Newsletter from RBA Information Services providing reviews of information sources; search tools; social media; business information resources; and news of RBA's training courses and publications. http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/index.shtml karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk en-gb Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:12:55 +0000 karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:03:41 +0000 FeedForAll v2.0 (2.0.3.1) http://www.feedforall.com http://www.rba.co.uk/graphics/tfttrlogosmall.gif http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/index.shtml http://www.rba.co.uk/graphics/tfttrlogosmall.gif 91 48 Google has been busy de-cluttering its web results page again. The ‘similar' pages link disappeared from entries on the results page a while ago and was moved to the preview copies of results pages. Now the cached link has gone as has the magnifying glass for the preview. Hover over a result, though, and a double arrow appears to the right of it. Click on the arrow and the preview copy appears along with the ‘Cached' link and sometimes a ‘Similar' link..... http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2011/dec2011.shtml#google1 51A9C81F-3B6E-4A26-BEBB-3C0ED1758715 Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:05:56 +0000 Google first announced that it was introducing an option for users to exclude web sites from results in March of this year (Google lets you create your own naughty list http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/03/12/google-lets-you-create-your-own-naughty-list/ ). Then it disappeared, reappeared, disappeared and then reappeared for some people and only if you were logged in to a Google account. Now it is back for everyone. Run a search, view a result and then use the back button to get back to your results list. You should now see a link next to the result offering to block all further pages from that site..... http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2011/dec2011.shtml#google2 A2767923-DC3D-4E73-B879-879F9C38E963 Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:06:30 +0000 Well it looks as though the user feedback to Google on the discontinuation of the +/plus sign for enforcing an exact match search has paid off. Google removed the plus sign as a web search option a few weeks ago and told searchers to use double quotes around terms instead. The double quote marks option does not always force an exact match and increasingly Google is ignoring them and making some of your search terms optional. (See my blog posting Dear Google, stop messing with my search, http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/11/08/dear-google-stop-messing-with-my-search/). The official reason for the change was that hardly anyone used it: the real reason has become clear with Google implementing its Google+ Direct Connect Service. This enables you to go direct to an individual's or company's Google+ page by prefixing their name with the plus sign, for example +BASF. This function worked for a short time but now seems to vanished as well..... http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2011/dec2011.shtml#google3 F17265EC-EFA0-4EAE-A646-2CB92620FAE2 Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:07:22 +0000 Yahoo Site Explorer has closed down and the link and linkdomain commands have gone with it. (http://www.ysearchblog.com/2011/11/18/site-explorer-reminder/). Webmasters are being told to use Bing Webmaster Tools. This enables you to analyse links to your own domains but is no use if you want to find who links to other web sites as part of research. Bing, or Live.com as it then was, removed its link and linkdomain commands in November/December 2007 and Yahoo was left as the only reliable alternative. The link command enabled you to find who linked to a specific page on the web and linkdomain found links to anywhere on a specified web site. Both were useful ways of finding other sites containing similar content and discovering what others were saying about a page. Google's link command is useless as it picks up a minuscule number of results, which now leaves Blekko (http://blekko.com/) as the only realistic alternative... http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2011/dec2011.shtml#yahoo 95C12A42-CFDF-4974-9148-694FD64CD63F Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:08:27 +0000 So you thought you could escape filtering and personalisation of search results by fleeing Google and running into the arms of Bing? Afraid not. Bing has announced that it is rolling out a new personalisation feature called adaptive search. Details are on Bing's blog Adapting Search to You (http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2011/09/14/adapting-search-to-you.aspx). According to Bing the "more you search, the more Bing can learn"... http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2011/dec2011.shtml#bing 53C81DDE-2B54-41C6-80F0-4845E0F9981C Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:09:16 +0000 Fed up with Google ignoring your search terms and giving you something completely different? Confused by irrelevant tweets and postings in your results? At the recent Internet Librarian International conference in London one of my fellow participants told me that he would not mind Google collecting his search and personal information if it gave him better results but he said that it seems to make them worse. Judging by the comments from some of the other conference goers Google's attempts at personalisation and semantic search are not always delivering what the searcher needs. There are several steps you can take to try and depersonalise your results but even then Google can still mess up the search. Perhaps it's time to seek out a different search tool.... http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2011/dec2011.shtml#ddg 21B0F77E-8A08-4BD1-AC3F-E1F5702F0BFD Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:10:08 +0000 The slides from my Online Information pre-conference workshop “Searching without Google” held on 28th November 2011, are now available at the following URLs: http://www.rba.co.uk/as/ – please note that this is a temporary location for the presentation and it will be removed after 2-3 months. Archive copies will remain on authorSTREAM. authorSTREAM - http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/karenblakeman-1261711-searching-without-google-blakeman-online11/ There is also an addendum to the presentation that summarises some of the questions and answers covered throughout the day together with “top tips” and sites that the participants themselves suggested. This is also available at http://www.rba.co.uk/as/ and on authorSTREAM at http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/karenblakeman-1274260-notgoogleaddendum/ The text of the addendum is reproduced below...... http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2011/dec2011.shtml#notgoogle B73A6643-F755-4D73-816F-3A7ABDD72F88 Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:10:59 +0000 Company Director Check (http://company-director-check.co.uk/ ) is a sister database to Company Check ( http://companycheck.co.uk), which I reviewed earlier this year (http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/01/10/free-uk-company-information/). It provides free access to information on current and past directors of UK companies that until now has only been available for a fee. Director searches can unearth links between apparently unrelated companies and help you identify “families” or groups of companies. ... http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2011/dec2011.shtml#director 687BF6B7-7FB2-457B-A32B-FE8D47FD694D Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:11:48 +0000