Searching without Google

Searching without: 

Searching without Internet Librarian International, 2011 Karen Blakeman karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk Twitter: @ karenblakeman http://www.rba.co.uk/ This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

How Google works: 

How Google works “Dear Bing, We Have 10,000 Ranking Signals To Your 1,000. Love, Google” http://searchengineland.com/bing-1 0000-ranking-signals-google-55473 over 200 hundred “signals” many have over 50 variations 2010 Revenues $29 billion (net income $8.5 billion) 2011 Q1+Q2+Q3=$27 billion (net income $7) (unaudited) / 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 2

Google can seriously damage your news : 

Google can seriously damage your news Experiment by Mary Ellen Bates Is Google really filtering my news? - Librarian of Fortune http://www.librarianoffortune.com/librarian_of_fortune/2011/09/is-google-really-filtering-my-news.html Highlights More than a quarter of the stories showed up in only one searcher’s results Almost one in five searchers saw a story that no one else saw Only 12% of searchers saw the same three stories in the same order And it’s about to get worse - Google News Launches "Standout" Tag for Featured Content http://searchengineland.com/google-news-launches-standout-tag-for-featured-content-94256 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 3

Google knows us so well: 

Google knows us so well 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 4 Google personalises and tailors your results depending on your location, computer, browser, past searches, what you have looked at in the past, your +1s, your blocked sites, Google experiments, your Google+ account, your other social networks, what you do on your android phone, what you had for breakfast...and anything else it can find by rummaging around in your Google dashboard. Check your dashboard at http://www.google.com/dashboard/

Google knows best : 

Google knows best 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 5 Hewish mild Google decided to change my search to Jewish mild = Google decides that coots are lions – changed a search for coots mating behaviour to lions mating behaviour

: 

Google is doing its own thing: assuming typos without giving you the option to refuse the so-called “correction” looking for obscure variations and synonyms ‘+’ sign to enforce exact match has been removed sometimes ignores quotation marks around phrases not including all of your terms in the search What I see on my screen for a search is not what you’ll see on yours for the same search 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 6 Time to REBEL!

Yahoo!?: 

Yahoo!? Now uses Bing’s web and image databases and generates the same results except in Japan and Korea Losing its unique commands Up for sale? Is there any point in using it for general searching? 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 7

Bing.com: 

Bing.com Often more up to date and some unique content Results tend to be more consumer/retail oriented But Bing advanced search screen minimalist - need to use commands detailed list at Advanced Operator Reference http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff795620.aspx (some no longer work) Bing Adds Adaptive Search, Customized by Your Search History - Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2109647/Bing-Adds-Adaptive-Search-Customized-by-Your-Search-History 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 8

Bing Maps: 

Bing Maps http://www.bing.com/maps/ “Classic” http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/ uses Sliverlight more interactive automatically changes type of view as you zoom in Multimap, Birdseye, Aerial, Streetside (not available for all towns or countries), Ordnance Survey Map view “After Little Resistance in Germany, Bing Expands Streetside Photos Across Europe” http://searchengineland.com/after-little-resistance-in-germany-bing-expands-streetside-photos-across-europe-96351 Often has problems finding correct location 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 9

Bing Maps: 

Bing Maps 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 10 ??

DuckDuckGo: 

DuckDuckGo http://duckduckgo.com/ No tracking, no “filter bubble” site: inbody: intitle: filetype: sort:date to sort by date (uses results from Blekko) region:cc (e.g. de) to boost a country Syntax and keyboard shortcuts at http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html Maths, conversions, programming syntax and shortcuts http://duckduckgo.com/tech.html answer at top of results usually from Wolfram Alpha !bang commands https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 11

Blekko: 

Blekko http://blekko.com/ slashtags for sorting by date (/date), searching for images (/images) and videos (/videos) Use public slashtags to search a group of web sites covering a particular topic or type of site e.g. /library Or create your own to search your specified list of sites (similar to Google Custom Search Engines) wind turbine electricity generation /karenblakeman/renewable “Musings about librarianship: Using Blekko to search across thousands of library sites” http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com/2010/11/using-blekko-to-search-across-thousands.html 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 12

Blekko: 

Blekko Does not always search for all of your terms Cannot do filetype, inurl, intitle searches Drop down menu next to page in results list for site search (or use /site) similar pages (or use /similar) inbound links to the page (or use /links) 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 13

Wolfram Alpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/: 

Wolfram Alpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/ “Computational Knowledge Engine” Very good for calculations and conversions Curated information Can be very out of date Sometimes very wrong No references to original source Have to ask the question in the right way 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 14

Zanran: 

Zanran http://www.zanran.com/ Zanran – a new data search engine http://awareci.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/zanran-a-new-data-search-engine/ 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 15

Microsoft Academic Search: 

Microsoft Academic Search http://academic.research.microsoft.com/ 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 16

Microsoft Academic Search: 

Microsoft Academic Search Problems coverage sometimes gets the author completely wrong “Will the Real Scott Wilson Please Stand Up, Please Stand Up” http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/will-the-real-scott-wilson-please-stand-up-please-stand-up/ 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 17 M Edwards should be Martin Edwards not Maria-Benedicta Edwards

News - Silobreaker.com: 

News - Silobreaker.com 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 18

Selected specialist tools - URLs: 

Selected specialist tools - URLs http://www.chemspider.com/ http://biznar.com/ http://www.techxtra.ac.uk/ http://philpapers.org/ http://www.mednar.com/ http://www.scirus.com/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ http://www.healthmash.com/ 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 19

A few specialist tools: 

A few specialist tools 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 20

A few more specialist tools: 

A few more specialist tools 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 21

Statistics http://www.offstats.auckland.ac.nz/ : 

Statistics http://www.offstats.auckland.ac.nz/ 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 22

The Guardian: 

The Guardian Guardian data store - data journalism and data visualization h ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/data Data and analysis on topics that are in the news, links to the original datasets are provided Guardian World Government Data http://www.guardian.co.uk/world-government-data 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 23

Topsy.com: 

Topsy.com 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 24

Socialmention.com: 

Socialmention.com 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 25

Blogpulse.com – ‘Trend this’: 

Blogpulse.com – ‘Trend this’ 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 26

Create your own search engine: 

Create your own search engine Blekko.com Create a slashtag Musings about librarianship: Using Blekko to search across thousands of library sites http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com/2010/11/using-blekko-to-search-across-thousands.html Gigablast Custom Topic Search http://gigablast.com/cts.html up to 500 sites 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 27

Want to explore other stuff? Zuula.com: 

Want to explore other stuff? Zuula.com Type in your search once and work your way through the search tools Can edit the order of the search tools and remove unwanted ones 29/10/2011 www.rba.co.uk 28