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“Finding research information on the web: how to make the most of Google…
“Finding research information on the web: how to
make the most of Google and other free search
tools”
Introduction
Research information has been available in electronic form since the
1970s
journal articles became an essential part of discovering and keeping up to date with
new developments.
Lockheed Dialog
provided
a single point of access to several databases
but access was priced and
connecting to the services over unreliable telecommunications networks was something of
a black art. :cry:
1990s
, the Internet was opened up to commercial traffic and the creation of the
World Wide Web
now anyone
with an Internet connection could publish and, potentially, have access to research papers. :smiley:
Gradually, some authors started to make their work available free of charge by self-
publishing and archiving. :smiley:
As the number of websites steadily rose it became more difficult to find
relevant articles. :unamused:
new tools had to be developed to cope with the vast
amount of text that was being generated :explode:
This new breed of search engines, as they came to be called, trawled the Internet for new
and updated information by following links from one web page to another.
Search results were sorted according to how many of your search terms were in the
document,
in
1998
, a company
with a completely different approach to search arrived on the web: Google!
The
most important part of its ranking algorithm is how many other web pages link to a page,
in essence citation analysis.
Five things you need to know about Google search
1. Google personalises your results
redirection of
your search to a country specific version based on your Internet address.
Google also takes into account
what information has been shared between you and members of your personal networks
Google also takes into account
what information has been shared between you and members of your personal networks
The easiest and quickest way to get rid of personalised results is to open a browser
window that ignores cookies and your browsing history
2. Google automatically looks for variations on your terms and omits terms
Google automatically looks for variations and synonyms of your terms.
To make Google search for a word exactly as you have typed it in use the ‘intext:’
command. The syntax is intext immediately followed by a colon (:) immediately followed
by the word.
UK public transport intext:biodiesel statistic
If you want your whole
query run exactly as you have typed it in then use Google’s Verbatim option.
First of all run your search and then, on the results page, select Search tools from the
menu at the top. A second row of options should appear. Select All results and at the bottom
of the drop down menu is Verbatim
3. Google does not search everything
Google does not always search its entire database of web pages.
two indexes:
the main index that is searched by default
supplemental index that only comes
into play if the number of results from the main index is low.
considers to be lower quality content and duplicate pages.
4. Google changes its algorithms several hundred times a year
Google changes its search algorithms at least 500 times a year
Many of these changes are
minor, for example improving the way in which Google interprets a query for a currency
or temperature conversion
Others have a more significant impact on our results such as
Google dropping words from the search when the number of results falls below a certain
level
5. We are all Google’s lab rats
Google constantly uses all of us to test changes to its algorithms.
a percentage of live search traffic is diverted to see how
we react to them.
Usually the effects are so small that we are unaware of
them but they sometimes give rise to truly bizarre results