Published May 30, 2001
An ocean of Web pages and seemingly not a drop to drink. Finding the handrail, that just right topic among an armada of diverse search engines is simplicity itself. Also to protect and propel your business ahead of the competition, search database Web resources.
French mathematician George Boole wrote his pivotal Investigation of the Laws of Thought in 1849 which became Boolean algebra. Today, his set of rules enables computational processing and is essential for narrowing searches to logical relationships among words and concepts.
The conjunctive operator words are and or not near, typed as all capitols in the search-for field with your chosen keywords. The effect is to return a shorter Web pages list of pertinent results. Instead of thousands, only hundreds of URLs may be listed, ranked by the search engines as a percentages of relevance.
The rules adopted by Search Engines (SEs) vary. Some SEs automatically employ the and between words; others the or. When in doubt, type-in the actual operators between and among your keywords. The and operator narrows a search to include only pages that contain both keywords, i.e., Montana and Livingston. The or operator gathers all pages that include any keyword broadening the results, as in dog or cat.
The not operator, as would be expected, narrows a search to bar pages with keyword following it. An example would be (John Kennedy) not (Bobby or Robert). Notice the grouping of the parenthesis instructs the search engine server to include all pages that have the clause John Kennedy but exclude every Web page that has the words Bobby Kennedy or Robert Kennedy in them.
Quotations marks can sometimes be substituted for parenthesis around clauses. The plus (+) or minus (-) can sometimes replace and or not, respectively. Read the Advance Search Tips instructions at your chosen search engine. Try it.
Logical sequencing of operators, called nesting, helps sharply focus searches. Although not a true Boolean function, the operator near, created by the Alta Vista search engine and increasingly used by others, requires keywords to be within ten words of each other, as in John near Kennedy.
The Alta Vista SE uses a hierarchy of near not and then or. The order of any given search will change the results; but using the parenthesis will resolve this problem. Start the habit of typing all search words in lower case unless the words are proper names or places. Do not use all caps except for the Boolean operators or common acronyms. Know in advance that certain words (in lower case) are programmed to be blocked, called stop words, because they create irrelevant search results: and, as, the, or, if, not, but, to, near, and internet, to list a few. That’s pretty much it. Go forth and find.
The Internet’s Web is mainly considered to be free content. However, businesses can hardly find a cheaper and rapid resource of database information than online. Custom reports on anyone, demographics, market data and federal/state laws are a bargain for $1 per report to $300 per month. Of course free information, not as detailed or current, is always available from government or educational sources via the Web. Search first for the repository site, then search within those sites for the nitty-gritty.
Want the low-down on your rivals? Public filings and analyst reports are everywhere. Lexis-Nexis is one of the world’s biggest data warehouses. A basic subscription starts at $300 for eight financial reports per month. Or use Dun & Bradstreet small business profile of any specific company for $23 each.
For $15/month or $110/year, Hoover’s Online data reveals in-depth financial data and analysis company wide or by division. Specify the information to be custom sorted and organized. The Securities and Exchange Commission public company filings are accessible online from Edgar database. Discover the perks top-management pays itself.
For $10 from KnowX, learn if a lien had been filed against a company’s property, if the company sought bankruptcy protection in the past or if any lawsuits are pending or judgments filed. Longer reports will cost an additional $7. Is this good stuff? Information is power.
Next week, read part 3 of Search Engine Tips.