Beyond Google
Sean Barr
Bernie Mathias
Jan 30th, 2013
www.swansea.ac.uk
Outline of Session
•Using Google to the fullest/ Google
Scholar
•Alternatives to Google
•The Deep Web
•Directories & Subject Gateways
www.swansea.ac.uk
Overview of the Web
• Hundreds of millions of sites- Billions of pages
• Browsers –Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IE etc
• Search Engines such as Google – use Spiders and
Crawlers to extract data
• Indexed and Stored in the Search Engine database
• You search the database -not the web.
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Search engines
Use a search engine when you have a clear idea what you are
looking for on a specific subject.
Use more search terms and more specific terms to give you
more specific results.
Search engines usually link your search terms with AND
(i.e. search for all terms).
Use quote marks to search for a specific phrase
(e.g. “climate change”).
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Search tips
1. filetype :ppt e.g. Horsemeat:ppt
2. Site :nhs.uk e.g. Horsemeat :site:nhs.uk
3. ~ tilde for synonyms e.g ~Horsemeat
4. - minus . Exclude pages that contain it e.g.
burgers –Horsemeat
5. Verbatim
6. Instant
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More search tips
Repeat your key search terms:
• chocolate production UK france belgium
• chocolate production UK france belgium belgium belgium
– different results
Change the order of your terms:
• chocolate production Belgium Switzerland
• production Belgium Switzerland chocolate
– different results
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Google is now more than just Google
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Two Worlds Collide
Facebook's Graph Search is as much a search engine as
Google's Google+ is a social network.
“Social Search”
Google coming at it from the “Search”side.
Facebook from the “Social” side
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Facebook Graph Search –Privacy fears
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Google Scholar
Provides a search of scholarly
literature across many disciplines and sources,
including theses, books, abstracts and articles
Also features Alerts, Metrics and Citations
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Google Scholar
Use with caution!
•searches “scholarly literature” not the whole web
•not restricted to peer-reviewed content
•includes “cited by” and “Related Articles” links
•secrecy about coverage; important exclusions
•“library links” option (in Preferences)
•“import into EndNote” option (in Preferences)
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More Academic Options
Iseek - Clusters results into topics, people, places,
organisations, date & time.
“Education” option – more research oriented pages
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All Googled out ?
DDG for example doesn’t personalize, filter or track.
Some report better results than with Google.
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Multi-search engines or ‘One site to Search them all’
Zuula
http://www.zuula.com
•Runs your search through a range of search tools one by one
•Order can be customised
MrSapo
http://www.mrsapo.com
•Similar to Zuula but with more options
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The Deep Web
www.swansea.ac.uk
The Deep Web
•Visible Web: the web pages that a standard search
engine can find and index.
•Deep Web: everything else.
aka: The Invisible Web; The Hidden Web;
Deepnet; DarkNet; Undernet
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Deep Web resources
•Dynamic content
•Unlinked content
•Subscription / password-protected content
•Limited access / robot exclusions
•Multimedia content
•Gopher / FTP content
www.swansea.ac.uk
www.swansea.ac.uk
Searching the Deep Web
You have probably used the invisible web
without being aware of it.
•Library catalogues
•Electronic journals
•Bibliographic databases
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Web Directories & Subject Gateways
Useful for finding web sites rather than specific
pages or pieces of text.
Manually compiled.
Quality control: academics & librarians.
Open Directory Project: http://www.dmoz.org/
Yahoo Directory: http://dir.yahoo.com/
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Mailing Lists
• JISCmail http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ has thousands of
groups covering many categories.
• Useful way to keep up to date with developments in
your subject areas.
• Can subscribe to groups on a very wide range of
topics and join in debates and discussions.
www.swansea.ac.uk
Science/Academic Search Engines
RefSeek – http://www.refseek.com
Scirus – http://www.scirus.com
Scientific WebPlus - http://scientific.thomsonwebplus.com
Science.gov – http://www.science.gov
WorldWideScience.org - http://worldwidescience.org
Science Accelerator - http://www.scienceaccelerator.gov
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