© Imperial College London

Searching Google and Google

Scholar

A Workshop for Library and Information Assistants across the London

Health Libraries Network

Royal Free Hospital Library – 6/12/13

John Nyman St Mary’s Fleming Library

Imperial College London

Learning outcomes – you will

• have reviewed how Google and Google Scholar works

• understand the changing nature of Google

• have tried out some techniques for undertaking more

complex searches using Google

• be aware of some recommended alternatives to Google

Agenda

• Presentation (with some online examples)

How Google and Google Scholar works

Problems with using it

Tips for getting the best from it

Alternatives to Google

• Hands-on session

• Conclusion and Questions

How does Google Work?

• Googlebot: Google’s web crawling

robot finds and retrieves web pages

• Indexer: receives the full-text of these

webpages from Googlebot, stores them

in the index database, then sorts them

alphabetically by search term.

• Query Processor: matches the terms

you entered to the index and retrieves

webpages in the order of relevance it

thinks you want using over 200 queries

in defining the relevance of the webpage

The Google Algorithms

These are the computer processes and formulas that take

your query and turn it into results. There are over 200

signals or clues that are used. Some important ones are:-

PageRank

Counts the number of times a webpage is linked to by other

webpages, and assesses the quality of those pages.

A webpage with a high PageRank will appear before others

in the results displayed as it is deemed more relevant.

The Google Algorithms

On-Page (Keyword-Specific) Ranking Factors

Keyword use anywhere in the title tag

On-Page (Non-Keyword) Ranking Factors

Existence of substantive, unique content on the page

Site-Wide (non-link based) Ranking Factors

Site architecture of the domain (structure and hierarchy)

Google Supplemental Index

• These are indexed pages that are no longer thought

to be important

• They contain junk, scams and duplicate content

• They have a low PageRank and don’t contain quality

links

• However, you cannot tell whether your results contain

supplemental material, as there is no designation for

this material

Using the cache

• Your query retrieves what is in the Google database

• Clicking on the title displays the current version

• Clicking on the green arrow on the second line and

selecting Cache links to a stored version of the page,

which may be older than the current version

• Googlebot is constantly scanning the web for new

material and updates on its indexed webpages

Why is the cache useful?

• If there is:-

Internet congestion

When the site is down

The website has been removed

• The cached version will usually still be there as it is

an older version.

Searching Google

• Default: usually searches all the words

Measuring disease frequency in populations – will search

Measuring AND disease AND frequency AND populations

• Stopwords

‘in’ ‘on’ ‘at’ ‘and’ will not be searched

• Wild Cards or truncation

Not used. Instead word variations and synonyms are

automatically searched for

Command line tips

• Boolean Operators

AND – OR – NOT

• AND is the default – you don’t have to enter it. All other

operators you do

• OR or | (pipe)

Hiv (rnai OR vaccine OR genetics) Hiv (rnai|vaccine|genetics)

• NOT is – (dash)

Diabetes insulin -obesity

Obesity high blood pressure –diabetes

More command line options

• Phrase Searching “ “ is useful

Obesity (“high blood pressure” OR hypertension) –diabetes

• Exact word = “ “ – replaces the + sign

“the” times or “the” onion

• Synonyms = ~ (tilde)

~tutorial will find - guides, documentation, introduction

More command line options

• Any word = *

This is the night * crossing the border (is it mail or train)

• Changing the word sequence makes a difference –

the natural order retrieves the best results

Pieces of eight

Eight pieces

Elite controllers

Controllers elite

Focus the search

• Filetype – to specific document types

Oil exploration Falklands (filetype:ppt OR filetype:pdf OR

filetype:doc)

• Site – to search part of a domain or limit by specific website

Population trends site:gov

Higgs boson site:howstuffworks.com

Hiv site:www.tht.org.uk

malaria site:www.who.int/en

Focus the search

• Inurl - the term must appear in the URL

Inurl:media – Inurl:hampstead

• Number range - ..

15..18

• Date Range – Search Tools – Any time

• Uses the Julian calendar as dates are integers easily added

and subtracted – 2456098-2456104

• You can type in date range as well as using the widget

• Geographical Location

Loc: followed by country code – loc:de/in/uk/

Searching Aspects of Google

• It will sometimes omit a word when the search

retrieves few results to get something

• This soft ANDing is an embedded Google feature, but

you are not told this

• Unexpected results should alert you to think about

changing your search strategy

Advanced Google Search

• This option appears in the top right of the screen

• The options are clear e.g.

Terms Appearing – alerts you to restrict to a field

Safe Search – removes images option

Reading Level - allows you to select content level

Filetype – a comprehensive list appears. Alerts you to the

range and code that you can use in the main search. You are

restricted to one option only though.

Usage rights – Alerts you to copyright and sharing rights and

that internet websites should be cited

Advanced Google page

Verbatim

• Run your search

• Click on Search Tools – All Results – Verbatim

• This will run your search exactly as input as “phrase

searching” doesn’t always work

• Parole evidence only finds parol evidence –

American jurisdictional spelling overrides other

spellings!

Think naturally

• what are the characteristics of…

• how much does…

• the author died on…

• who founded…

• a guide to…

• a checklist of…

• was created by…

• Inspired by Terry Kendrick –Cutting Edge Internet Search Techniques

Queries that Google finds difficult

• What would be the best time I could sow seeds in

India given that the monsoon is early this year? From – The Evolution of Search – Youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTBShTwCnD4

• Google cannot do this yet

Google Scholar

• Simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature

• It searches across many disciplines and sources to

retrieve

• Articles – Theses – Books – Abstracts – Court Opinion

• From

Academic Publishers – Professional Societies –

Online Repositories - Universities

Google Scholar

• You can set up Google Scholar to access your

institution’s password controlled e-journals for the full

text

• Go to Settings – Library Links – Institution Name

• Link to the full-text via the sfx link

• Through Settings you can also set up reference

management links

Google Scholar

• Metrics – will display the top 100 publications

ordered by the 5-year h-index

• H-index – attempts to measure the productivity and

impact of published work

• An h-index of 20 means that the author has 20

papers each of which has been cited 20+ times

• This is an alternative to total citations seen in WoS

which may not truly reflect impact as the author may

only have a few highly cited papers

Searching Google Scholar

• Author – use the author operator

• Author:smith

• Title – use “ “ for phrase searching

• Use the sidebar to limit to year range

• Advanced Search – use the arrow in the search box

to get advanced search

Other resources 1

• Bing www.bing.com

reported to be often more up-to-date than Google

by Karen Blakeman (personal communication

06/02/12).

Has option to restrict to pages from the UK

• Blekko http://blekko.com

spam free

Both recommended by Karen Blakeman, 06/02/12

Other resources 2

• DuckDuckGo https://duckduckgo.com “less spam and clutter” (quote taken from their site)

• Zuula http://www.zuula.com See results from 9 sites, each on a separate tab: Google,

Bing, Yahoo, Gigablast, Exalead, Alexa, Entireweb, Mahala

and Moheek

Both recommended by Karen Blakeman, 06/02/12

Other resources 3 - Internet Archive

• The WayBack Machine - http://archive.org/web/

• You need to know the URL, e.g.

www.imperial.ac.uk/library

www.rcn.org.uk

• Useful in seeing the development of websites over time

Authentic or Hoax?

• Search: how does google work so fast

• Evaluate: Google Technology

Authentic or Hoax?

Authentic or Hoax?

• Search: biological hazard detector

homeland security

• Evaluate: SKC Civil Defense Tools

Authentic or Hoax?

Website checklist

• Authority and Accuracy

• Purpose and Content

• Currency

• Design, Organization and Ease of Use

Summary

• Google is constantly changing

• Check Google is doing what you told it to do

• Use natural phrases and repeat important words

• Be specific, not general

• Use the different features for more accurate results –

e.g. Maps – News

• Use Advanced Search when needed – e.g. to restrict

to safe search

• Use other resources

Further Insight

• Search now and search in the future – David Russell 2012

Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDBhP7XTfTI

• Google Guide - http://www.googleguide.com/

• Various commoncraft.com videos

• Karen Blakeman’s Blog http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/

• Phil Bradley’s website: Making the net easier

http://www.philb.com/