Power Searching for Business JournalistsDaniel M. Russellber Tech Lead Google Search Quality & User Experience Researchdrussell@google.com 2013 1

Whats the phonenumber of theoffice this imagewas taken from? 2

Work with what you have I searched for [tp office building] voila! You can also figure this out by doing an Image search for [ tp ] Knowing this, I could easily get the street address for the TP building: 14/16 Twarda Street, Warsaw And once you know that 3

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Now, which office are you in? Search [google offices warsaw] to find that the information is at: http://www.google.com/about/company/address.html Google Warsaw Warsaw Financial Center Emilii Plater 53 00-113 Warszawa Poland Phone: +48 22 207 19 00 Fax: +48 22 207 19 21 5

Whats the length of What date was thisthe runway? picture taken? 6

Use what youve got If you do a simple quoted search: [ DQ-TRI ] is a plane that was in the service of Air Fiji. Why use the quotes? Without them you end up with far too many off-topics hits. DQ and TRI both have multiple meanings. But together in a phrase... they can only mean one thing. 7

Once you have the plane To get the rest of the story, you can check the Wikipedia page for Air Fiji. The company started in 1967, but foundered in 2009, selling off all 5 planes in its fleet. Taveuni, Fiji, youll find its at 164126S 1795237W, 8 and the runway is 910m or 2,986ft.

How to figure the photo date? Check Dan Russells personal G+ photo albums. Divers in the photos include Harry Saddler, Dan Russell, Tom Gruber, Richard Santucci ["Harry Saddler" OR "Dan M. Russell" OR "Tom Gruber" OR "Richard Santucci" Fiji] Pic by Tom on TraveloCafe. Clicking on the picture goes to Flickr, where this picture is part of a set taken in Fiji, which ranges between 16 March 2004 and 23 March 2004. 9

But this is all second nature 10

term AROUND(n) term[ jerry brown AROUND(9) tea party ] 11

Most of what you know about Boolean is wrong AND doesnt do anything The story is subtle dont worry about it All terms are soft ANDed together OR allows you to express synonyms [ pertusiss OR whooping cough ] [ abestosis cancer OR mesothelioma ] NOT doesnt do anything really, except search for the term not If you want to exclude, use minus ( - ) 12

Boilerplate / repeated language [ pertusiss OR whooping cough confirmed cases OR new cases ] [ Smith denied OR Smith claimed OR Smith argued ] [ postive findings OR confirmed cases OR positive results ] 13

Goals 1. Skills that you can use for your own searches define: filetype: site: Control-F antireading Search-by-image 2. Deep strategies for search 3. How to quickly come up to speed on a topic 14

The punch lines, up front from previous studies Many repeated queries even by experts ESPECIALLY when theyre having a bad experience Many cases of early commitment to a single solution path with subsequent ratholing on a poor path Little evidence of any deep search strategies e.g., changing the resources being sought; validating the answers; checking alternative resources Satisficing behavior dominates. People look for the first answer, not necessarily the best answer Sometimes, you gotta have exactly the right search term Googles syns are excellent except when they dont work

What do you need to know about search to be good at it? 1. Whats out there to be found? 2. Where is content located? Hows it organized? 3. Search tactics / search skills 4. Search strategies / how to frame question, when to stop, when to switch approaches 16

Skill 1: Control-F to find a word on the page Does the California Vehicle Code regulate the use of pocket bikes on roads? [ California Vehicle Code ] 17

Itll look like this Its 65 pages long Is the phrase pocket bike used here? 18

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Control-F aka CMD-F aka Edit>Find 20

Control-F 21

NOTE! 22

Opened floodgate in Morganza spillway in Louisiana onMay 15, 2011 2011 Google, GeoEye

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http://followyourworld.appspot.com/ 31

Key lesson 1 Expert searchers know the capabilities of their tools. They know whats possible. 32

* Finding and using other resources Someone told me that in the mid-1800s, people often would carry around a special kind of notebook. They would use the notebook to write down quotations that they heard, or copy passages from books theyd read. The notebook was an important part of their education, and it had a particular name. Question: What was this kind of notebook called? 33

Answer This is a really hard question. The best way to answer it is to first look for a reverse dictionary. [ reverse dictionary ] 34

Then, go to the reverse dictionary http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml and type in the words [ notebook quotations ] then look thru the list of words it shows you. Answer: commonplace book 35

Search / Visualize Public Data 36 http://www.google.com/publicdata/

Search, Visualize, and Upload datasets 37 http://www.google.com/publicdata/

Search / Visualize Public Data World Development Indicators (World Bank) Human Development Indicators (United Nations Development Programme) April 2011 World Economic Outlook (International Monetary Fund) OECD Factbook 2010 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Unemployment in Europe (monthly) (Eurostat) Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices in Europe (Eurostat) Minimum Wage in Europe (Eurostat) Broadband penetration in Europe (Eurostat) Government Debt in Europe (Eurostat) Road Transport in Europe (Eurostat) Food supply chain monitor (Eurostat) Tourism (Eurostat) Infectious Disease Outbreaks (HealthMap.org, Harvard Medical School) Global Broadband Performance (Net Index by Ookla) Broadband performance (Measurement Lab) UNECE Statistics Division (UN Economic Commission for Europe) Unemployment in the U.S. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) GDP and Personal Income of the U.S. (annual) (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis) GDP breakdown of the U.S. (quarterly) (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis) State Government Finances in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau) Retail Sales in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau) Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the U.S. (NCHHSTP powered by CDC WONDER) Mortality in the U.S. (NCHS, OAE powered by CDC WONDER) Cancer cases in the U.S. (CDC, NCI and NAACCR powered by CDC WONDER) U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions by State, Economic Sector, and Gas (World Resources Institute) 38 Energy by State (Energy Information Administration) Prices for Natural Gas (Energy Information Administration) Federal Government Finances of the U.S. (Office of Management and Budget)

Key lesson 1 Expert searchers know the capabilities of their tools. They know whats possible. - Google Earth - Public Data Explorer - Medline - 39

Key lesson 2 Expert searchers use more than one resource. 40

* Think about synonymschoosing keywords When an artist is making a sculpture for a client, they often make a small version of the sculpture in wax or clay. Theyre usually a preliminary sketch, presented to the client for approval Question: What is this thing called? 41

Answer [ small artist model ] read through the snippets to find definition But double check, you can use Google as a dictionary: [ define maquette ] 42

Using more than one resource Nearby theres a very famous statue thats clad with an exterior of steatite thats placed in very, very prominent location. His right hand points to the strip of sand I was on; a world-famous beach thats famed in song and story. What beach am I on? 43

Using more than one resource 1. [ define steatite ] soapstone 2. [ statue covered soapstone ] Christ the Redeemer 3. View Cristo Redentor in Google Earth (or Maps) to direction 44

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Draw line Right hand points to Ipanema and Copacabana 46

IpanemaIpanema 47

Streetview:Copacabana 48

Key lesson 2 Expert searchers use more than one resource. - using multiple resources - linking results 49

Key lesson 3 Expert searchers deeply understand their language, especially synonyms. 50

Keep looking! Think of synonyms! Sometimes you need to keep trying, thinking your problem through in different ways. Usually, if you think about how someone else would describe the thing youre looking for, that will suggest search terms for you. 51

Synonyms: Side-effect of framing Question: A friend told me that there is an forgotten city in the waters of San Francisco Bay. Is that true? If it IS true, what was the name of the supposed city? 52

Answer Yes, its true there IS an abandoned city near what is now Fremont. It was called Drawbridge. The trick here is to think about other ways of describing an abandoned citydont just assume thats the best way to describe it. Try this search: [ ghost town san francisco bay ] The former town of Drawbridge 53 (Story about [ abandoned city ] )

BIG POINT: Synonyms (the 3 Elses) When youre failing at a search: Sit back and figure out how ELSE you can say it How would someone ELSE talk about what you seek? Its not about your language, its about someone ELSE! 54

Another way to syn Or use the Reverse Dictionary w/ [ abandoned city ] Or try Related Searches Explore the concepts Look for synonyms Related searches 55

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* Think about synonyms within language variants You know that when you eat pig, the meat is called pork. When you eat sheep, the meat is called mutton. When you eat deer, the meat is called venison. Consider shift in language from place-to-place PIN (property identification number) differs by state creek, run, stream, brook, burn, rivulet 58

Question: Suppose you visit your cousin in Sydney, Australia and they serve grilled kangaroo. Whats another word for kangaroo meat? 59

A solution [ kangaroo meat name ] Simplest possible solution, leads to Wikipedia article 60

Consider regional variations: Dont have to tell you about UK vs. US English (bonnet = windshield, etc.) But US regional variations can be impressive: branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, crick, gill (occasionally ghyll), kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or runnel. 61

Learning how to read again Anti-reading: Looking for terms you dont know

SERP Reading Does Palo Alto recycle milk cartons? v 63

Big lesson you CANNOT just read the snippet and understand the story 64

Use of define Example: [ define loxodrome ] [ define Mollweide projection ] 65

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Key lesson 3 Expert searchers deeply understand their language, especially synonyms. - use of boilerplate language - how to read summaries - anti-reading 67

Key lesson 4 Expert searchers understand the terms and key concepts AND know how to read the genre. 68

Naming the un-namable While searching for information about plastic surgery, I wanted to know what to call this. Question: Whats this boundary between lip and skin called? 69

Answer Start with the simplest search you can think of: [ boundary between lip and skin ] If its not right, you can always modify it. When I did this, I clicked on the first result. Theres a nice article there about something called the vermilion border Then I double checked on that by doing a [ define vermilion border ] 70

* Use most obvious language What is this thing called?

Try this query: [ bright spot in sky near sun ]Moral #1: when in doubt, describe the object-of-interest in the way you think others willMoral #2: the first answer may-or-may-not be what youre looking for Evaluate the result wrt your search goal.

Use images I was hiking in the woods nearby in March when I saw a pretty blue flower. It was about 3 feet high, and grew along the pathway in the middle of the woods in Henry Coe State Park. Question: Heres the picture can you tell me what the common and Latin name is of this flower? 73

What are the common AND the Latin names of this flower? 74

Wildflower images answer WHY? Georeference Search: web for [ blue wildflowers henry coe ] Look for collections of pictures. Look for a matching / similar picture. Trick: add a context term to look for collections of pictures [ blue wildflowers henry coe album ] [ blue wildflowers henry coe image collection ] Answer: Ithuriels Spear (Triteleia laxa) AKA Grass Nut, Wallys Basket 75

* Going deeper on a topic: Using domain language I kind of like that wildflower! What else can I find out about it of a horticultural or botanical nature? Where does it grow near my home? Does it like to live in the sun or the shade? What level of acidity does it prefer in the soil? Where can I buy this plant for my home garden? 76

Answer I started with the Latin name because its the MOST specific term you can use. So I did a copy & paste from the previous search: [Triteleia laxa] and then started looking around. I quickly found that I could see it in Coe Park, near Morgan Hill. When I looked up the Wikipedia entry, I found that it likes shady conditions. I then checked my work by doing a search for [Triteleia laxa shady ] Sure enough, other places say the same thing. It checks out! 77

* Using Maps Using Google Maps is a great way to find where something is. But suppose you want to find out how far APART two things are. Question: (a) Can you figure out how far the De Young museum is from the San Francisco train station? (b) Suppose you want to hike from the Yosemite Visitors Center up to Glacier Point. How would you figure out how far a hike that is? (c) Can you find a tool that will let you measure arbitrary distances on the map? (Example: that will let you measure the length of a path or trail that you define not one thats already given.) 78

Answer Use maps with driving directions to get the rough distance from point to point. For Yosemite, you have to look for a map at the Yosemite Park website. Then use the maps Create a New Map (under My Maps) 79

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Goal: Find a B&B that has a view of this fog Must be in coastal range; within 10 miles of B&B; Near a long lake Near the Googleplex. 81

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Flying into JFK (from the east to west) Whats causing those rectilinear features ? 84

How big are those features? Use Google Earth (or Maps) to zoom in with a measuring tool Realize that these arent CANALS, theyre more like DITCHES! 85

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Many tools for Maps to help your search Challenge: find and install the GPS location tool! Maps labs at bottom of Maps UI Metaquestion: How would you know? 87

Lat/Long coords work as well (decimal coords): 13.861, 25.006 (aka Lat/Long: N 13 51.662, E 25 0.388) (aka Deg., Min., Sec.: N13 51 40, E25 0 23) 88

You can see a lot just by looking http://medievalnews.blogspot.com/2009/03/1000-year-old-fish-trap- found-with.html 89

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For our purposes, what can YOU find? 91

Whats around here? 92

Whats the news story now that you know what the company is, you can find associated news stories. With the map, you can identify the source of the companys pollution, where its going, and who is (should-be) worried about it! 93

Key lesson 4 Expert searchers know the capabilities of their tools. 94

How to remove bogus results from your searches Sometimes you want to look up something thats pretty common, so there are LOTS of web pages out there. Its even worse when the word is really common. So how do you eliminate things you dont want? Question: Can you find a great recipe for salsa to make for dinner tonight? IN PARTICULAR your nephew is allergic to tomatoes. Can you find a salsa recipe without tomatoes in it? 95

Example of minus use removing The trick here is to remove all those salsa as dancing meanings. The quick way to do that in a web search is with the MINUS sign. [ salsa dancing ] -- this will remove all the dancing references [ salsa dancing tomatoes ] and the vegetables No s afte pace r min the us s ign! ! 96

Quotes Use double quotes to search for an exact phrase [ when venus the goddess of beauty and love ] Vs. [ when venus the goddess of beauty and love ] 97

* Finding a particular kind of document Your brother is a teacher at the local high school, and needs to find a lesson plan for a unit on superconducting materials. Question: Can you find a lesson plan for him? Hint: Look for a particular KIND of document 98

Answer Use the operator FILETYPE: to focus in just on presentations [ superconductor high school filetype:ppt ] Note that filetype: can take on ANY file extension PDF, PPT, XLS, DOC, WMV, TXT, CSV, SKP, KMV, (In fact, arbitary extensions e.g., AQS) 99

* Searching within a particular site Someone told me that Id been quoted in the New York Times. OMG! What did I say that was quotable? Can you find a page in the New York Times where I (Dan Russell) was quoted? 100

Answer Use the site: operator to search within a particular web site [ Daniel M Russell site:nytimes.com ] and see the number 1 hit. (Yes, I worked at IBM.) Answer: 1. Because Daniel Russell is a very common name. 2. The NYTimes has the convention of always spelling a persons name out completely, including middle initials 101

[ site:sec.gov query ] careful about EDU 102

Key lesson 4 Expert searchers understand the terms and key concepts AND know how to read the genre. 103

Key lesson 5 Expert searchers know the structure of their information space. 104

Limit search by time f 105

To filter by time select search tools f 106

Then choose the time restriction f 107

Combine date restrictwith content type News / Blog / Forum / Web 108

Add time/date restrict Use preselected time/date options Can specify your own date range 109

* Other advanced operators cache: If you include other words in the query, Google will highlight those words within the cached document. For instance, [cache:www.google.com web] will show the cached content with the word "web" highlighted. For instance, [cache:www.google.com] will show Googles cache of the Google homepage. Note there can be no space between the "cache:" and the web page url. 110

Todays page f 111 http://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/

Last weeks page: [cache: v 112 cache:blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/

intitle: inurl: inurl: 113

intext: requires that the text be in the body of page intext: 114

Combing operators site: with intext: [ site:stanford.edu coral bleaching intext:geophysics ] 115

* Advanced search tool How to get to the advanced search UI 116

Advanced Search UI 117

#18: How to get page previews and cached copies 118

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Internet Archive / Wayback Machine 120

* General principle: Look for tools Can you find a way to graph the equation: y = x2 + sin(x) 121

just type it directly into Google 122

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Mashupshttp://schoolperformancemaps.com/ Combines data from multiple sources into single view To find mashups: [ mashup ] Examples: [ mashup school performance ] 124

Question: Can you find a mashup .. That shows current emergency situations worldwide?

Do the following search: [ mashup worldwide emergencies ] http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php?area=usa&lang=eng

* Calculator / Conversions Can you figure out how to use the calculator on Google? Once you have figured it out try figuring these out! 1. 4 + 5 + 19 = ?? 2. 45023 / 34 + 5 / 29 = ?? 3. Sin(0.5) ** 2 = ?? 127

Calculator answer f 128

Conversions General pattern: [ number units1 in units2 ] 129

Conversions Conversions: [ 212F in C ] [ 400 yards in miles ] [ 32 euros in USD ] [ 23 bushels in quarts ] [ 2 inches in Angstroms ] [ 23 cm in ml ] CAUTION: Wont tell you when youre incompatible.. 130

Problem: How fast does the Worlds Fastest Man run in MPH? Steps: 1. Whats the current world record? 2. Make the conversions 3. Do the calculations 1. Use web search (news) to find out world record 2. Note that the record is in meters (100 meters) 3. Convert distance from meters to miles 4. Convert time from seconds to hours 131

Or. the extreme use case Now 9.58 seconds 132

Just to double check things you think you know 133

#21: Alerts http://www.google.com/alerts aka standing queries Scan news, groups, web, videos, comprehensive Generate emails automatically Use in conjunction with advanced search techniques 134

#22: Tools: Search web history Link in upper right corner of browser on home page (or: www.google.com/history ) 135

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Your web search history is searchable(if you have it turned on) 137

Note synonym expansion(use quote to turn off) 138

* Google Trends search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties [ Google Trends ] 139

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Tools: Google Trends 141

Hottrendshttp://www.google.com/trends/hottrends 142

Trends [ football, basketball, baseball ] 143

Lower half: filter by region f 144

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* And. The rest of the world 146

Translated foreign pages

Finding pages wri-en in other languages 148

Methods to nd informa7on from other languages 1. Go to the Google web search for that country. 2. Use the built-in other-language tool 149

1. Go to countrys own Google Example: Google.co.in 150

Selec7ng Hindi from the home page: [ eurozone ] 151

Dierent Googles to try Pay attention to the languages offered by each countrys localized version Google.co.za (S. Africa) Google.co.ke (Kenya) Google.co.id (Indonesia) Google.co.vt (Vit Nam) etc.... 152

Excep7ons Notes: MOST countries use Google.co.?? as their domain BUT.. Some are Google.com.?? (e.g., Ghana: Google.com.gh ) SOME.. Are Google.?? (e.g., Rwanda: Google.rw ) Not possible to use Google to search some domains: Bhutan MayoHe etc But you CAN use the site:yt to search MayoHe (YT) or site:bt to search Bhutan (BT) 153

Fastest way to nd country Google access? [ Google ] 154

2. Use built-in other language tool 155

Add or remove language as you wish 156

#25: Video Video.google.com Youtube.com you can find lots more Notes: Lots of junk on the public video sites be careful of what you see Low quality Also lots of faked video. You cant believe everything you see either. 157

Video.Google.com YouTube 158

So when do you use Video.Google.com? Whats the use case for Video.Google.com? Answer: When need the control of the left-hand nav panel When you fail at YouTube search

Every minute72+ hours of video are uploaded3 billionvideos watched every day70%of traffic is international

Breaking news on YouTube youtube.com/citizentube

YouTube Trends the watercooler of the web www.youtube.com/trends

YouTube Directyoutube.com/directYouTube Direct allows you to embed the uploadfunctionality of YouTube directly into your ownsite, enabling your organization to request,review, and re-broadcast user-submitted videoswith ease. News organizations can ask for 163citizen reporting.

Email uploads: www.youtube.com/account 164

For Schools: YouTube.com/edu f 165

Time index: where t = time, m = # of minutes, s = # of secondse.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNuA5alRilk#t=23m15s 166

Images Images.google.com But remember than many sites have their OWN image collections. Especially When is this useful? A: When you ONLY true of newspapers, .gov, want photos from NASA, universities, NASA. libraries, etc. Example: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/index.html As an alternative [ Hubble images site:usgs.gov ] in image search 167

Creative Commons filtering on Google 168

Even more images Flickr.com / PicasaWeb / G+ / Facebook A site of people sharing photos, tagging with terms Consider searching for likely tags Demo: [ chi2009 dan ] or [ chi2008 buxton ] Remember to think about searching for tags #chi2006 or chi2006 169

Clever Images Trick Whats that part of the bike called?

Go to Images, search for a diagram [ bike diagram ]

Whats the topmost sail, first mast on a clipper ship?? [ ship sail diagram ]

Search-by-image Suppose you have an image how can you figure out what it is? 173

You can ask impossible questions Where is this?

Search by Image

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I found this in the basement what is it? 177

Books 178

Books.google.com scanned page images [ manta ray ] Find in a library 179

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US Patents Google.com/patents Usually want to use advanced search here 181

Scholar 182

Scholar now contains legal opinions as well Change type here 183

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NEW! Data table search Can now (August, 2012) search for data tables directly 185

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Search Features How do you know which ones there are? http://www.google.com/help/features.html http://www.google.com/insidesearch/tipstricks/index.html [ define moa ] note this also includes non-dictionary terms [ movies palo alto ] [ movies Boston ] [ pizza near mountain view ] [ weather mountain view ] phone number and map (Place Page): [ keplers menlo park ] Flight numbers (to track a flight): [ AA 102 ] 189

Question is Whats indexed? Is all of Googles content indexed on the Google Search Engine? ? Universal search means what to the average user? How does a searcher know whats available, or even possible? Example: Find an online readable copy of Popular Science magazine, Nov 1955? Find a telephone directory from Rochester, NY 1920? Find a list of all the universities with an office in Washington, DC?

Summary When in doubt, search it out! Your search skills will become stale quickly . keep tracking the new features that we offer! Practice deliberately. When you get the chance, try the same search a few different ways and note the differences. Ask why! 191

Announcement: MOOCS July 10, 2012: Power Searching with Google V1 (154K) Sept 24, 2012: Power Searching with Google V2 (127K) 192

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Try out AGoogleADay.com 194

Google Cheat Sheet PDF file http://dmrussell.net/search-education/mousepad-cheat-sheet.pdf