Search Like A Geek

							Title:
Search Like A Geek

Word Count:
1382

Summary:
Some people search the Web like a N
eanderthal standing before the Libr
ary of Congress steps grunting, “Me
 want food!” There are better ways
to find the things you want online
and here's how.


Keywords:
search, google, geeks, web design,
how to search, finding things on th
e web, internet searching, seo, sea
rch engine optimization


Article Body:
Some people search the Web like a N
eanderthal standing before the Libr
ary of Congress steps grunting, “Me
 want food!” While other, more sop
histicated searchers, act more like
 a person actually entering the Lib
rary of Congress, approaching the l
ibrarian, and saying, “Pardon me, p
lease lead me to your books on agri
culture and growing food, and while
 you’re at it, please show me your
books on fine dining in the Washing
ton D.C. area.”. Who would you rat
her be?

Back in high school there was the ‘
in-crowd’, often populated by the j
ocks, and then there were the geeks
, among other social clicks. Today,
 many of those ‘geeks’ are wildly s
uccessful; while some of those unfo
rtunate others are asking us if we’
d like fries with our burgers.

So it’s not so bad being a geek tod
ay, especially since so much of our
 lives and economy are dominated by
 computers, software and the Intern
et. It is wise to learn how to use
the Internet as best you can. By un
derstanding how search engines and
directories work, like many geeks a
lready do, you will find the inform
ation you’re looking for more easil
y, quickly and with a lot less frus
tration. Knowing how to pinpoint sp
ecific bits of information quickly
will give you an advantage over mos
t other people who do not have thes
e skills. And this advantage can tu
rn into big money by saving you tim
e in your day to day business. And
learning about how to search will h
elp in your search engine optimizat
ion efforts if you run your own web
site too.

So, I invite you to pull up your pa
nts to make high-waters, apply some
 masking tape to the bridge of your
 eye glasses, and insert a pocket p
rotector in your front shirt pocket
, and join me in learning how to se
arch like a geek.

The more appropriate words you use t
he better.
Let’s say I want to find tickets to
 a new Broadway musical show called
 Wicked next weekend in New York Ci
ty. If you just type the word ‘tick
ets’ into Google’s search box, you’
ll get 99.6 million results, which
is very unwieldy. The first result
is ticketmaster.com. It took 4 clic
ks for me to get to their listing o
f Wicked tickets, but they were out
 of inventory up to 6 weeks from no
w, so it was a dead end since I wan
t to go next weekend.
The next result was Tickets.com, an
d when I searched for Wicked on the
ir site I found tickets available t
o Wicked in Toronto only. Another d
ead end, I need tickets to the NYC
production.

The third result only sold airline
and cruise tickets, not what I’m lo
oking for either. After clicking on
 another 4 websites, I still hadn’t
 found what I was looking for. I wa
s getting frustrated, impatient and
 was just about ready to toss my PC
 out my window and give up totally.

If instead, I used a few more appro
priate words in my search, my resul
ts would have been much better. I t
ried typing the words ‘new york cit
y broadway wicked musical tickets’
in the Google search box and came u
p with 230,000 results instead of 9
9 million, which is slightly more m
anageable.

The first result was www.musicalsch
wartz.com which offered ‘Ticket Tip
s - Wicked on Broadway, Seating inf
o’. So I clicked on that and learne
d a number of things about purchasi
ng Broadway tickets, NYC travel tip
s and other information on Wicked t
he musical.

The next two Google results were <
a href="http://www.eagletickets.com
">http://www.eagletickets.com</a>
and <a href="http://www.bestshowti
cketslasvegas.com">http://www.bests
howticketslasvegas.com</a> , and th
ey both offered tickets for the Bro
adway musical Wicked in New York Ci
ty on the weekend I wanted. So by c
arefully choosing appropriate words
 to search with and using more than
 one or two words, I found what I w
as looking for much more easily and
 quickly than just searching using
the word ‘tickets’.

I am not suggesting you use lots an
d lots of words willy nilly. The be
st method is to think of very speci
fic words related to what you’re lo
oking for, be a little creative, an
d watch what order you put the word
s in. Searching for ‘broadway wicke
d musical tickets’ and ‘tickets bro
adway wicked musical’ will give you
 different results.
Never search using one word. Avoid
only using two words. Try to use 3-
7 words. This search rule follows t
he law of diminishing returns howev
er. So searching using 25 words wil
l probably get you little or no res
ults. So there is a “sweet spot” yo
u’ll have to discover for any given
 search, but it is almost always us
ing more than 1-2 words.

Use more than one search engine.
When I search on the Web, I use mor
e than one browser and more than on
e search engine or directory. The d
ifference between the two is that s
earch engines are run automatically
 while directories are run by human
s. Google is a search engine and sh
ow search results of websites that
no one has actually looked at in ad
vance. Directories on the other han
d contain websites that have actual
ly been reviewed by a person. There
fore, the results you get will diff
er. A good list of directories can
be found at http://www.directoryarc
hives.com.

Open up your browser and click on ‘
File’ in the top left of your brows
er and select ‘New’ > ‘Window’. Do
this a couple of times until you ha
ve three or more browsers open on y
our desktop at the same time. Choos
e your search words carefully, use
more than two words and try the sam
e exact phrase in Yahoo, MSN, Googl
e, and a favorite directory using a
 different browser for each. That w
ay you can compare results to find
the best ones. You can also try a n
ew site I found called <a href=" ht
tp://yagoohoogle.com/ "> http://yag
oohoogle.com/</a> which lets you pe
rform a simultaneous search on both
 Google and Yahoo.

Use modifiers in your searches.
Going back to the tickets example,
let’s say I wanted to find airline
tickets, but each time I performed
a search on tickets, most of the re
sults had to do with sports and the
ater tickets. I could weed out all
those irrelevant results by using t
he minus (-) sign next to the word
‘theater’.
Bad search: tickets
Better search: tickets to New York
Even better search: airline tickets
 to New York –theater

So if you are getting a lot of extr
aneous results in your searches, tr
y adding a minus sign to words you
don’t want showing up in your resul
ts.

Another good tip is using quotes ar
ound your phrases. By doing this yo
u are telling the search engine to
find the exact phrase and in the or
der you are specifying. By adding q
uotes, you are being much more spec
ific. You’ll get very different res
ults using quotes. If you searched
for ‘2005 NBA playoff tickets’ (wit
hout quotes) you are asking the sea
rch engine to look for sites that h
ave the words 2005, NBA, playoff, a
nd tickets associated with them. So
 you will probably come up with air
line tickets, football playoff info
rmation, NBA history and so forth.
If you put quotes around your phras
e you’ll get much closer to what yo
u want.

Use the ‘Find’ function.
Trust me; this one suggestion is wo
rth the price of admission alone. Y
ou will save lots of valuable time
if you do this. Ever get to a Web p
age that has a lot of text on it, a
nd quickly scanning the page doesn’
t immediately produce what you’re l
ooking for? In fact, the scanning j
ust makes you dizzy.

Try this: while holding down your ‘
Ctrl’ key hit your ‘F’ key (this wo
rks on PCs only). A ‘Find’ dialog b
ox should pop up. Simply type the w
ord or phrase you’re looking for in
 the box and hit ‘Enter’ and it wil
l immediately find each and every i
nstance of it on the Web page you’r
e on. This will truly save you time
 if you remember to use it.

One can get lost on the Net. There
is so much information, and almost
all of it is not applicable to what
 you want at any given time. If you
 use the Net for your business, pin
pointing appropriate and relevant i
nformation quickly will put you ahe
ad of the pack every time. By follo
wing these simple suggestions, you
will find more accurate results whi
ch will reduce your frustration, sa
ve you time, and give you an edge o
ver others who are still searching
for information like a caveman at t
he steps of a library.