When do you “cheat” on Google?
Well, I did it again this week. For all the joy Google brings me, sometimes I just need something different.
Most of the time I just try to reword the search, but because of the limitations (Google and other search engines just can’t read some sites, maybe it’s a really obscure subject matter, or the sites with the information just aren’t friendly to search engines), sometimes I have to go elsewhere. There is a lot of directory bashing to be found (some justified), but trying to catalog the amount of information streaming through our world is unimaginable. Sites like Wiki and Google do a fantastic job of distributing and organizing data, but old fashion directories still have some strengths.
The largest strength of directories I see involves the aging of the World Wide Web. I visited a great website again this week:
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
This is an attempt to catalog the history of websites which is brilliant! An online database of World Wide Web (WWW) history. Many people confuse the internet with the WWW, they are two very distinct and different entities. The differences may be easier to understand this way: The internet is the hardware, the actual network that connects all the computers. The WWW by contrast, is the software that allows them to communicate.
When discussing aging and directories, I’m thinking of all the sites that are build and then become “stagnant” as well as those that are still active. “Stagnants” are kept alive (hosted), but with no interactivity. A recent post about 6links of separation shows that the WWW is not just your classical spider web, but an evolved web that is not only horizontal and diagonal, but even more than 3 dimensional. It’s the synergy created via the infrastructure of the internet. The longer the internet supports the growth of the WWW, the more information within our society will exponentially expand.
As well as aging, good directories can direct you to sites you would have never found on your own. How can you look for something that you don’t know exists? The best example would be specific or topical directories that limit the directory to it’s area of expertise or specialty. You can run across a related website that you weren’t trying to find, but achieve the same or better results.
Some of my other Google mistresses this week were:
http://www.msdewey.com/
Not as effective (or quick) as Google, but entertaining and better to look at. Also gave me the idea for this post.
http://www.reporter.org/desktop/
I do a lot of work in Business and Real Estate and this is a fantastic resource. Many of the sources here may be difficult to find via search engines.
So when and why do you cheat on google?
