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Strategy Know what you’re after
Know what is available
Know when enough is enough
Be a smarter searcher
Be skeptical – treat each online source just as you would any other
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Advanced search
Search for phrases
Use Boolean logic
By domain or site
By file type
Words in URL
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• No one knows for sure, but estimates are that Google searches far less than half of what’s available on the Web – maybe a small fraction.
• Each search engine has its own strengths and weaknesses.
• Total shared results of any two search engines: 8.9 percent.
• Any three search engines: 2.2 percent
Source: 2007 study by Dogpile, Penn State and Queensland University of Technology
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• Alltheweb.com (advanced search options)
• Ask.com (Subject-Specific Popularity™)
• Clusty.com (clustered results)
• Yahoo! (directory)
• Jux2 (Multiple search site results returned)
• Bing
• Twingine (side-by-side results)
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Wikipedia (for links, sources only)
Census (esp. Data Finders feature)
Public records portals
• BRB Publications
• Portico
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NICAR Net tour
Reporter’s Desktop by Duff Wilson
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FedStats - Portal to government statistics. FirstGov - Portal to federal and local
governments.
Federal spending USASpending – search and download federal
contracts, grants and more.
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The Visible Web (“Surface Web”) is made up
of the typical results in search engines.
The Invisible Web (“Deep Web”) includes
searchable databases / dynamic content.
Some estimate the Invisible Web is 550 times
bigger than the Visible Web.
Google says more than 1,000 federal
government sites can’t be “crawled.”
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Pipl
123people
SocialMention
Whostalkin
Samepoint
Icerocket
PeekYou
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Search engine cache (Google, Bing)
Wayback Machine
CyberCemetery – sites of defunct government
agencies and commissions
Yahoo Site Explorer
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Domain searches reveal all.
Domain Tools http://www.domaintools.com
Allwhois http://www.allwhois.com
Quarkbase
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Find the location:
Find IP: “Show original” or “View source” of the
email.
Lookup IP: Whois
Reverse email searches:
People searches:
Pipl, spokeo
Check usernames at Knowem
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Salaries, travel: www.legistorm.com
Cash and votes: www.maplight.org
Federal: www.opensecrets.org
From the source: www.fec.gov
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990s –What all 501(c)3 organizations that
have more than $25,000 in annual revenue
must file with the IRS.
Churches are exempt.
IRE database library