5 Key Research Sites You May Have Missed (Plus Cool Tricks)

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I'm as guilty as the next person: I use Google for everything and don't wander much
outside it. (In fact, I use iGoogle as my browser
homepage.)



But as any astute researcher knows, Google's search engine can rank poor-quality content
very highly just because the site has good SEO (search engine optimization). Recently,
Google adjusted their search algorithm to help control for this, but the problem's
still there.



So I wanted to share a few resources to increase your awareness that stuff besides
Google exists. However, you should also be aware of Google's specialized search &
data services, so those are also included.





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1. Blekko is a specialized search engine that
filters out a lot of the crap sites that have low-quality content but high search
ranking. When you're looking for quality content and want to avoid the content mills,
try Blekko.





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2 . Wolfram Alpha has
a scientific slant: It's called a "computational knowledge engine." There are a lot
of things it can do, which are hard to describe and summarize here, so the best advice
is to give it a whirl. For instance, here's
what Wolfram reveals if I type in my hometown of Oakland City, Ind.






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3. The Wayback Machine shows you what
any site looked like in the past. It's a fun diversion, but of course a valuable research
tool as well.







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4. Snopes keeps track of Internet scams,
hoaxes, urban legends, and misinformation. If you receive an e-mail, visit a site,
or see a Facebook status that seems fishy, try searching for it here.







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5. Quora is becoming a surprising resource
for me on a variety of topics. It's a Q&A site that many well-known experts participate
in, and it's easy to search. If your question isn't already answered by someone on
the site, you can easily add it. What really sells me on Quora (as opposed to some
other Q&A sites) is the clean and easy navigation plus excellent credentials of
those engaging with it.





A Few Google Tools


If you don't know already about these specialized Google search tools, check them
out:



Google Scholar: limit your search just to
academic/scholarly stuff



Google Books: limit your search to books



Google U.S. Government: limit your search
to U.S. government sites

Google CSE: create your own search engine
that pulls only from sites you know and trust

Google Insights for Search: search
for information about searches!

Google Public Data Explorer: a
great tool for playing with and visualizing large data sets—your own data as well
as public data





Also, if you're not already aware, here are a few simple ways to improve your basic
Google searches:



If you want to exclude sites with certain terms, use the minus sign in front of the
term (e.g., salsa -dancing)



If you want to match the word exactly as you typed it, use the plus sign (e.g., +potatoe)



You can use the wild card (*) to stand in for entire words.



Use the tilde (~) in front of any terms when you want Google to search for that term,
plus anything similar to that term (e.g., ~tutorial)



If you want to restrict search results to a specific URL, then add site: in
front of the URL. E.g., iraq site:nytimes.com would only turn up articles on
Iraq from the New York Times domain.



If you find a site and wonder if there are any other similar sites, use related: plus
the URL of the site (e.g., related:writersdigest.com).



To turn up results that are files only, use the search term plus filetype: and
the type of file you're looking for. For example, if you wanted to find PDFs on the
topic of publishing, you'd search for publishing filetype:pdf. You can search
for Word docs only (doc), music files only (mp3), etc.



What are your favorite search tricks or online research resources? Leave a comment!




Photo credit: Brain
Pop UK






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