Re: Google - how far do you go?

[Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com>]

I've been known to go to page two or three on Google results when searching
for work information.

And when I'm searching for some of my more obscure hobby information, I've
drilled down as far as 10 - 15 pages in Google results.  Because some of
the things I'm researching are so darned obscure that no matter how well I
form my search queries, and no matter how many things I exclude, I still
tend to find useful information in the remote neighborhoods on the
Internets.  Also, sometimes Google thinks it knows what I'm looking for
(and it doesn't!), and the only way to get around their matching algorithm
is to go past the first couple of pages of results.

I find that Wikipedia is a mixed bag.  Sometimes it's exactly what I'm
looking for (oh so that's what that is...).  And sometimes it's mostly
useful for giving me other keywords to search in.


On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 4:06 PM, Haim Roman <haim -dot- roman -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

> I need a reason to spend time looking past page 1 of searches.  What would
> make me think that there is better information via the links on page 2, 3,
> etc.?  If it's clear to me that I'm not getting the info I want via the
> links on page 1, then I'll check further pages.  But that's often a sign
> that I need different search text.
>
> For explanations that are more than a definition, then I normally search
> google.  But among the results, I tend to go to the Wikipedia links.
>
> Wikipedia is not divine revelation.  But what on the net is?  In fact, what
> in print is? (I'm excluding religious texts from this discussion)
>
>    - "Unadulterated dreck on *all* fronts" is quite a strong charge.  How
>    do you know?
>    - I tend to trust it for information on computer & network protocols,
>    types of computer equipment, etc., though I can't prove it's reliable
> for
>    that.
>    - I'm suspect of it on political issues, but that's true for most
>    political material (online, hardcopy, or broadcast).
>    - If you can find a reliable source of information for a given area of
>    knowledge, then of course you should prefer that.
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________
> Howard (Haim) Roman -- haim -dot- roman -at- gmail -dot- com -- 052-8-592-599 -- ×××× ××××
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 10:44 PM, McLauchlan, Kevin <
> Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
>
> > In your normal, everyday interaction with public search engines (Google,
> > Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.), for roughly what percentage of search instances
> do
> > you bother to look past page 1 of the results?
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > That is, I'm assuming that most people check page 1 of search results and
> > start clicking likely links, or else take a look at what came up as page
> 1
> > and decide right away that they need to revise their search, and only
> > occasionally (if ever) proceed to page 2, 3, or (shudder) further.
> > So ... why do you mostly consider page 1 far enough (if that's what you
> > do), and why do you go past page 1 on those occasions that you do?
> >
> > I mostly go with hits from page one of search, until I've exhausted the
> > links (or skipped, based on an obviously low-probability summary), and
> then
> > I might try page 2 or three, though my perusal of links from page 1 has
> > usually given me some hints as to how I might usefully refine my search,
> > instead of going further in the current results. It's been literally
> years
> > since I went past page 10 on any search.   I'm more likely to switch
> search
> > engines and retry a  search than I am to 'go deep'.
> >
> > On a related note, when you want to look up a term, and want more than a
> > dictionary definition, do you automatically use a standard Google (or
> Bing
> > or...) search, first, or do you go directly to something like Wikipedia?
> >
> > Finally, if you are one of those people who think that Wikipedia is not
> > merely ... er.... uneven, but is generally unadulterated dreck on all
> > fronts... is that based on recent visits, or on the last time you
> bothered
> > in 2007... or was that 2005...  ?
> >
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-- 
Julie Stickler
http://heratech.wordpress.com/
Blogging about Agile and technical writing
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