Slides are available at rba.co.uk/as/ karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk Twitter: @karenblakeman

1. Personalisation of search: take back controlKaren Blakeman, RBA Information Services5th June 2012Pre-conference workshop, 11th Southern African Online Information Meeting, Sandton Convention Centre Slides are available at http://www.rba.co.uk/as/ karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk Twitter: @karenblakeman http://www.rba.co.uk/ This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

2. General plan for the session Getting to know one another and feedback on search issues Slides are a basic framework for the session (download from http://www.rba.co.uk/as/ now if you wish). I'll create an addendum of key, additional information after the session. Ask questions as we go along, or write on the notelets and we'll have Q&A slots throughout the session Summary of "stuff" we've learned and what to take back home and to work www.rba.co.uk

3. How it all started Before 1992 priced electronic databases indexed by humans. Many still exist for example LexisNexis, STN, Dialog 1992 – the Internet can be accessed by anyone but 2-3 years before significant information started appearing on the web Increase in amount of data and information led to the development of tools that indexed and searched the content of web pages Lycos, Excite, AltaVista, Hotbot www.rba.co.uk

4. How the web search tools worked (and still do in part) "Crawl" the internet looking for new and updated pages by following links Copies of pages and documents added to a database that is publicly searchable Results sorted according to: • how often the words you looked for appear in the page • where they appear (words in the title and first few sentences given higher ranking) • and other criteria not disclosed by the search engines They do not cover: • password protected sites • databases or sites where you have to fill in a form to find the information www.rba.co.uk

5. Then along came..... 11 November 1998 From the Internet Archive www.archive.org www.rba.co.uk

6. How was Google different? Links (citations) a major part of sorting search results http://www.seobook.com/learn-seo/collateral-damage.php www.rba.co.uk

7. Google 2011 Revenues $37,905 millions Net Income $9,737 millions http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html 2011 – 96% of revenues are from advertising Google has a problem.... www.rba.co.uk

8. Google's problem "How People Spend Their Time Online – Stephen's Lighthouse" http://stephenslighthouse.com/2012/03/14/how-people-spend-their-time-online/ www.rba.co.uk

9. Search engines and social networks need to keep you on their "properties" – captive audience Always trying to deliver new services to stop you wandering off to other sites To keep you on-site need to deliver content as relevant as possible to YOU • need to know more about you • need to know what sort of information you are interested in • need you signed in to your account • need to know who your contacts are on-site and elsewhere • need to know about your activity elsewhere Personalise results www.rba.co.uk

10. The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding From You Eli Pariser Publisher: Viking (23 Jun 2011) ISBN-10: 067092038X ISBN-13: 978-0670920389 www.rba.co.uk

11. Trends in search No longer straightforward text searching of web pages and documents Localisation Personalisation Social Mobile www.rba.co.uk

12. How far does personalisation go? Google can seriously damage your news http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/09/03/google-can-seriously-damage-your-news/ Is Google really filtering my news? http://www.librarianoffortune.com/librarian_of_fortune/2011/09/is-google-really-filtering-my-news.html www.rba.co.uk

13. How far does personalisation go? An Awfully Big Blog Adventure: The answer to your question... depends on who you are (Anne Rooney) http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/answer-to-your-question-depends-on-who.html Borromeo vs Borromeo www.rba.co.uk

14. Word cloud of top 20 results for a Google search on Prague (web history and social networks switched off, cookies cleared) Word cloud of top 20 results for a Google search on Prague (signed in to Google+ account, social networks and web history enabled) www.rba.co.uk

15. Google loses the plot? Search on goats www.rba.co.uk

16. Dear Google, stop messing with my search http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/11/08/dear-google-stop-messing-with-my-search/ www.rba.co.uk

17. Google introduces the “soft AND” “When you do a multi-term query on Google (even with quoted terms), the algorithm sometimes backs-off from hard ANDing all of the terms together.......it’s clear that people will often write long queries (with anywhere from 5 to 10 terms) for which there are no results. Google will then selectively remove the terms that are the lowest frequency to give you some results (rather than none)....Soft AND is a way to reduce the overall frustration and give the searcher something to examine (and with luck, a chance to reformulate their query).” Dan Russell http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/11/08/dear-google-stop-messing-with-my-search/#comments www.rba.co.uk

18. Google No more '+' to force an exact match No more automatic 'ANDing' of your terms No more highlighting your search terms in its cached copy of a page No more clearing search history unless you are logged in to a Google account [alternatively delete all search cookies from your browser] www.rba.co.uk

19. Google's new Privacy Policy "Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience." "we're more excited than ever to build a seamless social experience, all across Google" Toward a simpler, more beautiful Google http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/toward-simpler-more-beautiful-google.html www.rba.co.uk

20. What does Google know about you? Look in your Google account dashboard http://www.google.com/dashboard/ How Google is targeting your ads http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/ www.rba.co.uk

21. Impact of Google's policy and personalinformation management changes on YouTube Targeted advertising?! I wonder how Google will customise my web search based on my YouTube viewing? Gives me videos based on my web search history, linked to my location (Reading) plus a long list of videos mentioned by people in my Google+ circles. www.rba.co.uk

22. Google Enables Cross-Platform Local Search (As Carrot To Relinquish Your Privacy) http://searchengineland.com/google-enables-cross-platform-local-search-as-carrot-for-web-history-113811 Introducing a new local search experience across your devices - Inside Search http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/introducing-new-local-search-experience.html www.rba.co.uk

23. www.rba.co.uk

24. Google's new(ish) social network Google Plus (Google+) http://plus.google.com/ Google Now Forcing All New Users To Create Google+ Enabled Accounts http://marketingland.com/google-now-forcing-all-new-users-to-create-google-enabled-accounts-3912 Search Plus Your World (SPYW) referred to as Search+ now available in Google.com and is the default. Gives priority to content from people in your Google+ network if you are signed in to your account. (And the next Google killer is….Google! http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2012/01/30/and-the-next-google-killer-is-google/ ) www.rba.co.uk

25. SPYW currently being tested on Google.com Top results (blacked out for privacy reasons) were from one of my Google+ circles and from people who restricted access to the postings. Take care when providing information to users or incorporating data as part of a report www.rba.co.uk

26. Google Knowledge Graph Introducing the Knowledge Graph http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/search/knowledge.html It isn't a graph! At present only on Google.com Only shows if you are logged in to a Google+ enabled account www.rba.co.uk

27. Google Knowledge Graph www.rba.co.uk

28. Google Knowledge Graph No Knowledge Graph www.rba.co.uk

29. Bing - Adapting Search to You http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2011/09/14/adapting-search-to-you.aspx Bing to use Facebook, Twitter more in fight against Google | ZDNet : http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/bing-to-use-facebook-twitter-more-in-fight-against-google/8631 Bing Relaunches, Features New Social Sidebar http://searchengineland.com/the-new-bing-microsoft-tries-again-with-search-meets-social-120728 "It’s not just Facebook and Twitter that get to play in the social sidebar, however. Social suggestions might also come from LinkedIn, Quora, Foursquare, Blogger and - wait for it - Google Plus" www.rba.co.uk

30. Bing Relaunches, Features New Social Sidebar : http://searchengineland.com/the-new-bing-microsoft-tries-again-with-search-meets-social-120728 www.rba.co.uk

31. www.rba.co.uk

32. No social side bar for me (not in the US) but social network 'stuff' appears in main results www.rba.co.uk

33. So.cl : http://www.so.cl/ Microsoft Launches Socl Social Network: A Look Inside http://marketingland.com/microsoft-launches-so-cl-social-network-a-quick-look-12499 www.rba.co.uk

34. What I see on my screen is not what you'll see on yours! www.rba.co.uk

35. How do search engines personalise results? Depends on: • your location • past searches • which sites you have looked at in the past • your +1s • your likes • your shares • sites blocked by you (Google) • which social networks you are signed in to • who is in your social networks www.rba.co.uk

36. To allow personalisation or not? Not necessarily a bad thing Use a second browser with search history enabled and logged in to accounts for a different point of view It does bias results What I see on my screen is not what you'll see on yours Be aware of potential privacy issues regarding friends and contacts in social networks when providing results to your users www.rba.co.uk

37. Want to switch it off? Disable and remove web/search history - but in Google, no option to erase 'signed out' histories Actively manage search cookies, automatically delete cookies after computer log out or switch off - How to delete cookies - http://aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=2 Log out of all search engine and social media accounts when searching Use Chrome Incognito (Chrome owned by Google!) In Google use Verbatim in the left hand menu on results page Use advanced search commands if relevant Use a search engine that doesn't track or personalise www.rba.co.uk

38. www.rba.co.uk

39. Google search settings www.rba.co.uk

40. Google web history www.rba.co.uk

41. Verbatim Forces Google to run an exact match search. Run your search first and then select Verbatim from the left hand menu on your results page Cannot be combined with time options in the side bar Google: Verbatim for exact match search http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/11/18/google-verbatim-for-exact-match-search/ www.rba.co.uk

42. Signed out Chrome incognito Verbatim www.rba.co.uk

43. Try a search tool with less or no personalisation DuckDuckGo – does not track, does not personalise http://duckduckgo.com/ Yandex.com – International version of the Russian search engine http://www.yandex.com/ Blekko http://www.blekko.com/ Million Short – omits the top million most "popular" sites from results http://www.millionshort.com/ www.rba.co.uk

44. Use more than Google anyway The Disruptive Searcher (Sanity checking Google http://disruptivesearcher.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/sanity-checking-google/) “if I hadn’t searched across more than Google for data on a small, new company that I was asked to research recently, I would have missed out on some very significant information that Google just wasn’t showing me.” www.rba.co.uk

45. Bing http://www.bing.com/ Does personalise search and include social network content in results Most of the interesting developments and features are only available in the US version Results tend to be more consumer/retail focused unless using advanced search features Coverage not identical to Google’s - sometimes yields important unique content, especially in research and business Sometimes more up to date than Google www.rba.co.uk

46. Bing Link to minimalist advanced search options now vanished Advanced Search Operators http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff795620 Main ones • site: • filetype: • intitle: www.rba.co.uk

47. DuckDuckGo http://duckduckgo.com/ DuckDuckGo – silly name but a neat little search tool : http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/11/07/duckduckgo-silly-name-but-a-neat-little-search-tool/ No tracking, no “filter bubble” Commands site: inbody: intitle: filetype: sort:date to sort by date (uses results from Blekko) region:cc (e.g. za) to boost a country Syntax and keyboard shortcuts at http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html www.rba.co.uk

48. Yandex • http://www.yandex.com/ www.rba.co.uk

49. Yandex – advanced search OR Search operators http://help.yandex.com/search/?id=1113759 www.rba.co.uk

50. Blekko http://blekko.com/ slashtags for sorting by date (/date), searching for images (/images) and videos (/videos) Use public slashtags to search a group of web sites covering a particular topic or type of site e.g. /library or create your own to search your specified list of sites (similar to Google Custom Search Engines) wind turbine electricity generation /karenblakeman/renewable “Musings about librarianship: Using Blekko to search across thousands of library sites” http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com/2010/11/using-blekko-to-search-across-thousands.html www.rba.co.uk