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Google is now telling us, A is for Amazon…

Google recently unveiled Google Instant, the new version of its search engine. Google Instant begins providing results as you type your search. So, for example, if you are searching for “current events” and type “c…”, search results for Craigslist pop up. When you get to “u…” currency converter results are displayed.  When you have spelled out “current” in full, results starting with current start to show up. Google is touting the benefits of Instant as: faster searches, smarter predictions and instant results. I disagree.

As I played around with Instant in the last week or so, I began to notice something. When I typed in A, up came Amazon. B led me to Bank of America. C, Craigslist, and so on. In fact, almost every search based on just the first letter resulted in a leading U.S. business. L is for Lowes. T is for Target. “U.” (with the period) results in U.S. Airways. You get the picture.

In an article in PC World, IDC analyst Heather Reynolds called Google Instant “revolutionary” and a “dramatic break” from traditional search engines. Perhaps that’s true for Google, the marketers and big business. But not for the rest of us. Google is again taking more control over what we see and how we get information.

In a recent Fast Company article, Dr. Sid Shah, director of business analytics at digital marketing firm Efficient Frontier noted, “In some sense, Google is controlling what’s being searched. They can control the popularity of a certain term or definition.” Google is “guiding” our searches and perhaps giving the results to the highest bidder. If they can sell the first letter, why not the second and third as well. At what point are all searches purchased? Small businesses stand to suffer, and the rest of us are being led like lemmings.

All I can say is “caveat searcher.”

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When most of us need to find something on the web, we pop onto Google, type in our search, pull out our deep-water waders and slog through pages of results. Bing and Yahoo! search engines aren’t much better. Sure, they try to give you ideas up front, and even have buttons to switch to specific searches for news, images, and video. But, I still finding myself cranking through pages of links. DeeperWeb can help.

DeeperWeb is a Google-powered project aimed at making searches more efficient. The basic issue with current web searches is that you get a big bucket of links, with all the different kinds of searches mixed together. DeeperWeb gives you the main results, but also creates a window frame on the right that organizes results into convenient categories:

• DeeperCloud: This is a very handy way to quickly refine your search. It is a “tag cloud” of terms that are related to your search. It shows other terms people have used in conjunction with your terms. Terms that appear larger are more often used. Click on a term and add it to your search string. You can even run a search that restricts a term. Just hover over the term in the term cloud and click on the negative “-” symbol. This will run your search and remove any results with that term (great if you keep hitting on some unrelated topics).
• Answer Search: Scans all the answer engines (e.g. wiki answers, yahoo answers, answers.com) to show you what kind of questions people have posed (and had answered) about your search
• Metric Search: Returns searches chalked full of stats and data related to your search
• News Search: Scans headlines and news sources for your search
• Research Search: Digs through the scholarly journals and publications for your search (want a site dedicated to scholarly searches? Check out our write up about Google Scholar)
• Wikipedia Search: Returns results from wikipedia related to your search criteria
• Blogs Search: Scans blogs for relevant topics

DeeperWeb works as an extension for FireFox and an add-on for other browsers (note: the add-on for other browsers integrates DeeperWeb with a the Google search bar on your browser). You can also run a search directly from the DeeperWeb search page.

Having search results sliced, diced and organized by type saves a ton of time. Use DeeperWeb to supercharge your searching and put away your search engine hip-waders.

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I hate doing searches. This is because I usually spend a ton of time searching through junk to find the one nugget I need. Don’t get me wrong, search engines have done a lot to help you filter out the junk you don’t want. Still, I inevitably get lost on “Los Links!.”

Google Scholar helps cut through some of that clutter. It is part of Google Labs (a sort of playground where Google let’s users play with tools that they are still building). Google Scholar is a subset of the Google universe that delivers just articles and books published in reputable journals. What you won’t find in Google Scholar are newspaper articles, magazine articles and popular websites. It basically gets you to the source material meat of topics, so you can quickly beef up your research on a topic.

It’s built for academics, but it’s more than just a homework helper. I use it to do all kinds of research – from client projects, to industry research, to family debates. Some of the info seems like you need several PHD’s to understand it, but I’d rather search through information that’s too deep than the flubber links I get in most normal searches.

Be aware that these are academics, so a lot of the links lead to places where you need to pay for information. Still, there is plenty of free info, and there are some  very handy features:

• Filter by year – You can set parameters to return results since a particular year – handy for finding the latest stuff.
• Filter by type – Google Scholar covers articles, patents, legal opinions and several other kinds of source materials. You can weed out some of those in your searches.
• Advanced Search – You can get really specific (such as subject areas and states).
• Download link – When there is a PDF or other download they have a convenient link next to the search result.
• Related articles – Want to see more results like the listed article? Just click on the link.
• Versions Link – These articles often get published in several places. With a click, you can see all the places it has been listed.
• Cited – This is a new function. Basically, it lists where an article has been cited in other works – useful if you’re trying to find related work or see how people are using the information.

The bottom line is that Google Scholar is a quick way to make you look smart. It isn’t the end-all and be-all of searches, but can be a handy way of boosting your research, sales call, project or argument.

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