BEYOND GOOGLE: FINDING TOP QUALITY INFORMATION FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT NEEDS

On September 18, 2007 a gathering of the AIAA L. A. Section Enterprise Chapter assembled to hear information consultant Jane Bayer, founder and president of Factfinders, describe how to plumb the depths of web resources to find the information useful in business development.
It turns out that the typical link-driven search engines in the “surface web” contain only about one percent as many pages as are available (900 billion) in the “deep web” databases, which are compiled by experts in their respective fields. Moreover, surface web sites such as Google need to be checked as to source, clarity, timeliness, bias, and links to safeguard against misinformation and to be sure that the data are valid.
Before dealing with information sources per se, Jane Bayer discussed the use of Boolean operators in narrowing or widening any search. If the Boolean operator “and” is used between two search terms, the search will be narrowed to sites containing both of the search terms. If that same “and” operator is used multiple times between terms, the search is narrowed to only those sites that contain all the terms specified. If the operator “and not” is used in a similar manner, the search will be narrowed to those sites which exclude those terms after the operator. If the operator “or” is specified, the search will be widened to all terms before and after the operator.
Please refer to the AIAA Enterprise Network Speaker Archives, Speaker Jane Bayer on 9-18-07 to see additional Google features followed by the numerous specific web sites applicable to searches in various categories which are summarized here. These valuable links are active in both the ppt and pdf versions of the presentation.
Google advanced features include the following types of searches: synonym, phrase, related web page, filling in the blank, and domain. Other special Google features include definitions, calculator, currency conversions, and stock market information.
Bayer’s archives then proceed through a series of lists identifying sites for specific purposes, followed by sample home pages of the free web sites themselves. The first list is of sites specifically for science, government, business, health, and travel. The next list is of specialized search engines: combined Google/Yahoo results, clustered searches, meta searches, a comprehensive selection of search engines from A to Z, and a search of over 1000 search engines in the deep web. She follows with a list of quality directories organized into subject categories. Her next list is about business information for public companies, which consists of industry data and public news, free public company information, and fee-based public company information. This is followed by a list of sources of business information for private companies, made up of directories, free private company information, and fee-based private company information. Bayer’s next lists competitive strategies: setting up news alerts, tracking website changes, monitoring trends via RSS, video and podcasts, and tracking blogs. Her final list consists of competitive intelligence strategies that track legislation, securities information, legal news, patent registrations, business information, and even web sites that no longer exist.
For a comprehensive list of services offered by Factfinders, see their home page, www.globalfactfinders.com For a free consultation or further information, you may e-mail Jane at factfinders@earthlink.net.

Guido Frassinelli 10/10/07