/webquotes Google Viewer gives previews of all pages within the search engine. http://labs.google.com/gviewer.html

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