Category Archive

The post reflects my current understanding of how Google works. I hope to share extra detail with you as we do more testing or if we hear more from Google Search people. SUMMARY When you write a search string, Google assesses whether it is: Open-ended (assuming you, the user, require assistance) or Specific, or “restrictive.” Google decides on “restrictive” in …

[Edited: apparently, there is an explanation – see Danny Sullivan‘s comments below. Bottom line: if you are a researcher, consider using quotes! My summary.] To Whom It May Concern At Google Search: There is currently a problem with Google search, specifically, quotes. It might be an unintended outcome of How we’re improving search results when you use quotes. We welcome …

If you drag an image into Google’s reverse image search, you now arrive at Google Lens. It (often): identifies an area on your photo that looks like goods for sale and produces “visual matches” (payment links to such goods) on the right. People and faces are ignored. Do you want to dress like your candidate? Use their photo (Someone joked …

Invitations from recruiters have become a standard practice on LinkedIn. So have invitations related to potentially doing any business together. If an invitation is accepted, a conversation starts. However, LinkedIn notifications have poor deliverability, and “passive” candidates often miss our messages and invitations. It helps to invite a larger volume of potential matches and follow-up by email. The following method …

In a recent post, How we’re improving search results when you use quotes, Google informed us that it would force the terms in quotation marks into snippets – as many as possible. It is a significant improvement for research; take note of it. (Even before the announcement, repeating keywords and putting them in quotes helped.) I am finding that in …

We so much depend on the platform. But LinkedIn.com people search remains broken for everyone with a premium, job seeker, or a basic account. LinkedIn does not find members by keywords in the “About” section and job description. It has been over eight months. 🙁 Here are just a few examples. You will not find David Galley by the phrase …

  No matter how long and complex Boolean you write, it will miss a significant percentage of qualified Software Developer candidates. Search on – or X-Ray – LinkedIn, Github, Gitlab, dev.to,  Stackoverflow, HackerRank, Reddit, Slack, Discord, or Twitter – and you will still miss them. Consider this. You can search by (“preferred”) programming language and location on Github. But many …

When assessing a people aggregator like SeekOut, Entelo, AmazingHiring, HireEZ, and others, or even the general-purpose Zoominfo, two points are critical: How complete is the coverage (for your target audience)? How up-to-date is the data? My idea is to run searches for unique names. If a combination <first, last> is unique (or even unique only in a given industry and …

Here are seven sample X-Ray searches which may give you additional ideas on X-Raying LinkedIn: Unemployed or Recent Job Changes: site:linkedin.com/in inanchor:walmart business analyst –intitle:walmart Recommended members: site:linkedin.com/in “recommendations received” People with no current job (at the crawl time) or those who hide the employment section on public profiles: site:linkedin.com/in -present Recent jobs with little competition: site:linkedin.com/jobs/view sourcer “be among …

The National Provider Identifier (NPI) is an identification number for covered Healthcare providers – doctors, dentists, chiropractors, nurses, and other medical staff. Many sites duplicate this info (Google for any concrete NPI number to find them). The primary site to use for search is npino.com. In Healthcare sourcing, it can complement utilizing Healthcare registries. View available lists of Physicians on …