How To Use Search Engines for Accurate Results

Have you ever despaired that you'll ever find the precise thing you're looking for in a search engine? Well here are some of the ways that you might change your search methods to give you better results. These are already actively encouraged by the search engines themselves, but they tend to be in the small print, so most people don't know about them. Well now that's about to change.

The search engines aren't trying to frustrate you, just trying to reduce the prominence of spam. Their answer to this is to lend an unnaturally high prominence to what they call "authority sites". But that means you won't see sites that may have the answer to more specific things you are looking for.

Here's how that works at the moment.

It is said in some quarters that if you are an authority site, and if you have the same words on the page as are contained in the search (they need not even be in the order), as long as your authority seems to match the subject being searched for (inbound links with the same words, etc.) that page will be at the top of the search results.

So the more specific page related to that search will not be found at the top of the search results.

Here's how to improve your searching. These examples are for the Google search engine, though the other major search engines have their own equivalent terms. Google and the other search engines have already published these guidelines, so this isn't anything new - it's just that most people don't know about them.

Put your search term in quotation marks. Typing in a search phrase without quotation marks will include all those words, in whatever order they are in. Pages that are considered by Google to be high authority sites may well return pages in which these words appear in a different order, or somewhere on the page. Typing "best tennis match" into Google's search box will show you a different set of results than if you typed in that search phrase without the quotation marks. Try it. Ask yourself which set of results seems most relevant.

Secondly, search by the title in quotation marks: allintitle: "best tennis match".

This really zooms in on your subject. When you use this search command the results feature only that exact search phrase in the title tag of the web page. The person who made that web page specifically put that phrase in the title of the page because that is what the page is intended to be about.

Search by the incoming links in quotation marks: allinanchor: "best tennis match".

This shows results from outside web pages linking to a page with this exact phrase in the text of the hyperlink itself. So this is what other pages think the page is about.

Search by the name of the web page in quotation marks: allinurl: "best tennis match".

The exact search phrase appears in the name of the web page itself. As with the title tag, the person who made this web page specifically intended this page to be thought of as being about "best tennis match".

These procedures should improve the accuracy and relevance of your searching. Remember that the search engines are not there to hide information from you, they are just trying to prevent spammy pages from being returned in the top search results. Unfortunately this seems to oblige them to give undue weight to authority sites which are known not to be spam pages. The result of this is that pages that may more accurately reflect your search criteria will not get shown in the top results. Use the above techniques and your searches will be much more productive.

Debt Collectors Use Data Protection Act to Intimidate

There are indications that some debt collection companies, or debt collectors, are using the Data Protection Act to intimidate people who are least able to cope with the debt they already have.

Debt collectors, who nowadays hide under the cover of flashy websites, have hounded a friend of mine, who has had a lot of bad fortune recently. He has noticed the glee with which debt collectors use the so-called data collection questions to soften up their subjects. When asked where the caller was calling from, callers often refuse to say, and continue to press the subject into giving out their personal information.

The normal courtesies of introducing oneself and saying where they are from do not seem to matter to the new breed of debt collector, who have to meet targets like any other sales operative.

Most people don't know this, but debt collection agencies have very little in the way of powers, and the main tool they have is intimidation. They use human nature to empower themselves with weapons based on crude psychology. They thrive on people's guilt and always try to give themselves the moral high ground in any interactive situation like a telephone call. That is the only way they can get at people - through guilt and fear.

It is unfortunate that a law that was designed to protect people from unscrupulous practices is now being used by the very people who are most keen to use intimidating techniques.

Use of the Data Protection Act means that the person contacting you by telephone is allowed to "check" who you are by asking you various question. What is your name, your address, your date of birth, your mother's maiden name, etc.

This may be fine if the matter is simply to establish the true identity of a person. But a debt collector uses this for other purposes: it softens a person up. It makes the subject feel pliable to questioning, and therefore more easily susceptible to further questions and deeper probing which then leads to what are essentially sales tactics.

After putting the subject in this receptive frame of mind, the debt collector then follows up by questions to which the logical answer either has to be a Yes (to the debt collector's advantage) or a No (also to the debt collector's advantage). This technique is often used in hard sell ploys and has but one purpose: the sale. Used by the debt collector, the goal is not a sale, but the voluntary release of money that the prospect cannot afford. The techniques are exactly the same, however, and it is the Data Protection Act that puts the prospect in the frame. The Data Protection Act's very procedures allow the sale to proceed, smoothly.

The modern debt collection industry is based on greed. Debts are bought and sold by different debt collection agencies, and sometimes the "leads" are sold to other call centres around the world. The salesperson who phones you up is like any other salesperson. There are targets to meet and the salesperson - who is usually a very "pushy" type and has a very tight education in this activity at least - will use any tactic to achieve those targets.

The provisions of the Data Protection Act are a Godsend to such people. Whatever the legal requirements, or otherwise, of all those ostensibly necessary questions, the debt salesmen are loving it.

The response is both perfectly sensible and legal: if you sense a debt collector is on the phone treat him or her like any other salesperson. If you don't like what is being offered then politely say goodbye and put the phone down.

Then the salesperson will politely go away. Or, at least, they should.