Search engine strategies

The way in which the majority of internet users use search engines is simplistic in the extreme if we are to believe the statistics. Normally, a visit to google.com, few key words, a few clickthroughs with only a small minority of searches ever making it onto page 2. The result is that you are missing out on an enormous amount. Here are some suggestions for your personal search strategy that will empower your internet use and make your searches more powerful.

  • There isn't just google! Remember that there are many search engines on the internet - don't rely on a single source and cross reference with other search engines. Sites such as Dogpile.com have the ability to search across multiple search engines eg. google, yahoo and msn.

  • Properly format the question. Be clear about what you want to ask and look for the most efficient way in which to format and ask your question so that search engines provide useful results.
  • The source of the information used to search will profoundly impact the usefulness of your search. What organisations, keywords and networks are associated with chat you are looking for?
  • Higher quality searches are to be found on the Google Books programme or the Google Scholar for more academically oriented resources.
  • Google Print - Google has partnered with several libraries and publishers to digitize their collection and Google Printaims to search the book content and links to view the entirety of public domain books or, for books under copyright, just a few pages or in some cases, only the title's bibliographic data.
  • Install the Stumbleupon Stumbleupon.com search tool onto your browser. This will enable you to do searches within websites that have been recommended and reviewed by communities and individuals with interests similar to yours.
  • Install Delicious Delicious is similar to Stumbleupon in that it allows you to do searches within websites recommended by communities and connect with people that have similar interests to your own.

Make it part of your search strategy to do meta-search; search some of the more exotic search engines on the 'net from time to time. Just a short search of 'search engine' using the resources above will bring you many useful links. A 'computational knowledge engine' called WolframAlpha launched in May 2009 promises to be a totally new category of search engine. Interestingly, Wolfram Alpha produces the following when asked to define knowledge: "knowledge | the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning

Steve Banhegyi - steve@storytelling.co.za

Google Squared Search

Google Squared is a search tool that helps you build a collection of facts from the Web for topics that you specify. Facts about your topic are organized as a table of items and attributes (called "Squares"). Of course, you need to create the question that will get the system to display the results that you need. Once the initial squares are generated, you can:

  • Customize these Squares to see just the items and attributes you're interested in (by adding rows and columns to the square)

  • See the websites that served as sources for the information in your Square.
  • Save and share Squares with others

For example, say you're curious about universities in Africa. A normal web search would involve combing through many different webpages to compile the information you're looking for. With Google Squared, all you have to do is type [ African universities ] into the search box at http://www.google.com/squared and click Square it to see an automatically generated table of roller coasters and their attributes. The example here is provided in realtime and you can update rows and columns of the following example search:

Making all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone

'Making all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone' is the mission of a recently launched search engine called Wolfram Alpha We quote from the official website:

Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity.

Wolfram|Alpha is an ambitious, long-term intellectual endeavor that we intend will deliver increasing capabilities over the years and decades to come. With a world-class team and participation from top outside experts in countless fields, our goal is to create something that will stand as a major milestone of 21st century intellectual achievement.

Try it for yourself!

Here is an example search where we ask Wolfram Alpha about some of Africa's largest cities. You can update the search yourself and press the = to recompute.