I’ve had this uneasy feeling for several months now – feeling like something is missing from my relationship with Google. I admit I’ve been going around Google for quite some time, frequenting other search engines, indeed non-search engines - to find much more relevant results. Last week I became so disillusioned with Google, I was shocked to find myself making another web site my Firefox home page.
Have you noticed Google isn’t giving us the “best” results anymore, meaning the most relevant to you (they are certainly search-friendly results!)? Are you left feeling a bit frustrated or empty after trying to locate a really good resource on some topic?
Or maybe you are frustrated that you are a really good resource on a topic and that Google just doesn’t see you that way?
It seems the most important Thing anyone writes for on the web is Google – not the People who are, in fact, their audience. And with everyone chasing Google’s secret algorithms, I do wonder if it is the content or Google’s results that are becoming less relevant to me.
Klaus’ post at ConceptBakery got me to thinking about how I find relevant information, but more importantly, just how many better methods I have for finding what I’m looking for on the Web. To start, I use specialized wikis, and Wikipedia, the grand dame of wikis. I create RSS feeds for keywords, search terms or concepts I need to follow. I subscribe to reliable bloggers. I use del.icio.us and Blogmarks tag clouds. I use news aggregators and dedicated news search engines. I use IceRocket and Technorati (among others) to find blogs on particular subjects. I frequently use the tags or categories on prolific blogs like Gizmodo and Micropersuasion because I can find and browse posts on a particular topic that point me to sources. I even use “blog rolls” (lists of other blogs that a blog author reads) to find topic-specific blogs.
The point is, ‘social search’ is becoming an extremely valuable way to find “human relevant” content. Of course I still use Google, but other tools are become far more important to me.
I know that there are many people who don’t know how to use the search tools I mentioned and that I can breezily take flight to. I can leave Google without worrying I’m missing something, but not everyone has the tools or even the knowledge that these tools exist.
Since the primers I post here are among the most read, I have decided to do a few posts on how to use these important - and relevant - tools for search. Maybe they will help you get unglued from Google as a primary source of search – and discover tools and a whole new world of relevant content. If you have a great new way to find relevant information, chime in and point us in that direction.
