Advanced Internet SearchINFORMATION LITERACY CERTIFICATE

What we will cover today How Google works and how that impacts search Tricks, tips, and new ways of thinking about finding information for advertising online

Finding statistics

How does Internet search work?

It starts with understanding the internet

It’s big… It’s diverse… It’s dynamic.

Three parts of a search engine

Major Points Spiders explore the internet through links Spiders build lists of words and where the words are found on websites

Search engines look through the index created by the spiders, not the Internet

What does this mean for your search?

An Algorithmic Culture

Research has shown that many people equate relevancy in search rankings with reliability.5

Google-conditioned expectation of simple search

Not everything is findable by search engines

The pages you see are ranked by an algorithm.

Interested parties will always try to beat the system

Man against MachineNEW WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT INTERNET SEARCH

Know when Googling is good…and when it is bad.

Alternate search engines Bielefeld Academic Search Engine http://www.base-search.net/

Deep web business search www.biznar.com

Curated results for students www.sweetsearch.com

Carrot2 Clustering, federated search http://search.carrot2.org/stable/search

Mamma metasearch https://mamma.com/

Statistics http://www.statista.com/ Social media search http://www.socialmention.com/

Blog directory/search http://regator.com/

Search results with subject facets, global focus http://www.exalead.com/search/web/

Advanced Google search functions

◦ https://www.google.com/advanced_search ◦ Custom time frame◦ Quotation marks for exact phrases (ex. autism “gluten intolerance”)◦ Minus symbol to omit words (ex. Salsa recipes –tomato)◦ Site:◦ Related:◦ Filetype:◦ Link:

Start at the sourceUSUAL SUSPECTS

Directories Associations Government sources Online trade magazines Library resources Citation trails

GOOGLE TRICKS

Keyword search for topic and…◦ “LibGuides”◦ “database”◦ “government”◦ “association” or “organization”◦ “directory”

Related:URL for similar sites◦ Ex. Related:http://censusreporter.org/

Site:URL to search within a site

Link:URL for all linked sites

Words for your search Glossary search “another term for…” Specialized vocabulary

◦ Geography◦ Activity◦ Expertise◦ Outcome-based

Result versus question Remove words Google Trends

Question your motives

Make the Internet come to you Google Alerts Blog feeds, news alerts, and newsletters Keyhole, Talkwalker, Mention, and more

Finding Statistics

Tactics1. Google search including “statistics”, “data,” or

“government”2. Who cares to collect this?3. General statistical source

Who cares to collect this? Governments Professional or trade associations Special interest groups Data collection agencies Scholarly research articles

Census Tools Time Topics Geography

Troublesome stats Local International Niche topics Marketing topics