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Too often you find a web site but then you cannot
find what you need on that site -- it's either too
vast or too badly organized. The Google Advanced page
offers a neat solution. Notice the search box allows
us to ask for results in a domain or a site:
What this means is that you can take all the power
of Google and apply it to the entire web site of any
group, party, newspaper and cause that you find on
the web.
5A. SEARCHING A SMALL SITE WITH NO SEARCH TOOL
Often on the web you come across a valuable web site
maintained by a political movement or organization
or any non-professional group. It seems to have a
wealth of information -- but there is no search engine
on the page and the site may be poorly organized.
Even if you succeed in contacting the people behind
the web page, sometimes they don't know where on their
site they stored that particular nugget of information
you're looking for.
But Google can help you.
Let's say you are doing a search on the Earth Liberation
Front, a radical ecological group. Try it now if you
want by clicking here. You put in the words
"Earth Liberation Front"
and Google quickly finds their official site:
It's a sophisticated, extensive site ... but as is
typical of so many web sites, there is no search
engine. How do you find out what they have to
say about the arrest of one of their members -- Frank
Ambrose -- for timber spiking.
You copy their web address (www.earthliberationfront.com)
and then you
go to Google advanced. Click here to open a window
there.
We put in the words we want, and then in the Domain
line, we tell Google to search only from the site
called www.earthliberationfront.com:
Click search, and we get a list of all the pages
ONLY on the Earth Liberation Front that mention Ambrose
-- in other words, everything the ELF officially has
to say on the subject:
Here's one more example. Let's say you are researching
the peace process in Ireland. You put in Sinn Fein
in Google and quickly find their official site (at
www.sinnfein.ie) :
Want to know what this political group says about
the decommissioning of arms?
We go
to Google advanced in a new window and make the
following request:
... and you get these easy results:
In effect, you are harnessing the tremendous power
of Google and bringing it to bear on any web site
you want.
Click
here to open up Google in a new window and try any
site search by yourself.
5B. SEARCHING MAJOR SITES THAT HAVE BAD SEARCH
TOOLS
Even the best web sites which boast search tools
often fall short. Their search engines may not allow
you to use all of Google's tricks -- eliminate certain
words, select certain phrases, or isolate words in
a title.
For example,you can go to the CNN site by clicking
here and try using their search box:
Make the request for:
space shuttle cost overruns
and you get you a mishmash of results, mostly about
the space station and very little about budget problems:
But try using Google's Advanced Search page by clicking
here and ask for pages only on the web site of
CNN that have the phrases
"space shuttle" "cost
overruns"
This is what it looks like:
and you'll get much better results:
EXTRA TIP: It
makes no difference if you ask Google to
search for www.cnn.com, http://www.cnn.com
or cnn.com. All formats will work.
HOWEVER, YOU CANNOT SEARCH SUB-WEBS WITHIN
A SITE. In other words, you cannot ask Google
to search www.cnn.com/europe or search
www.journalismnet.com/papers. Google
searches the entire web site by default.
Click
here to open up Google in a new window and search
one of your favourite major web sites such as the
WashingtonPost.com or bbc.co.uk or any
other site you want.
Did you learn useful tips from this lesson? There
are many more invaluable tricks and tools you can
master by signing up for JNet's Online web journalism
courses.
Click
here to find out more about the courses you can
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>>
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>>
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