As the Uber Tech Lead at Google, Dan studies how people search the web. He started sharing little-known search techniques three years ago at the IRE conference in Boston. Since then he’s annually offered tips at IRE that can help everyone — not just reporters — find exactly what they’re searching for online.

Here are some of Dan’s new strategies and tools for 2014, and a recap of the most useful tips from his past presentations that I’ve used myself. You can check out posts about his other talks here and here.

Go back in time

One of the coolest new tools offered by Google this year allows you to jump in a time machine in Google Maps’ Street View.

Let’s say you’re walking around downtown San Antonio and you’re curious about the site of a historic building on Commerce Street across from Main Plaza. An inferno destroyed the building a few years ago and now there’s nothing but a vacant lot:

In Google Street View, click on the clock symbol in the corner of the screen to check out how that spot looked over the years. In this case, you can look at what the Wolfson Building looked like before the catastrophic fire:

The Wall Street Journal used this time-machine effect to illustrate dramatic growth in Brooklyn.

The cool thing about this is how you can pan around and get different perspectives of the sites you’re interested in.

Gallery of Google Map Mashups

The Google Maps Gallery allows organizations to mesh their data with Google maps. All these mashups are searchable, and Google links to the original sources if you want to download the information yourself.

Let’s say you’re curious about which counties in the United States are prone to tornado strikes. A search of “tornado” in the Google Maps Gallery shows a map based on federal data showing tornado strikes, total property damage, injuries and deaths by county:

Wildcards in Google Maps

(Update: Google dropped this map feature, which is a bummer. It was extremely useful and I hope they bring it back.)

Type an asterisk in the search bar of Google Maps and it will show you every business and significant, named place it knows about in the area you’re viewing.

If you plan on using any of this information in a news story, you’ll want to take steps to confirm what you’re seeing in the map. But this is a really quick way to get a sense of what’s in the area.

For example, if you’re writing about the Wolfson Building fire and want to get a quick idea of what businesses were nearby, in Google Maps, focus on the site on Commerce Street and try the wildcard search:

Force Google to search for certain words

By far the most common search function I use in Google is “intext,” which Russell discussed at his first presentation in Boston.

Sometimes Google tries to be too helpful. It changes your search terms and uses words it thinks you’re searching for– not the words you’re actually searching for.

And sometimes the websites in Google’s search results don’t include all your search terms because Google decided those pages might still be relevant.

That might be OK for general searches. But it’s not very helpful if you’re looking for pages with specific terms or words with unusual spellings. How do you make Google search for those exact words?

Typing intext:[keyword] (with no space on either side of the colon) might be Google’s least-known search operations, but it’s one of Dan’s favorites. It forces the search term to be in the body of the website.

If you’re researching the story of the Wolfson Building, for example, you’ll probably want to make sure that Google always includes that unique name in the search results. Typing intext:Wolfson San Antonio will force Google to include the term “Wolfson.”

Intext also works with phrases in quotes. So typing intext:”Wolfson Building” will strong-arm Google into showing you that exact phrase.

To learn more details about Google’s search operators, check out my post about his talk in Boston where he gave us a treasure-trove of advice.

Customized site searches

Google’s site search let’s you search for information on a particular website. Typing site:mysanantonio.com “Wolfson Building” would show pages with that phrase that were published by the San Antonio Express-News. But what if you wanted to regularly check what other local news outlets published in the San Antonio area?

Google can focus on multiple websites with its custom search engine. You tell Google which websites to search, save your settings and Google creates a link to the custom search page. Now you can search those specific websites any time.

This technique is handy for anyone interested in a particular beat or issue. I created this customized search of San Antonio media and blogs to quickly see how news organizations are covering a story. You can also sort the results by time or relevance, and conduct an image search with the terms you want on those websites.

Control F is your friend

Not everyone knows this so it’s worth repeating: Type “Control F” in Windows or “Command F” on a Mac to launch the “find” function in your browser to locate a specific word or phrase on any web page. It’s faster than reading the whole page if you’re looking for something in particular. “If you don’t know this, you’re roughly 12 percent slower in your searches,” Dan said at the IRE conference in Boston.

This year, Dan said useful Chrome extensions expand the usefulness of the “find” function. Let’s say you want to find more than one word. You could type an expression such as Wolfson|Building|Fire to highlight all those words. Handy.

Dan regularly blogs about search strategies by challenging readers with puzzles. It’s a good way to stay in practice. And practice, Dan says, is the best way to hone your search skills.

The post New search tips for 2014 from Google research scientist Daniel Russell appeared first on John Tedesco.

Last year Daniel Russell spoke at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in Boston. Dan showed us search techniques that can make anyone a better researcher. Some tips I already knew. Others I thought I understood but didn’t. And some I had no idea existed.

I thought Dan’s talk was eye-opening — and others had the same reaction. My post about his presentation last year was widely shared, so there’s enormous interest to learn more about how Google works and how to use it effectively.

Since that conference a year ago, Dan began offering online classes. I’ve had a year to practice many of these techniques. And about a week ago, Dan spoke again at the IRE conference in San Antonio with even more advice.

“You gotta know a little bit about how to make Google dance,” Dan said at his panel, Digging in with Google. “This is all mother’s milk for investigative reporters.”

I thought it’d be a good idea to compile some of the interesting new techniques, and revisit tips Dan discussed last year with some real-world examples of how journalists used them in actual news stories. Many of these methods also work on other search engines, such as Yahoo! and Bing.

These tips are for journalists, researchers, librarians and anyone else who wants to learn new ways to find information. Google will never replace the importance of shoe-leather reporting — knocking on doors and talking to real people. But Google can help reporters find the right doors to knock on and reveal surprising details about the people you’re talking to. Knowing how to find obscure information on the Internet is a vital skill for any journalist.

Create custom Google search engines

Google can focus on multiple websites with its custom search page. You tell Google which websites to search, save your settings and Google creates a link to the custom search page. Now you can search those specific websites any time.

This technique is handy for anyone interested in a particular beat or issue. I created this customized search of San Antonio media and blogs. So when breaking news hits, such as the torrential rains that drenched the region recently, you can type the relevant key words, such as flood OR flooding OR floods, and quickly see how news organizations are covering the story. You can also sort the results by time or relevance, and conduct an image search with the terms you want on those websites.

Upload a picture to search for it

Sometimes, you don’t even need to type words to search Google. Upload a picture of a person, place or thing, and Google can search for similar images. Google might find a match and it offers relevant search terms for that image.

Dan said he was showing a photographer friend how the search worked, and plugged one of his picturesque images into the search box. They were both surprised to discover that the picture was being used without permission on other websites — by wedding photographers who should have known better.

This method of finding pictures on the Internet has become a key way to avoid getting catfished, which I quickly learned is a thing when Deadspin revealed that the girlfriend of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o was not actually his friend, or even a girl. She didn’t exist. Te’o had never met her, and her photographs were actually of a 22-year-old California woman who wasn’t part of the bizarre hoax.

Deadspin’s scoop noted that it’s possible to foil the reverse-image search by slightly altering a picture. But it’s still an amazingly useful tool. If you’re searching a popular image and get swamped by the results, you can type contextual terms in the search box to help give Google a nudge in the right direction and narrow the results.

Force Google to search exact words

Last year Dan showed us how the search operator intext: works and I now use it all the time.

Sometimes Google tries to be too helpful. It changes your search terms and uses words it thinks you’re searching for — not the words you’re actually searching for. And sometimes the websites in Google’s search results don’t include all your search terms because Google decided those pages might still be relevant.

That might be OK for general searches. But it’s not very helpful if you’re looking for pages with specific terms or words with unusual spellings. How do you make Google search for those exact words?

Typing intext:[keyword] (with no space on either side of the colon) might be Google’s least-known search operations, but it’s one of Dan’s favorites. It forces the search term to be in the body of the website.

When the San Antonio Independent School District announced it had chosen a finalist for superintendent, it turned out the job candidate carried some baggage. As I was researching Manuel Isquierdo’s background, Google annoyingly suggested changes to the word “Isquierdo,” when in fact that was the exact word I wanted to use. And I wanted to make sure that word was in all the websites in my search results. So I used intext:Isquierdo in my searches to force Google to include that name.

This works for phrases — type double quotes around the words you want Google to look for in the exact order they appear. And you can use intext: multiple times in the same search. Typing intext:”Manuel Isquierdo” intext:”grand jury” forces Google to include those exact phrases in all the websites in the results.

You can also type allintext: at the beginning of your query to apply the command to all words and phrases. But you can’t combine it with other search operators.

I noticed that on rare occasions when I use intext:, the keyword is still missing on a page. In such cases, the website has been updated since Google last crawled it.

In addition to intext:, Google offers a confusingly similar feature called “verbatim” search. You can type double quotes around a word and Google will not change it. You can also click on a drop down menu under search tools and select “verbatim.”

What’s the different between verbatim and intext: searches? With verbatim, it’s still possible Google will remove those words from the pages that show up in your search results in an effort to be helpful. So I prefer intext:.

Use boilerplate language

Many people know that Google ignores the word AND as a search operator. But typing OR in all caps actually works.

OR is great for finding synonyms and boilerplate language. Dan said typing “Smith denied” OR “Smith claimed” OR “Smith argued” will find more pertinent websites about the controversy involving Smith.

This technique can help you perform background checks. Start thinking of terms such as indictment OR indicted OR charged OR lawsuit or any other type of term you’d want to know about in relation to the person or thing you’re checking out.

When I was working on the Manuel Isquierdo story, I was trying to track down hardcopies of tax liens the IRS filed against him to recover $150,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties. My query “Manuel Isquierdo” lien OR liens led to an interesting report by a private investigator in California.

Control F saves you time

The fact that many people don’t know they can easily search for words on web pages is a national tragedy. Even those who know about the “find” function often take the long way by using the mouse to click on the menu option, which drives me nuts.

For the love of all that is holy in this world, hit “Control F” on a PC or “Command F” on a Mac and type the words you want to find on the page.

“It improves your search speed by 12 percent,” Dan said.

Learn the structure of websites

Type site:[domain] [keywords] if you’re looking for a specific topic on a particular website. This is a time-saver if you know what you’re looking for, especially if a website doesn’t offer its own search box.

I used this method several years ago when I worked on a story about racehorse accidents. I visited the Texas Racing Commission’s website and typed injuries site:txrc.state.tx.us. It led me to an annual report that had some statistics, which led me to a little-known state database of horse-racing accidents that showed how, in a five-year period, 300 horses had died on Texas racetracks.

The site: operator also works on directories and sub-domains. So if you know how a website is structured, you can focus on a specific area of interest. For example, San Antonio’s Development Services Department approves new real estate projects. Its web address is sanantonio.gov/dsd. This is the city department that dealt with the collapse of the towering retaining wall at the Rivermist subdivision in San Antonio developed by Centex Homes. So typing site:sanantonio.gov/dsd “retaining wall” shows you a bunch of results showing how the department handled the disaster.

The search operator inurl: is another way to use a website’s structure in your search strategy. On the surface, inurl: and intitle: appear to serve similar roles — both methods help you find websites that focus on a particular term. Typing inurl:[keyword] will show you results with that word in the url of the web page. Typing intitle:[keyword] will show you results with that word in the title of the web page written by the site’s author.

But since the url’s of web pages often reflect the title of the page, what’s the difference?

Using inurl: might help you find more relevant websites because Google changes the titles of web pages in search results in an effort to be helpful. So the url of the web page could be a more accurate reflection of what the author is actually focusing on. I asked Dan about this after his panel and he said he usually uses inurl:.

Find specific files

Typing filetype:[extension] is useful for limiting your search to particular types of files, such as Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, pdf’s, Word documents and just about any other file type you can imagine. Typing filetype:xls [keywords] in a search, for example, will show spreadsheets that pertain to that issue, which is nice for finding public data. Typing filetype:kml [keywords] shows you relevant Google mapping files. Check this list for file extensions you can search.

Finding more public data and statistics

Google’s data table explorer page offers another way to find public data. Type some keywords and Google will search publicly available Fusion Tables or tables posted on web pages. You can then import that data into your own Fusion Table.

Search for campaign contributions San Antonio and you get a lot of hits. The first result is a table of campaign-finance data posted by the Texas Tribune. Notice the “import data” option:

Click on that link and Google walks you through the steps to import the data table on the page into your Fusion Tables account:

Now you can do your own analysis and create your own visualizations.

Google also offers a public data directory with interactive visualizations. When I was working on some stories about delays in the federal stimulus program in San Antonio, the public data directory offered a quick way to compare unemployment rates. Google shows you the source of the information so you can verify it.

Knowing what you don’t know

One of the themes in Dan’s talk was the importance of knowing the right keywords. That means a successful search isn’t so much about typing the words you know, it’s about typing the words that would likely be used by the writer of the information you’re seeking.

“It’s not about your language,” Dan said. “It’s about someone else’s.”

So be on the lookout for industry terms or phrases you don’t recognize. Don’t gloss over them; find out what those words mean. Think about synonyms. Typing define:[keyword or phrase] in Google can quickly give you a definition of a word or phrase. Dan said it’s a powerful tool that lets you learn words that aren’t even in the dictionary.

If you know how to describe something but don’t know the exact word for it, reverse dictionaries can help. Type descriptions of the mystery word, and the reverse dictionary shows you results that match that definition. Here’s a riddle from Dan’s presentation:

Someone told me that in the mid-1800’s, people often would carry around a special kind of notebook. They would use the notebook to write quotations that they heard, or copy passages from books they’d read. The notebook was an important part of their education, and it had a particular name.

What was this kind of notebook called? Looking up one of the many online reverse dictionaries available and typing “notebook” and “quotations” leads to the answer: a commonplace book.

“Reverse dictionary is your friend as a writer,” Dan said.

Exclude words and dates

When you don’t want to see a particular word or phrase in your search results, type the minus sign in front of it with no space. One way this is useful is if you’re covering breaking news and want to weed out all the media reports in an effort to see what’s been written before the big thing happened.

After the West Fertilizer facility exploded, I wanted to see if the company had a website and read what others had to say about the company before the tragic accident. But breaking news stories and blog posts were flooding my search results. Typing “West Fertilizer” -explosion helped cut through the noise.

You can also tell Google to search for older results by filtering by date: Type a query, hit return, and click on “search tools.” The date filter is to the left:

Know your way around

When you want to find words or phrases near each other, the AROUND operator can help. I mostly use this when Googling people and need to make sure I find relevant web sites about them, even if they use their middle name or initial, or the page cites their last name first, then their first name.

So typing Manuel AROUND(2) Isquierdo shows all pages that have the name “Manuel” within two words of “Isquierdo.” The results show some pages with Isquierdo’s middle initial. You can use any number you want — typing “5” would show you everything within five words.

Stay up to date

All these search terms work with Google Alerts, your own personal Web-monitoring service. Google will email you whenever it crawls new websites containing terms you’re interested in.

“This is a very good thing because you can now follow a topical area,” Russell said at his presentation last year.

Combine methods to make awesome sauce

You can use all these search operators together. So let’s say you’re curious about what kind of forms and documents the city of San Antonio has posted online. And you want to see references to the term “injuries.” Type site:sanantonio.gov filetype:doc injuries.

This is a cool way to find interesting story ideas.

Keep learning

To learn more, check out Dan’s 200-slide presentation and his notes for the IRE panel at his blog, SearchReSearch. Dan also offers online classes with video lessons.

It’s easy to forget these tricks and strategies. And Google is constantly working on new products. To retain these skills, you have to keep in practice. This is one reason why journalism is so rewarding — and challenging.

“Your job of learning will never, ever stop,” Dan said.

The post More awesome search tips from Google expert Daniel Russell, with real-world examples appeared first on John Tedesco.

Course details:

Power Searching with Google is a free online, community-based course showcasing search techniques and how to use them to solve real, everyday problems. It features:

Six 50-minute classes.

Interactive activities to practice new skills.

Opportunities to connect with others using Google Groups, Google+, and Hangouts on Air.

Upon passing the post-course assessment, a printable Certificate of Completion will be emailed to you.

Guess what I just signed up for?

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Russell posed a riddle:

What’s the phone number of the office where this picture was snapped?

Let that sink in. He wasn’t asking for a phone number for the skyscraper in the picture, which sounds hard enough. He wanted the phone number of the precise office where the photographer was standing when the picture was taken.

Nothing in that office was even in the photo. Yet in a few minutes, Russell, a research scientist at Google, revealed the answer by paying attention to small details and walking us through a series of smart Google searches.

“Once you know these tricks, you can solve problems that look impossible,” Russell said.

There are plenty of Google search cheat sheets floating around. But it’s not often you get to hear advice directly from someone at Google who offers you his favorite search tools, methods and perspectives to help you find the impossible.

Here are some of my favorite tips shared by Russell at the 2012 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference. Some of these techniques are powerful but obscure; others are well-known but not fully understood by everyone.

Most of what you know about Boolean is wrong

Don’t bother typing AND in your search queries – Google treats it like any other word.

But OR in all caps actually works. OR is great for finding synonyms and boilerplate language. Typing “Smith denied” OR “Smith claimed” OR “Smith argued” will find more pertinent websites about the controversy involving Smith.

Avoid using NOT if you want to exclude a search term. Instead, type a minus sign in front of the word. So if you’re visiting San Antonio but don’t want to visit the Alamo, type:

“San Antonio” -Alamo

That will search for the phrase “San Antonio” on web pages that don’t have the word “Alamo.” There’s no space between Alamo and the hyphen.

Think about how somebody else would write about the topic

Search is all about someone else’s language. Think about synonyms and use OR operators. Google’s “related search” feature on the search page also offers suggestions.

“Part of the skill here is being fascinated about language,” Russell said. “You’ve got to think about equivalent terms.”

Use language tools

Knowing which words to search for means understanding their meaning. Typing define [space] [search term] in Google search will offer dictionary definitions. “‘Define’ ‘space’ ‘word’ is your friend as a writer,” Russell said. “Trust me on this.”

You even get a definition if you type define pwned and other lingo. “That means we have words that aren’t in the dictionary,” Russell said.

What if you know descriptions but not the actual word? Find one of the many reverse dictionaries online. Type the descriptions you know and you’ll get the matching words.

Use quotes to search for phrases

Typing “San Antonio Spurs” will show you the websites with the phrase “San Antonio Spurs.” If you don’t use the quotes, Google will search for the terms “San,” “Antonio,” and “Spurs” individually and you might miss pages related to the basketball team.

Force Google to include search terms

Sometimes Google tries to be helpful and it uses the word it thinks you’re searching for — not the word you’re actually searching for. And sometimes a website in the search results does not include all your search terms.

How do you fix this?

Typing intext:[keyword] might be Google’s least-known search operations, but it’s one of Russell’s favorites. It forces the search term to be in the body of the website. So if you type:

intext:”San Antonio” intext:Alamo

It forces Google to show results with the phrase “San Antonio” and the word Alamo. You won’t get results that are missing either search term.

Minus does not equal plus with Google

Russell didn’t talk much about this but it’s worth noting. Since putting a minus sign in front of a word removes it from a search, many people, including me, incorrectly assumed that adding a plus sign in front of the word forced Google to include it.

Actually, that search operator simply stops Google from changing the word into a synonym or correcting the spelling. It’s still possible that Google will drop the word from some search results, so it’s different from intext:.

(After Google Plus was unveiled, Google dropped the plus sign operator and replaced it with double quotes. Typing “Alamo” is now the same as +Alamo.)

That’s not to say the plus sign — now double quotes — is not a useful search operator. But note how it’s different from intext: If you want to force Google to include an exact word or phrase in all your search results, use intext:.

“Control F” is your friend

Use this keyboard shortcut to find a word or phrase on any web page. It’s faster than reading the whole page for a specific word or phrase. “If you don’t know this, you’re roughly 12 percent slower in your searches,” Russell said.

Limit the time frame

If you only want search results for web pages published in the past week, past month, or some other time frame, you can click on that option on the left-hand side of the search results page under “Show search tools.”

Search by region

If you only want web pages for a particular area, you can search by region on Google’s advanced search page.

Find relational search terms

What if you’re curious about search terms that are near each other on a website? [keyword] AROUND(n) [keyword] is incredibly handy for finding related terms such as “Jerry Brown” near “Tea Party.” (“n” is the number of words near the search terms.) Typing “Jerry Brown” AROUND(3) “Tea Party” will show you all the websites where the phrase “Jerry Brown” was mentioned within three words of “Tea Party.”

Google maps as a search tool

(Update: Google dropped this map feature, which is a bummer. It was extremely useful and I hope they bring it back.) Let’s say you’re searching Google Maps for hotels in San Antonio for next year’s IRE conference and check out the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel:

This screen shows the “hotel” search in Google maps. But what if you want to know what’s near the Marriott?

In the Google Maps search bar, type an asterisk. The results will show you every single place Google knows about in that map view. So you can see nearby businesses, stores, and whatever else is around:

Now you know where to find — or avoid — the Denny’s across the street.

Restrict your search to a specific website

The search operator site:[url] restricts your search to that particular website. It’s one of the most useful searches out there. I used this when I worked on a story about racehorse accidents and wanted to search the Texas Racing Commission’s website for any mention of injuries. Typing injuries site:txrc.state.tx.us led me to a little-known state database of accidents that showed how, in a five-year period, 300 horses had died on Texas racetracks.

Find a particular type of file

Typing filetype:[extension] is useful for limiting your search to particular types of files, such as Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, pdf’s, Word documents and just about any other file type you can imagine. Typing filetype:xls in a search will show only spreadsheets. It’s incredibly useful for finding public data. Check this list for file extensions you can search for.

Think like a reporter

When Russell teaches his students search skills, he tells them: “Think like a reporter.” What do you know, and how can that information help you find what you need to know?

A big part of a journalist’s job is knowing where to find information. Which state agency regulates the issue you’re interested in? How might that information be documented? Who would know more about the issue?

“You have to have a concept about what’s possible,” Russell said.

Time travel technique

Typing cache:[url] or clicking on the cache function in the search results will show you an older version of the website. Handy if the site owner takes something down or edits it because of a brewing controversy.

Mashup search

Computer-savvy journalists create interactive maps of public data. Searching for the term “mashup” and the issue you’re interested in will show you what’s already been published and might give you some good ideas.

Stay up to date

All these search terms work with Google Alerts. Google will email you whenever it crawls new websites containing terms you’re interested in.

“This is a very good thing because you can now follow a topical area,” Russell said.

Search your own browsing history

Visit Google.com/history to search your past searches. Handy if you vaguely remember a search but forgot the details.

See what the world is searching for

Google Trends shows queries people are doing over time and how they compare.

Beyond YouTube

As popular as it is, YouTube is a subset of all the video services indexed by Google. Searching video.google.com searches every service, not just YouTube.

Google Public Data Explorer

Search and analyze public data in interactive charts that you can share online:

Try a Google diagram search

If you’re looking for a part of a machine or gadget but don’t know the name of it, try including the term “diagram” in your search. A search for “bicycle diagram” gives you tons of images with parts:

Combine these Google methods to make awesome sauce

You can use all these search operators together. So let’s say you’re curious about what kind of forms and documents the city of San Antonio has posted online. You can type:

site:sanantonio.gov filetype:doc

This is a cool way to find interesting story ideas.

Epic image search

Sometimes, you don’t even need to type words to search Google. Upload a picture of an object, place or other type of photograph you want to learn more about, and Google can search for similar images. Google might find a match and it offers relevant search terms for that image. This video walks you though it:

Use what you’ve got

So how exactly did Russell figure out the riddle of the office phone number?

The first step is using the available information in the picture, as scant as it might be. Scrutinize the image and see if you can pinpoint any telling details. There might be a clue.

Still stuck? Check out the answer at Russell’s blog, where he regularly quizzes people about riddles that aren’t so impossible after all.

Updates with more Google search tips from Daniel Russell:

• More awesome search tips from Google expert Daniel Russell, with real-world examples
• New search tips for 2014 from Google research scientist Daniel Russell

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