Websearch seminar

Websearch seminar
Marydee Ojala, editor Online magazine, #ili2010

We introduce ourselves, such variety in what librarians and information professionals do, different organizations with all sorts different clients (medical/business/education/ngos).

New things in websearch
constant change, literally on daily basis

Alternative main Ask, Exalead, AOL

All search engines rollout first in US, eg google instant not worldwide yet
Google instant actually slower for people that don't touchtype
Also new on google, the lefthand facets automatic - gives you options for focusing your search results
Wonderwheel - visualises related search terms
Google instant only displays 10 results at a time
New from google - public data explorer - extended from US government, will be increasingly useful.
Concerns over privacy. Google (only) knows anything you've told them, plus your location. Look at your dashboard of google if you're concerned.
Google's caffeine - speed, freshness, algorithmic improvements

Putting a search into database v different to a websearch - they are literal, they don't suggest what they think you mean.
Universal search - all types of info

Bing - powers yahoo (not in all countries)
yahoo started as a directory, but now don't want to be in search business.
Bing - new photo everyday, applications for maps, updates every 6 months, last focussed on commerce, automotive, finance and entertainment.
Instant snippet, context of search terms

Semantic search - automatically disambiguates words. Eg if you are searching from a medical library it would look for medical terms.

Most people start with very general term and then narrow it down.
One word searches usually come up with wikipedia.

Bing now working with wolfram alpha to put as search results.
Also travel predictions, based on ITA software (which google wants to buy)

Yahoo sells it's own ads, even though powered by Bing, based on own database so may get different results.
Eg: blind search http://blind search.fejus.com - great teaching tool as search engines not revealed until after 'vote'. Filters out all the ads.
Also for comparison www.mixer.co.uk - google, bing, yahoo, twitter
www.zuula.com also comparison

Ask - has gone back to original 'ask and answer' searchable database

Exalead - just bought by Systems Dassault, not sure of future. Www.exalead.com/search includes proximity search (NEAR).

AOL now owns Truveo multimedia search engines, Thing labs (brizzly) , techcrunch, and 5minmedia. What's next

New engines
Blekko - slash the web - limit your search to types of information - biasing your results eg: climate change /science
Semantifi - semantic search, open apps

Power searching.
Trend towards personalization and customisation aimed at individual searchers not library mode, or even for students researching for different classes. Searches change between days and for different people.
Fuzzy or squishy Boolean

On google, fourth word often actually increases number of hits, especially if generic/common word.
Most search engines assume AND - narrowing down searching
Only 2-3% of users use advanced search (though most librarians do)

Google advanced search
Exact phrase, or, not, file type, date, licence - produces much better
Can use syntax to expand search further if examples not available in drop down menu eg: filetype:pptx

In Bing have to do search first, then advanced

Multiple databases from search engines
Only 2 have fully nested boolean Exalead and Gigablast
Filetype searches. Site search.
Language options on google interface include pirate and Swedish chef (Bork Bork Bork)

Cache searching - what the site looked like when the search engine found it originally. Not always accurate as search term may actually be in linked page.
Exact phrase "termA termB"
force term with +
changing word order changes search results
Change your search engine for different results
Truncation doesn't work on search engines, but does in databases

Search engines specific to geographic region (bing/google options)
Www.searchenginescollossus.com lists, up to date

News search engines
Yahoo better than google on news at moment
Newsnow.co.uk - comprehensive, flag country of source
Newsy.com - video approach
Www.rferl.org radio free europe radio liberty, Prague - different approach to news, different audience focus

Image databases
Truveo.com
Tineye.com
Www.Pharos-audiovisual-search.eu
Google images more sophisticated - size, similar, image swirl
Bing images include similar
Both have facets options
Yahoo fewer features but does include flickr

Alternative images search engines
Www.pixolu.de semantic search, academic project
Quintura.com Inc video
Chromatik.labs.exalead.com colour search
Manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/

Audio files
Subs services, Factiva and HW Wilson are adding text to speech
Podcast.com, podanza.com, huffduffer.com, Search metadata
Podscope.com searches audio

Video
YouTube
Vimeo - eg TWIL
Impact of HTML - will make video making easier, dramatic increase
Www.archive.org Internet archive
BBC.co.uk/videonation/archive
Www.britishpathe.com for newsreels

Realtime/social search
Twitter 1 billion queries per day
Specific search engines - oneriot, scoopler, collecta, crowdeye, topsy
Addictomatic real time news feeds
Google.com/realtime searches facebook, myspace, Twitter etc has filters for time, location, conversation. Timeline, urls, images. Email alerts track conversations.
Bing only Inc Twitter and facebook, up to a week
Yahoo searches only Twitter

Twitter archives only 30 days or less
Twapperkeeper.com backupmytweets.com archive
Twilert.com Twitter alerts
Twitter advanced search www.Twitter.com/advanced includes attitudes :) and :( though doesn't understand sarcasm or irony
also dates, links and location

Facebook search not great, but can use google search 'site:www.facebook.com'

Linkedin more professional
Look at answers and groups to find people, also who knows who
Research companies.

Subject specific site, including
World bank - all info all free
Intute and infomine for scholarly info

Searching is getting more localized, more personal
Focus is on consumers
Influence of search engine optimisation will shape the future









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