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     Effective Searches    

 



Q.   Just how many websites match the keyword(s) you type into that little box in your Search Engine?
A.  Probably more than you want to look at - possibly millions!

So how can you get a Search Engine to "Tell me what you want, what you really really want!"


Well, let's look at some examples (using Yahoo) of how many websites you get when you type in different keywords...

keywords typed in matching websites found comments
sewing 1,450,000 Are you really going to look through this many websites?
couture 543,000                                   ...or even this many?
dressmaking 34,800 Single word searches are bound to give you far too many matches to be of any use - so let's try two words...

 
gill arnold 81,500 The site ranked 1st by Yahoo was for a different Gill Arnold, "Secretary (part time) on the staff pages of the University of Huddersfield"....  no good for us!

Gill's site ranked 2nd in this search.

The site ranked 3rd was for "expatriate women living in Vietnam. For membership contact Gill Arnold (Vietnamese address given)", again a different Gill Arnold!

Many matches were found because there are lots of Gill Arnolds in the world (none of them as marvellous as ours, though!)
sewing dresses 52,000 "sewing" and "dresses" are quite common words, so fetch many matching websites - still not terribly helpful. 

Avoid common words in searches
couture dressmaking 1,280 Gill's site ranked 5th.
OK, we're now using more sophistication - we've got "couture" in there, so this will limit the number of matches significantly.  Alright, you still won't look through all 1,280 websites, will you (?), but the top 20 or 40 may produce something quite useful...
dressmaking pattern adjustments 252 Gill's site ranked 8th.
No surprises - words like "pattern" and "adjustments" are less common on websites, so there were less matches, and the sites listed ought to be more relevant to your needs.

Use more technical/specific words if at all possible
dressmaking midlands 217 Gill's site ranked 11th
See how including "midlands" has reduced the number of hits, and increased the relevance factor!
gill arnold dressmaking 54 Gill's site ranked 1st (now there's a surprise!)
The first 7 sites listed refer to our Gill in some way (as she is mentioned within e.g. Linton Tweeds, Sewing for Pleasure...)
dressmaking solihull 16 Gill's site ranked 1st

Using "solihull" dramatically limits the number of websites found, and almost guarantees relevance to what you are looking for...

But interestingly, in 13th position came the following... "is 44 years old, 6 ft tall, slim build with brown hair... her interests are swimming, dancing, holidays, reading, dressmaking ....own transport, living in Solihull area"

Draw your own conclusions! It does contain both the words you were searching for!
TEST ZONE
Do you think these keywords are good choices or not? Decide whether these will produce a manageable number of suitable websites FIRST, then point to the images with your mouse (no need to click!) to see if you're right or not!
interfacing  NOT GOOD. This found 463,000 websites, most of which were about computer interfacing, not Gill's sort of interfacing. tips  NO - far, far too broad, 24,000,000 matches!    fusible interfacing  BETTER. This found 3,590 websites, more related to the "interfacing" we want to know about!     lingerie solihull    You ought to anticipated this one! Only 142 websites found, but the 1st one is an adult entertainment (for want of a better term) site.
couture sewing tips 

YES, much better - only 1,540 matches now.

 sewing tipsStill too many matches to be of real use - 161,000       bust  NO! 1,440,000 matches, many you would not want to read! 2nd is an engineering site (Build it or Bust it!) ; 5th is for Bust magazine (whatever that is)        bust couture YES, much better - only 2,810 matches now.

Conclusions

Search Engines are a good thing, enabling you to find what you really really want, if used correctly.
Searches containing a single word often produce many matches.
Far better to use several keywords to cut down the matches to sensible proportions!

choose specific dressmaking/sewing/couture words where possible to reduce the number of matches.

Still want to know more?

There are further ways to refine searches, for instance,
using quotation marks as in  "dressmaking solihull" searches for that complete phrase, not the separate words. 
You can also use + and - signs to tell the search engine to include or to leave out a particular word,   
e.g.  dressmaking -solihull  will find dressmaking sites but leave out any mentioning Solihull (but you wouldn't want to do that, would you!)...
 

 

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