Expert Internet Searching is the latest edition of Phil Bradley’s 1999 original title on this topic, The Advanced Internet Searcher’s Handbook. Internet searching has changed significantly in the past 15 years, and this edition provides the right search tools and strategies to guide users to find information quickly and effectively.
The 1999 edition made no mention of Google. In this new edition, an entire chapter is entitled The Google Experience. The rise of Google, social media and mobile technologies has enabled most of us to be “advanced searchers”.
Bradley warns of the danger of believing “that it’s all on Google” and that we need to consider other web-based resources that have an effect on how the search develops. Although Twitter and Facebook are not search engines, they amass huge amounts of data; given this reality, we cannot ignore that social media results in an environment where traditional search methods are no longer enough.
The amount of data and the speed of production are only two aspects of the difference between social media and more traditional media. Of growing importance is the producer of the content. According to Bradley, the greatest challenge to traditional search engines is the rise of end-user-generated content.
To make sense of the complexities for searching the world of social media and Google, Bradley has categorised search engines under free-text, directories, multimedia, social media, news-based, academic and visual searching. He begins with an introduction to the Internet and an overview of the various search engines before dedicating a chapter to each.
Under free-text searching, Bradley compares in detail the two big search engines, Bing and Google. He writes that directory category-based search engines are quickly fading into history and that meta search engines have dwindled over the years, as they are technically more difficult to program than a multi-search engine. Academic search engines are in a different category, with limited data, but selected by experts in their field to provide excellent filters for gathering more precise information.
Whatever you are looking for, there will be at least one search engine that covers it. It is a question of finding the right ones and evaluating them. According to Bradley, in the final analysis, it comes down to “which results work best for you”.
From searching social media, news story, images and multimedia to scholarly content, Bradley explains in this new edition how to draw the most from search engines. His style of writing is very conversational as he discusses the many search engines available for different purposes. Whether you are an advanced searcher wanting more options or a beginner just venturing out into the world of search engines, this book covers the topic in an accessible and up-to-date fashion.
