What are you looking for? How do you find it?
For most situations, a keyword search in Google or Bing is perfect — because the website or business that you’re looking for wants to be found. You want the phone number for your favorite restaurant, and that restaurant wants you to find its phone number. You want more information on the Olympics; numerous sites are screaming out for you to find it there.
Say, for example, you are looking for the phone number of Manora Thai Restaurant (where I had lunch on Friday), Google will find it for you in a jiffy…and even help you out with its autofill feature. But what if you are looking for that Thai (or is it Vietnamese?) restaurant you always see when you’re coming off the freeway (is it Folsom? Or is that Harrison Street?). You can still find it online, Manora Thai even has its own website (www.manorathai.com) – but how do you get there? The web-savvy amongst you will know ways around this problem (mapping in Yelp, for example).
But what about business situations where your need to find elusive information is more pressing?
What if you are looking for someone but you don’t know (or can’t remember) his/her name? What if you want to know if there’s any reason your client shouldn’t hire a well-known contractor? A keyword search in Google won’t get you very far.
For queries like these – and other complex searches where keywords fail you, try these two other search methodologies:
1) Repository-based searching – where is the information located?
Let’s use repository-based searching to answer, “Is there any reason your client shouldn’t hire a well-known contractor?” Putting a well-known company’s name into Google isn’t going to get you much more than the company’s website and maybe some recent news articles. But what are key factors in the decision? How about a simple fact of whether the company is licensed in the state your client’s project is in?
Tishman Construction is a major construction manager. A Google search turns up the website and lots of general information: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=TISHMAN+CONSTRUCTION&aq=&aqi=g10&oq=TISHMAN+CONSTRUCTION&fp=c26c79a56c95bda8
Instead, try looking for where important information about Tishman Construction might reside…like, say, the state regulator who licenses contractors. A Google search for California contractors gives you an autofill for the right department: the Contractors State License Board: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&source=hp&q=california+contractors+state+license+board&aq=0&aqi=g5g-s1g4&oq=california+contract&fp=c26c79a56c95bda8
Checking Tishman in the licensing database shows that Tishman’s contractor license is currently suspended for not complying with worker’s comp requirements: https://www2.cslb.ca.gov/OnlineServices/CheckLicense/LicenseDetail.asp?LicNum=322670
This may be a clerical error, but isn’t this exactly the information your client needs before signing the contract? Getting to this FACT took less than a minute…a whole lot less than combing through pages of Google links would get you.
2) Chronology-based searching – when did that information exist?
Now let’s look for a person that you know about, but don’t know their name. Let’s say you were looking for the name of the Kansas City police chief from 10 years ago (hopefully not because of a memorable interaction):
A general search for “kansas city missouri police chief in 2000” gives you nothing useable: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&source=hp&q=kansas+city+missouri+police+chief+in+2000&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=c26c79a56c95bda8
Instead, think when would that information be readily available? In 2000 in the Kansas City newspaper for sure. Putting “Kansas City newspapers” into Google reveals that the name of the local paper is the Kansas City Star at www.kansascity.com. That website has a searchable archive.
Searching for “police chief” in only 2000 brings up a slew of articles with the name of the police chief, Rick Easley. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_multi=KC|&p_product=KC&p_theme=realcities2&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_site=kansascity&s_trackval=KC&s_search_type=customized&s_dispstring=Lead%28police%20chief%29%20AND%20date%2801/01/2000%20to%2012/31/2000%29&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=01/01/2000%20to%2012/31/2000%29&p_field_advanced-0=Lead&p_text_advanced-0=%28police%20chief%29&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no
Getting to this name took a couple minutes, rather than slogging through pages of Google link results (another route would be to try www.archive.org for archived pages of the Kansas City Police Department’s website). Then putting his name back into Google gives you an idea of where to contact him today (he’s now the President of the Kansas City Metropolitan Crime Commission).
In future blogs, I’ll feature tips:
(1) To find what you are looking for when a Google keyword search doesn’t work;
(2) Of particularly interesting websites whose databases are not picked up by Google;
(3) On how to digest massive query results.
Thanks!
Lecia