 Search Like A Geek
First Published: April 2005
Last Update: April 2005
Author: Jason O'Connor
Some people search the Web like a Neanderthal standing before the
Library of Congress steps grunting, "Me want food!" While
other, more sophisticated searchers, act more like a person actually
entering the Library of Congress, approaching the librarian, and
saying, "Pardon me, please lead me to your books on agriculture
and growing food, and while you're at it, please show me your
books on fine dining in the Washington D.C.area.". Who would you
rather be?
Back in high school there was the `in-crowd', often populated
by the jocks, and then there were the geeks, among other social
clicks. Today, many of those `geeks' are wildly successful;
while some of those unfortunate others are asking us if we'd like
fries with our burgers.
So it's not so bad being a geek today, especially since so much
of our lives and economy are dominated by computers, software and
the Internet. It is wise to learn how to use the Internet as best
you can. By understanding how search engines and directories work,
like many geeks already do, you will find the information you're
looking for more easily, quickly and with a lot less frustration.
Knowing how to pinpoint specific bits of information quickly will
give you an advantage over most other people who do not have these
skills. And this advantage can turn into big money by saving you
time in your day to day business. And learning about how to search
will help in your search engine optimization efforts if you run your
own website too.
So, I invite you to pull up your pants to make high-waters, apply
some masking tape to the bridge of your eye glasses, and insert a
pocket protector in your front shirt pocket, and join me in learning
how to search like a geek.
*** The more appropriate words you use the better. ***
Let's say I want to find tickets to a new Broadway musical show
called Wicked next weekend in New York City. If you just type the
word `tickets' into Google's search box, you'll get
99.6 million results, which is very unwieldy. The first result is
ticketmaster.com. It took 4 clicks for me to get to their listing of
Wicked tickets, but they were out of inventory up to 6 weeks from
now, so it was a dead end since I want to go next weekend.
The next result was Tickets.com, and when I searched for Wicked on
their site I found tickets available to Wicked in Toronto only.
Another dead end, I need tickets to the NYC production.
The third result only sold airline and cruise tickets, not what
I'm looking for either. After clicking on another 4 websites, I
still hadn't found what I was looking for. I was getting
frustrated, impatient and was just about ready to toss my PC out my
window and give up totally.
If instead, I used a few more appropriate words in my search, my
results would have been much better. I tried typing the words
`new york city broadway wicked musical tickets' in the Google
search box and came up with 230,000 results instead of 99 million,
which is slightly more manageable..
The first result was www.musicalschwartz.com which offered
`Ticket Tips - Wicked on Broadway, Seating info'. So I
clicked on that and learned a number of things about purchasing
Broadway tickets, NYC travel tips and other information on Wicked
the musical.
The next two Google results were http://www.eagletickets.com
and http://www.bestshowtick
etslasvegas.com , and they both offered tickets for the Broadway
musical Wicked in New York City on the weekend I wanted. So by
carefully choosing appropriate words to search with and using more
than one or two words, I found what I was looking for much more
easily and quickly than just searching using the word
`tickets'.
I am not suggesting you use lots and lots of words willy nilly. The
best method is to think of very specific words related to what
you're looking for, be a little creative, and watch what order
you put the words in. Searching for `broadway wicked musical
tickets' and `tickets broadway wicked musical' will give
you different results.
Never search using one word. Avoid only using two words. Try to use
3-7 words. This search rule follows the law of diminishing returns
however. So searching using 25 words will probably get you little or
no results. So there is a "sweet spot" you'll have to
discover for any given search, but it is almost always using more
than 1-2 words.
*** Use more than one search engine. ***
When I search on the Web, I use more than one browser and more than
one search engine or directory. The difference between the two is
that search engines are run automatically while directories are run
by humans. Google is a search engine and show search results of
websites that no one has actually looked at in advance. Directories
on the other hand contain websites that have actually been reviewed
by a person. Therefore, the results you get will differ. A good list
of directories can be found at http://www.directoryarchives.com.
Open up your browser and click on `File' in the top left of
your browser and select `New' > `Window'. Do this a
couple of times until you have three or more browsers open on your
desktop at the same time. Choose your search words carefully, use
more than two words and try the same exact phrase in Yahoo, MSN,
Google, and a favorite directory using a different browser for each.
That way you can compare results to find the best ones. You can also
try a new site I found called
http://yagoohoogle.com/ which lets you perform a simultaneous
search on both Google and Yahoo.
*** Use modifiers in your searches. ***
Going back to the tickets example, let's say I wanted to find
airline tickets, but each time I performed a search on tickets, most
of the results had to do with sports and theater tickets. I could
weed out all those irrelevant results by using the minus (-) sign
next to the word `theater'.
Bad search: tickets
Better search: tickets to New York
Even better search: airline tickets to New York –theater
So if you are getting a lot of extraneous results in your searches,
try adding a minus sign to words you don't want showing up in
your results.
Another good tip is using quotes around your phrases. By doing this
you are telling the search engine to find the exact phrase and in
the order you are specifying. By adding quotes, you are being much
more specific. You'll get very different results using quotes. If
you searched for `2005 NBA playoff tickets' (without quotes)
you are asking the search engine to look for sites that have the
words 2005, NBA, playoff, and tickets associated with them. So you
will probably come up with airline tickets, football playoff
information, NBA history and so forth. If you put quotes around your
phrase you'll get much closer to what you want.
*** Use the `Find' function. ***
Trust me; this one suggestion is worth the price of admission alone.
You will save lots of valuable time if you do this. Ever get to a
Web page that has a lot of text on it, and quickly scanning the page
doesn't immediately produce what you're looking for? In fact,
the scanning just makes you dizzy.
Try this: while holding down your `Ctrl' key hit your
`F' key (this works on PCs only). A `Find' dialog box
should pop up. Simply type the word or phrase you're looking for in
the box and hit `Enter' and it will immediately find each and every
instance of it on the Web page you're on. This will truly save you
time if you remember to use it.
One can get lost on the Net. There is so much information, and
almost all of it is not applicable to what you want at any given
time. If you use the Net for your business, pinpointing appropriate
and relevant information quickly will put you ahead of the pack
every time. By following these simple suggestions, you will find
more accurate results which will reduce your frustration, save you
time, and give you an edge over others who are still searching for
information like a caveman at the steps of a library.
About the Author:
Jason O'Connor is president of Oak Web Works
(http://www.oakwebworks.com) Oak Web Works where you can
get a free webmaster newsletter and he also runs Sports, Las Vegas &
Broadway Show Tickets (http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com) Broadway and Las Vegas
Show Tickets.
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