The Bottom Line February 2011 13F O C U S

By GARRETT WASNYand LAWRENCE WONG

While search engines likeGoogle have created arevolution by putting

oceans of information at the fin-gertips of people all over theworld, the sad truth is that mostpeople don’t know how to reallyuse them to their full potential.

For most, using a search engineis limited to typing in a word ortwo in the search box on the homepage, hitting ‘enter’ and seeingwhat pops up. That approach usesa small fraction — just one percent — of Google’s full capabili-ties. It often misses what thesearcher is looking for or buries itway down a list of responses gen-erated by a query that was not tai-lored to get the best result.

If a person types in charteredaccountant at Google.ca, withoutquotation marks, over three mil-lion results appear. Type in “char-tered accountant” with quotesaround it and that number goes toabout two million. Just puttingwords in quotations narrows asearch by only bringing backresponses where the two words areused side by side, thereby elimi-nating responses linked to docu-ments that might have an irrele-vant sentence like: “Afterconsulting an accountant fishingbuddy, he chartered a boat.”

To really start honing a search,it’s best to use the TPL method,which stands for time, place, lingo.Treat a Google query as if it were ahuman reference librarian. Ifsomeone were seeking a forensicaccountant currently operating inToronto, would it really be best togo to a librarian and say:“accountant”? Searching ‘forensicaccountant Toronto 2011’ onGoogle.ca gets about 65,500results, while ‘accountant’ getsmore than 30 million.

Adding context and details to aquery brings better results. Search“House” and Google will reportback on everything from dwellingsand parliaments to curling andplaces of worship. Type “House”“TV” and the results will focusmore on the Hugh Laurie drama,albeit with a lot of home improve-ment shows thrown in for goodmeasure.

This type of search refinementis merely the tip of the iceberg.Little changes to a search bringdifferent results. Make a termplural — chartered accountants —and the search gets a differentresult. Using American versusBritish spellings — center versuscentre, for example — alsodelivers different results. Type aterm twice in the search box to getresults where the phrase is usedtwice. Type it three times and onlylinks to items where the phrase

appears at least three times willappear.

Go to different national ver-sions of Google — like Canada’sGoogle.ca as opposed toGoogle.com — and searches givemore prominence to local content.

People looking for a type ofdocument in a particular formatcan narrow their search by speci-fying the type of file. A search off iletype:ppt “chartered

accountant” is confined to Power-Point f iles on the net and f ile-type:xls “chartered accountant”limits the search to Excel spread-sheet files.

Poor search techniques put theaverage curious person or eagerstudent at a disadvantage and areinexcusable for business profes-sionals.

Former U.S. Secretary ofDefense Donald Rumsfeld wasonce widely ridiculed for saying:“There are known knowns; thereare things we know we know. Wealso know there are known

unknowns; that is to say we knowthere are some things we do notknow. But there are also unknownunknowns — the ones we don’tknow we don’t know.”

In fact, Rumsfeld’s statement,while a bit convoluted, makes per-fect sense, especially for busy pro-fessionals. Which accountantwouldn’t want to keep constanttrack of what is being said aboutexisting or potential clients, their

firm or, most importantly, them?Can anyone afford to wait untilthey’re aware the informationexists to search for it when theycan actually arrange to get it sentto them automatically in advance?

One of best products out there isGoogle Alerts, which seems sadlyunder-utilized even though it’s bothfree and very effective. GoogleAlerts allows people to set up auto-matic searches for as many and anyterms they can come up with.Those searches can be customizedto bring results weekly, daily or asthe term appears in real time.

Further tailoring can take alertsfrom looking at everything on thenet to focusing on news sites,blogs or videos. Using the TPLmethod creates ‘super alerts’ thatavoid filling a person’s inbox withirrelevant material. Those withunique names may be able to getaway with a simple search of theirname, however the John Smiths ofthe world are going to want tonarrow things a little with some-

thing like “John Smith” “charteredaccountant” “Toronto.”

Used properly, Google Alertsare part of the GARS search tech-nique that encompasses alerts,plus Google Reader — an easy touse RSS aggregator that will keep

track of publications and topicsspecif ied by the user — andGoogle Sidebar, which appears onthe left side of the screen during aGoogle search. Sidebar allowspeople to easily refine their searchin a number of ways so it’s betterfiltered and the optimal informa-tion rises to the top of the list.

Keep in mind that, whileGoogle is good, it’s not the onlysearch engine out there. Forexample, Bing, Microsoft’s searchengine, and Yahoo! often bring dif-ferent results for the same searchterms. And few people seem toknow that the second biggestsearch engine is actually YouTube.It’s not just for funny clips and ZZTop videos from the 1980s. Manybusinesses are posting everythingfrom tutorials and product infor-mation to visual annual reportsand public meetings on YouTube.That makes it a very importantresource.

Professionals should also beaware of vertical search enginesthat focus on a specific industry,function or issue. For example, toofew accountants seem to knowabout www.ifacnet.com, a searchengine website powered byGoogle. On the site, it explainsthat ifacnet.com is a “one-stopaccess to high-quality resourcesand information developed by theInternational Federation ofAccountants (IFAC) and otherleading accountancy organizationsfrom around the world. This searchengine, powered by Google, pro-vides access to a wide range of rel-evant materials to assist profes-sional accountants in business,small- and medium-sized practi-tioners, auditors, accounting aca-demics, and others in their day-to-day operations.”

Professionals, like accountants,who aren’t using the Internet to itsfullest potential risk falling behindthe competition. After all, ifknowledge is your business, whocan really know too much?

Garrett Wasny, MA, CMC,CITP, is known as the ‘Internetguy’ and ‘Google guru’ whoadvises accountants and otherprofessional service providers onhow to improve their online searchskills, increase their web produc-tivity and transform how they usethe web in their business, careerand life. He conducts a seminar onAdvanced Internet Research Tech-niques for Accountants for theInstitute of Chartered Accountantsof Ontario. His website iswww.garrettwasny.com and can beeasily found by Google.

Lawrence Wong, CA, is asso-ciate director, professional devel-opment at the Institute of Char-tered Accountants of Ontario.

Google offers much more than most know

For most, using a search engine is limited to typing in a

word or two in the search box on the home page, hitting

‘enter’ and seeing what pops up. That approach uses a small

fraction — just one per cent — of Google’s full capabilities.

Garret Wasny and Lawrence Wong

WAS

NY

Poor search techniques put the average

curious person or eager student at a

disadvantage and are inexcusable for

business professionals.

Garret Wasny and Lawrence Wong