Effective Googling for abstract things?

February 26, 2007 11:38 PM

How can I construct an effective Google search when I'm not looking for a specific object/person/thing, but rather something I only hope or suspect exists? Clarifying example inside.

I'm pretty good at Googling for specific things I know exist: the artist who sings that song whose lyrics I can only vaguely remember, how many unemployed people there were in Michigan in 1984, stuff like that.

What I'm less good at is finding things I suspect exist, but that aren't specific things--times when it's not a specific item I'm looking for but one of a class of items that I merely suspect the existence of.

Let me give an example. Recently, for reasons of my own, I wanted to find articles that were critical of the Children's Television Workshop, Sesame Street, or public television, specifically with regard to funding--for instance, I had heard (maybe on an episode of The West Wing) that Sesame Street costs $20 million per year to make and takes in over $100 million per year in merchandise sales. Shortly after hearing that tidbit, I got an e-mail encouraging me to sign a petition in support of public funding for public television and specifically Sesame Street. "Hmmm," I said to myself. "Is the West Wing factoid true? What are the complicating factors? I would like to know more about this so I can decide whether I actually do support public funding for Sesame Street."

I could not figure out how to construct a google search that would get me want I wanted--thoughtful articles, possibly critical ones, about public television funding. At least not without having to wade manually through piles of tangentially-related noise.

I'm not asking people to find me such articles. I'm asking people to tell me how to construct a good Google search to find this kind of thing.

posted by not that girl to Computers & Internet (16 answers total)

What I do is imagine what such an article would actually say, and google that. Generally, this works pretty well. For example:

"public funding not necessary Sesame Street"

The first two results sound like what you're looking for. Of course, it also finds articles on why funding shouldn't be cut, but they're farther down.
posted by Violet Hour at 11:53 PM on February 26, 2007

I usually have very good Google-fu... For your needs, I thought about searching for:

PBS + funding + "income from sales"

I got these results... Don't know if it helps you, but I hope it does.
posted by amyms at 12:00 AM on February 27, 2007

googling for "sesame street ~profit" takes you to their FAQ about such things...

I feel this question is misguided though. There is no secret google query for this or any other type of information.

1. Learn all the google cheats.

2. Construct a query that you think is going to give you the results you want.

3. Browse results -- learn and read about what the top hits - etc have to say.

4. Revise query.


Repeat 3 and 4 until you are are satiated.

But really if you want to go to the next step, you should get access to to other databases from either your public library or school, then you can really start cruising.
posted by bigmusic at 12:03 AM on February 27, 2007

There is no secret google query for this or any other type of information.

You're right, bigmusic, there's no "secret" way to Google... BUT... The results can be vastly different based on how you construct your search terms.
posted by amyms at 12:13 AM on February 27, 2007

One thing that I've noticed is if you search for a particular position ("sesame street doesn't need help"), you will pretty much always find someone saying it. But this may be an extreme minority position, and by searching so specifically, you've excluded the other 95% of people who are saying yes, sesame street needs help. So, in my experience, it's important to phrase your searches in a way that doesn't bias the results (very much like amyms did in her example). (Not that I know anything about Sesame Street's financials.)

It comes up for me a lot when I get into a debate with my friends about something. If your point of view is "global warming is not a problem", you will have no problem finding someone who says exactly that. Some people are satisfied to turn up results like this, but if you're searching to expand your knowledge (rather than justify your biases), this isn't too helpful. On the other hand, the search "global warming" problem turns up what appear to be more balanced and helpful results. Note the use of quotes, use them judiciously to find phrases and you will vastly improve your results.

So yes, I agree with Violet Hour about imagining what someone would say. That method does turn up results and they are sometimes what you needed. Just keep in mind that what you find is not necessarily someone with a firm grip on reality.
posted by knave at 12:50 AM on February 27, 2007

To be clear (because on postview, I wasn't), I'm saying amyms's search terms are good in the sense that they are unbiased.
posted by knave at 12:52 AM on February 27, 2007

Some more google juice for you.

Google Cheat Sheet
Google Librarian Tools.
Google Guide (this is a great site)
posted by bigmusic at 12:57 AM on February 27, 2007

So, after saying all that, I actually tried to find a result for your example. Usually if it exists, I can find it on Google. In the example you mentioned (trying to find articles critical of Sesame Street), I tried pairing the phrase "sesame street" with the following potential slurs (as it were) such an article might use: greed, corporate, capitalist, profitability, millions. This is essentially the "what would they say?" method. My results? Nada.

My guess is the info you heard is probably incorrect. Wikipedia says Sesame Workshop is a non-profit, and I can't find anyone groaning about their revenue.
posted by knave at 1:07 AM on February 27, 2007

It's often useful to look for patterns in the "piles of tangentially-related noise", then refine the query to exclude unwanted results.

For example, if you're searching for a person's name and getting loads of useless pages from genealogy sites, add -genealogy to the query. You might then find it still returns numerous results for someone with the same name in a different profession, so you exclude that profession, and so on until you only gets tens or hundreds of results to browse.
posted by malevolent at 1:45 AM on February 27, 2007

The major search engines are starting to shift towards Natural Language Processing. While true NLP is still a little ways off, I am starting to find better hits when phrasing a search question naturally.
posted by JJ86 at 5:52 AM on February 27, 2007

One newer NLP search engine out there is Hakia and Powerset is up and coming.
posted by JJ86 at 5:57 AM on February 27, 2007

I find that adding "critique" or "critical" or sometimes "controversy" gets good, interesting results on a relatively abstract subject.

While true NLP is still a little ways off

A long ways off, I've heard.
posted by mediareport at 6:01 AM on February 27, 2007

There have been numerous studies on information seeking -- whether using Google, Lexis/Nexis, or their local library. In general, what distinguishes expert searchers is not their talented Google-fu as much as their persistence. Beginners will make one or two queries and use whatever appears the most satisfactory, while experts will continue optimizing their queries -- adding or subtracting terms based on what they find in prior results.

Practice and advice will help you make better queries, but finding exactly what you're looking for requires experimentation no matter how good you get.
posted by ardgedee at 6:13 AM on February 27, 2007

Response by poster: Thank you for the many helpful responses. Exactly what I was looking for--ideas about how to think about my question as I'm constructing a search.
posted by not that girl at 7:29 AM on February 27, 2007

I tend to search for things that will likely appear in an article, along with phrases people might use when linking. For instance, I would just go with:
"sesame street" profits
..if I was trying to determine where profits for Sesame Street merchandise go. Likewise, I might go for something as simple as:
PBS funding criticism
..when trying to search out articles that, uh, criticize the sources of PBS's funding. For these two searches, it looks like I get a mixture of the official websites and articles in major papers, but critical sites show up in the first two pages.
posted by mikeh at 7:36 AM on February 27, 2007

In general, what distinguishes expert searchers is not their talented Google-fu as much as their persistence. Beginners will make one or two queries and use whatever appears the most satisfactory, while experts will continue optimizing their queries -- adding or subtracting terms based on what they find in prior results.

Late to the party here, but I'd like to second this. In addition to experimentation and trying out multiple search queries, an additional element of persistence is simply being willing to look through a larger number of results.

By default, Google gives you the top 10 results on the first page. Click the "preferences" link and change that to 50, if not 100. And be willing to look through at least that many results.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:50 PM on March 1, 2007