Monthly Archives: July 2015

Google

Google rolls out “People also ask”

There have been reports (http://searchengineland.com/google-tests-new-mobile-search-design-people-also-ask-box-219078) for several months that Google has been testing a new query refinement box called “People also ask”.  It now looks as though it has gone live. The feature suggests queries related to your search after the first few entries in your results list. It doesn’t appear for all queries and it is dependent on how you ask the question. My search on ‘what are statins’ gave me the usual, standard results list.  When I searched on ‘types of statins’ the ‘People also ask’ box popped up with “How do statins work to lower cholesterol?”, “How do statins lower cholesterol?” and “What is a statin drug?

Google-People-Aslk-Statins

To see further information you have to click on the downward pointing arrow next to the query but instead of a list of sites you see just an extract from a page supposedly answering the question, a bit like the Quick Answers that sometimes appear at the top of your search results. There is an option, though, to run a full search on the query you have chosen.  As with the Quick Answers, there are no clues as to how or why Google has selected a particular page to answer the query.

The queries for ‘People also ask’ are also different from the suggested queries that are listed as you type in your question into the standard Google search box.Google-Suggested-Search-queries

Those of you who have attended my talks and workshops will no doubt be waiting for me to come up with an example of a Google howler. Here it is: a search on ‘tomato blight prevention uk’ comes up with “What is potato blight?” (close, and the organism that causes late potato and tomato blight is the same) and “What is an ANEMBRYONIC pregnancy?”.

Google-People-Ask

No, I don’t know what an ANEMBRYONIC  pregnancy is (why the capital letters?) but it has nothing to do with potato or tomato blight!

At present, this is not a feature that I am finding useful. For me it is a hindrance rather than a help and just clutters up the results page with superficial or irrelevant suggestions. But as my queries tend to be quite complex and often incorporate advanced search commands, which seem to disable it, I don’t expect to be seeing much of this feature.

Google, Search Strategies, workshops

UKeiG Article: New Google, New Challenges

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From "Introducing Spot", Boston Dynamics, Introducing Spot - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8YjvHYbZ9w
From “Introducing Spot”, Boston Dynamics, Introducing Spot – YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8YjvHYbZ9w

My article on major changes at Google, “New Google, New Challenges”, is now available in UKeiG’s latest issue of eLucidate at http://www.cilip.org.uk/uk-einformation-group/elucidate-ukeigs-journal/elucidate-current-issue/new-google-new-challenges

As well as the general dumbing down and relentless removal of search options, it covers the new technologies that Google is experimenting with: artificial intelligence, driver-less cars, robotics, home environment sensors and controls. Some of this is already being integrated with search and “mobile”.

I am running  a “New Google, New Challenges” workshop for UKeiG this autumn in Manchester and London. It concentrates on search, how the changes at Google are impacting the way it manages our search and presents results, and how to use what is left of the advanced search techniques and specialist databases for more relevant research results.

Business Information

UK company information now free of charge

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A year ago Companies House announced that they were going to make all of their company information available free of charge to everyone. The press release was short on detail and many of us wondered what format the data would be in and how easy it would be to use. Daily files containing accounts data registered on the previous day were already available but these are huge zip files that, when unpacked, contain files with meaningless names. (http://download.companieshouse.gov.uk/en_accountsdata.html). Unless you have software that can manage and search the data it is impossible to identify which files contain information on the company you are researching. Companies-House-Free-1

 

For most of us the files are useless.  Was this to be the format of the free service? Thankfully, no.

A new beta service at http://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/ now enables you to search for companies by name or number and obtain free of charge:

  • Company overviews
  • Current and resigned officers
  • Document images
  • Mortgage charge data
  • Previous company names
  • Insolvency data

Companies-House-Free-2

For the officers you can see what other companies they are involved with. What you cannot do at the moment is search by director name from the start. That is a “planned feature” as are disqualified directors search, company monitoring, company name availability, dissolved companies and overseas data. For those options you have to revert to the old WebCHeck service at http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/.

The new beta service is easy to use and at last we have access to UK company documents and accounts free of charge. So, does this mean the end of services such as Company Check (http://companycheck.co.uk/) and DueDil (http://www.duedil.com/)? Not necessarily. Company Check, for example, already has an option for searching by director name and there are also useful charting, monitoring and structure options as well as access to some European companies. They also offer access to risk scores, credit reports and County Court Judgments (all priced). All of these services only allow you to search for companies one at a time: there is no multi-criteria search that you can use to find companies by turnover, number of employees, industry sector for example. Neither can you compare companies or conduct a detailed peer group analysis. For that you still have to use priced services such as BvD (http://www.bvdinfo.com/)

Overall, a move in the right direction and ideal if your needs are simple, for example accounts and director information for a live company. But look carefully at what features are available before you cancel your subscription service.