Well, the proverbial has hit the fan with Google search getting really personal (Official Google Blog: Search, plus Your World http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-plus-your-world.html). Good news or bad news? A bit of both. It’s great for tracking down information or a comment made by someone within your personal social networks but a disaster if you are conducting serious, global research. And Google has made so many other changes: dumping the ‘+’ symbol as a way to enforce an exact match search and no longer ‘ANDing’ terms are just two. The results are here, there and everywhere but not necessarily where you want them. Changing your default search engine is one solution but there are times when Google’s extensive coverage is required. There are ways of switching off Google’s improvements and options that you can use to improve results.
I am running a workshop for UKeiG on how to make Google behave – at least some of the time! – in Birmingham on February 8th. The areas we’ll be covering will include:
- how Google works – what Google tells us and what we have to guess
- recent developments and their impact on search results
- how Google customises your results and can you stop it?
- how to use existing and new features to focus your search and control Google
- how and when to use Google’s specialist tools and databases
- what Google is good at and when you should consider alternatives
There will be time to experiment and try out the techniques for yourself. Exercises will be provided to help you test out the search features but you are free to explore and try out searches of your own.
If you are interested further details and a booking form are available on the UKeiG web site at http://www.ukeig.org.uk/trainingevent/how-make-google-behave-techniques-better-results-karen-blakeman