PowerPoint Presentation

Recap for 2013 Virtual Fall GaIN Meeting

Carolann Curry, MLIS, AHIPReference & Document Delivery LibrarianMercer University Medical Library - Macon

Anna Krampl, MSLS, AHIPReference LibrarianMercer University Medical Library - Macon

Super Searcher: Enhancing Your Online Search Super Powers

1

Before we begin, I wanted to show you a screen shot of the NN/LM Super Searcher course page. This class is taught in multiple regions. Southeastern Atlantic (SE/A) members (us!) can take this from Andrew Youngkin. Its also available in different formats. Anna and I took the online Moodle version of the class; it was a few weeks long and was set up as separate weekly modules w/videos, discussion boards, and quizzes. You can also take the class as a one-day, face-to-face session.

I will point out here that we did submit 2 handouts for this class; Alisha showed you how to find those on the GaIN page. Those can also be found here on the Super Searchers course page (if you cant see on your screen, the address for this page is: nnlm.gov/training/supersearcher) One handout we submitted is the original Powerpoint presentation from Andrew Youngkins face-to-face class. The full PowerPoint is over 50 slides and includes interactive exercises so we converted it to a PDF and have made it available that way.

That being said, as with the PubMed for Trainers class, Super Searchers included several hours of information and exercises. So weve done our best for today to highlight some of the more worthwhile points in our presentation today that we found helpful from the class.2Objectives:Overview of search engines and web searching Popular search engines How do they work? Utilizing advanced features Advance Search toolbar Search operatorsFuture searching trendsSocial Media searching (Twitter Search)Augmented RealityGoing mobileGoogle GogglesWolframAlpha search engine

So our objectives for todays 25 minute Super Searchers recap.

Were going to do an Overview of search engines and web searching. Weve cover popular search engines and how they work.

Well also cover how to utilize advanced features (such as the Advance Search toolbar as well as Search operators)

Then were going to break out and Anna is going to do some live searching with the advance search features and search operators.

And lastly weve dicuss future searching trends. Depending on how much time we have, well exploreSocial Media searching (Twitter Search)Augmented RealityGoing mobileGoogle GogglesA demo of the computational information search engine WolframAlpha search

Ill just note that one thing I really liked about the Super Searcher class was how practical the information was. Unlike most NN/LM classes, this class was not focused on health sciences or medical resources. When we break out to search, Anna is going to incorporate some of the advanced searching techniques into searching for medical and health information topics.

3How much internet content can search engines find? 99% 60% 35% 20%So before we jump in, how much of web content can the internet search engines actually find?

Take a few seconds to answer in the chatbox if youd like.4How much internet content can search engines find? 99% 60% 35% 20%I was surprised to discover that search engines actually include less than 20% of all web content.

5Surface Web vs Invisible WebSurface Web:Indexed by conventional search enginesWeb crawlers (aka spiders) construct a database of the web

Invisible Web:Dynamic contentUnlinked contentPassword-protected

So what content are we searching when we use traditional search engines?

When we use traditional search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) we are searching mostly the surface web. Web crawlers (aka spiders) construct a database of the web and index its content for each search engine. And an interesting fact that as of yesterday (November 20, 2013) there are more than 1.55 billion Indexed Web pages of the sufrace web (courtesy of http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/)

The Invisible Web, also known as the Deep Web, is content that is dynamic (results which are returned in response to a submitted query or accessed only through a form, like text fields), content that is unlinked (for example, pages that are not linked to by other pages and therefore inaccessible by web crawlers), and the invisible web includes content that is private (sites that require registration and login like password-protected resources).6Top 5 Internet Search Providers:

Source: Oct. 2013 comScore U.S. Search Engine Rankings http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2013/11/comScore_Releases_October_2013_US_Search_Engine_RankingsSo what are the most popular search engines? The top 5 search engines are Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com and AOL.

As you can see, Google dominates the American search rankings. Ive been following the comscore site. Each month they post a monthly press release of the top 5 search engines. It is interesting to note that since the Super Search class I took over the summer, Bing has ticked up slightly and Ask.com and AOL and ticked down some. Google consistently ranks the top, around 67% but Bings popularity is gradually increasing.7How does a search work?:AlgorithmsSophisticated and oftentimes proprietary and kept secretResult rankingTerm frequencyTerm locationProximityPaid for linksRelevancy ranking

So how does a search work? Each search engine relies on a complex algorithm to help determine what information will be added to its index. This algorithm helps the search engines determine what pages have valuable information and what pages might be spam.

Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. all have different algorithms. Because each algorithm is unique, it is usually kept secret. An interesting note that in 2010, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot filed an antitrust suit against Google claiming the algorithm they used violated antitrust laws. Now no further legal action has been taken at this time but this is an interesting example of how this secret formula for generating search results causes many to question what is happening behind the scenes.

So when you hit the search bar, youre going to get a slew of results so how can you decide which results are the best? And how does the search engine determine what order to put the results in?

Most results are returned according to their relevancy to your search terms. For example, Google determines how to order results based on the PageRank system. PageRank is Googles specific algorithm works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.

The following factors help determine how results are ranked:Term Frequency - how often our search terms appear on a siteTerm location how close to the top of the page your terms appearProximity how close your search terms appear togetherPaid for links Sponsored Sites, Features Sites, Partner Sites

Results are also ranked by their relavancy to you. These factors can be determined by your server location, for example when I am here at work and search for medical library one of the top results is the Mercer Medical Library. If I were to search on a computer out of state, I would probably not see Mercer Medical Library as a result.8Google advanced searching:Googles built-in toolsLimit by time, language, file type, usage rights etc.

While there were several different search engines demonstrated in the full version of the Super Searcher class, for todays session we are going to focus on the currently top-ranked search engine, Google.

In the next couple of slides, I am going to do an overview of some of the more common advanced search features of Google. Then we are going to break-out of the slides and Anna is going to do some live searching in Google with some of these search techniques.

You can use the built-in advanced search bar in Google. This is useful to more beginner searchers. You can build your searches here using the individual search bars or search multiple fields at once.9Google search operators:To search for an exact phrase:American Cancer Society

To exclude a word:dolphins football

To search within a particular site or domain:olympics site:nytimes.comolympics site:gov

In addition to the Advanced Search features tool, you can also incorporate various search operators into your Google searching. These can be entered in directly in the main Google search bar.

Here are few examples of the more popular search operators:

To search for an exact word or phrase: Use quotes to search for an exact word or set of words. For example, searching American Cancer Society will yield results with the words AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY all adjacent to one another.Tip: Only use this if you're looking for a very precise word or phrase, because otherwise you could be excluding helpful results by mistake.

To exclude a word: Add a dash (-) before a word or site to exclude all results that include that word. This is especially useful for synonyms . Searching for dolphins football will omit the Miami dolphins football team.Tip: You can also exclude results based on other operators, like excluding all results from a specific site.

To search within a particular site or domain: If you are looking for more results from a certain website, include site: ____ in your query. For example, you can find all mentions of the term "olympics" on the New York Times website by searching olympics site:nytimes.comTip: Also search within a specific top-level domain like .org, .gov or .edu

10Google search operators (cont.):To search for pages that link to a particular URL:link:med.mercer.edu/lib/

To search for pages that are similar to a URL:related:related:www.cdcfoundation.org/zombies

To include a fill in the blank (aka wildcard searching):diabetic * diets

To search for pages that link to a URL: Using the link: operator, you can find pages that link to a certain page. For example, searching link:med.mercer.edu/lib/ will show is all results of pages that link to the Mercer Medical Library website.

To search for pages that are similar to a URL: To find sites that are similar to a URL you already know, use the related: operator. For example, if you want to find related sites to the CDCs zombie preparedness taskforce page, search related:www.cdcfoundation.org/zombies

To include a "fill in the blank: The asterisk [*] can be used as a wildcard in Google queries to replace unknown text. For example, a search of diabetic * diets will yield search results of specific diets for diabetics. When I searches this, I saw results like diabetic prescription diets diabetic exchange diets diabetic protein diets and diabetic cat diets.Tip: You can use the auto-complete feature of Google to offer suggested wildcard terms.

A note on the use of the asterisk: Google now uses Stemming Technology to eliminate the need to put an asterisk at the end of a word. For example, before if you searched flower*, Google would yield results flowers flowering etc. Now that is done automatically.

11>Live Searching

Handing over to Anna:12Future searching trends:Social Media searchingTwitter SearchAugmented RealityGoing mobileGoogle Goggles WolframAlpha search engine13