Google adds in-depth articles to results

Google is rolling out a new addition to search results called "In-depth articles" (http://insidesearch.blogspot.ca/2013/08/discover-great-in-depth-articles-on.html):

"To understand a broad topic, sometimes you need more than a quick answer. Our research indicates perhaps 10% of people’s daily information needs fit this category -- topics like stem cell research, happiness, and love, to name just a few. That's why over the next few days we’ll be rolling out a new feature to help you find relevant in-depth articles in the main Google Search results."

The articles appear as a block of three at the bottom of your results, if you only display 10 results per page, or in the middle of the page if you display more. As Google says, they appear if your search is fairly broad and they do not appear for every query. I had to run several different searches before I found an example. At present it is only available in Google.com

My search on thorium reactor started with a Wikipedia article at the top, which seems all too often to be the default.

Further down the page was a block of three "in-depth" articles from Wired, Cosmos Magazine and Nature.

They do not appear at all if you use a Chrome Incognito window or your browser's private browsing option. They also disappear if you apply Verbatim to your results.

How useful are these articles? They are certainly lengthy and in depth but only the one from Nature was fairly recent (December 2012). The one from Wired was published in 2009 and the Cosmos Magazine article appeared in 2006. I tried limiting my search to articles published in just the last year using Search Tools, Any time, Past year. The documents in the main results changed but the in-depth articles remained the same. The Nature article is highly relevant but there are more recent documents to be found than those from Wired and Cosmos. This raises the question as to how these articles are selected. I have not yet found any reliable information on how it is done, although Google's Webmaster Central Blog has provided a checklist that may help get an article into the triumvirate (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/in-depth-articles-in-search-results.html). The Moz Blog has run an analysis on 352 searches and found that the major news sources feature heavily (see http://moz.com/blog/inside-indepth-articles for further details).

In theory, in-depth articles are a good way to find an overview of a topic but do check the dates. They may be horrendously out of date.

Top Business Research Tips

Yes, I'm sorry, this is another Top !0 list from one of my workshops - a full day in-house session on Business Research. This time around Marketingfile.com  made a return to the list at number 4 after a long absence, three of Alacra sites are at number 2 (nominated by participants as "All the Alacra sites"), and Twitter is at long last being considered as a serious business tool (Yay!!). It is worth noting that this group were interested in Second Life; some of their contacts and clients are involved with Second Life so it would have been useful to have a look at how it works . As usual, though,  we could not connect to SL. It appeared that the ports used by SL were blocked by the by the organisation's network.

Here is the full list:

1. Internet Archive or Wayback machine at http://www.archive.org/.  For pages, sites and documents that have disappeared. Ideal for tracking down lost documents and seeing how organisations presented themselves on the Web in the past.

2. "All the Alacra sites".  Not strictly accurate in that it was just three of their business web sites that attracted attention:

Alacrawiki at http://www.alacrawiki.com/. The Alacra Spotlights section is a good starting point for evaluated sites and information on industry sectors. Note that although it is a wiki only Alacra can edit these pages.

Alacrasearch at  http://www.alacra.com/alacrasearch/. A Google custom search engine that focuses on business sites selected by Alacra.

AlacraStore at http://www.alacrastore.com/.  "Search over 70 million reports on more than 550,000 public companies and private companies from over 55 premium business information publishers." Search for free and pay as you go on your credit/debit card.  A full lost of their content providers is at http://www.alacrastore.com/search-by/publisher.

3. Advanced Search. The advanced search screens of the likes of Google and Yahoo have many options for increasing the precision of your your search: file format (e.g. xls for data and statistics, ppt for expert presentations, pdf for industry or government reports); site and domain search to limit your search to just one web site or a type of organisation (e.g. UK government, US academic); and in Google there is a numeric range search.

4. Marketingfile.com at http://www.marketingfile.com/.  A collection of lists with a bias towards UK and Ireland but there are some International, European and North American lists. The lists are divided into Business and Consumer and further categorised into sectors or type, for example Drinks Trade, Aviation & Defence, Smaller Companies. Each list can be searched by a number of criteria depending on its structure and coverage. Searching is free and data is charged for on a pay per record basis.

5. Freepint at http://www.freepint.co.uk/ Head for the discussion area, labelled as the Bar, where you can post your query and tap into the knowledge of regular ‘tipplers’

6. Trade Association Forum - http://www.taforum.org/ . A useful, searchable directory of UK trade associations.

7. Sector Skills Councils. This was not one that I mentioned in the workshop but is a resource that the organisation that I was visiting often uses. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sector_Skills_Councils) , and please don't complain that I am citing it:

"Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) are state-sponsored, employer-led organisations that cover specific economic sectors in the United Kingdom. They have four key goals:

• to reduce skills gaps and shortages
• to improve productivity
• to boost the skills of their sector workforces
• to improve learning supply"

Further information on the Councils can be found at Alliance of Sector Skills Councils, http://www.sscalliance.org/home/home.asp.

The workshop participants commented that "some of the councils are better than others".

8. Google, Yahoo, Live, Exalead, Ask. Let's admit it - much of the time we head for Google as our first port of call, but it is worth running your search in the other contenders. Results are sorted in a different order and they do have different coverage and search features.

9. Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/. "Looks interesting". "Need to try it out as a source of information". "Could be useful as a promotion/communications tool".

10. RBA Business Sources. http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/. Selected sources of business information organised by type e.g. statistics, share prices, company registers. Yes,  my own site, the basis of the workshop notes, and as one person commented "It is the quickest way to get to all the sites you told us about"!

Research Recap

Alacra's Research Recap pulls together industry, economic, academic, market, investment and credit research reports. It concentrates on free content but also offers links to selected paid research deemed of relevance to the topic. Priced reports are sourced from a wide variety of providers, including the Alacra Store. Much of the paid research is usually password-protected and will not show up in a Google-type search, but Research Recap has made arrangements with providers to review their proprietary research to determine what is appropriate to highlight for Research Recap’s audience. Research Recap does not claim to be comprehensive and may not include items that are widely circulated elsewhere.

Research Recap is published in blog format and is also available as an RSS feed.

AlacraSearch for industry and market sector searches

Alacra has launched a new search tool for industry and market sector information called AlacraSearch. It uses the Google Custom Search Engines and has approximately 12,000 Alacra chosen sites in eight categories:

• Business & Trade Publications
• Law Firms
• Commercial & Investment Banks
• Consulting and Accounting Firms
• Educational Institutions
• Market Research Firms
• Trade Associations
• Venture Capital & Private Equity Firms

The service is free and supported by advertising.

On the main search screen you type in your key words and select a category. On the results page you can easily switch categories. For example, having run a search on 'beer UK market share' in the Business and Trade Publications category I could switch to Trade Associations or Market Research Firms. Depending on which category you choose to search, you can further refine your results by industry or geography. Having carried out my initial 'beer' search in Business & Trade, I can narrow down the publications further by selecting Food & Beverage.

Alacra already has an industry research tool on Alacrawiki called Alacra Industry Spotlights that has a page for each industry describing the key resources for the sector. The Spotlights are ideal if you are new to a sector and need to get up to speed on the main publications. AlacraSearch complements Alacra Spotlights by enabling you to search these and other sources by keywords. I now regularly use both and find that they are an excellent way of quickly focusing on quality business sites.

Highly recommended if you are looking for a business information search tool.