The true barometer of quality for a search engine is the value and relevance of its results for its users. Google, Yahoo and other popular search engines search millions of Web pages and may return thousands of results, depending on the specificity of the search terms. If a user isn’t a seasoned “googler” or isn’t sure what search terms might be best for a particular topic, finding useful information on these massive search engines can be time consuming. Hence, the vertical market search engine was born.
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tical market search engines limit the number of Web sites searched to only those in a particular industry, and thus can bring back much more targeted results.
FacilityZone, a vertical market search engine for facility professionals, searches more than 2 million facility-related Web pages, including sites for manufacturers, trade groups, government organizations, universities, etc. To target searches even more, FacilityZone now has the capability to search for articles related to the search terms entered.
“Our new Article Search function further enhances a user’s ability to locate focused, facility-related information quickly and easily,” says Brad Ehlert, vice president/group publisher, Trade Press Publishing Corp. “We think users will benefit from the ability to find the information they are looking for without having to wade through pages of inapplicable information.”
The FacilityZone Article Search function, available on the FacilityZone home page (www.facilityzone.com), crawls hundreds of industry trade publications and Web sites, more than 560,000 industry-related Web pages in total, and returns results more targeted than those that the major search engines could provide.
For example, enter the search term “green” on a general search engine, and you’ll get everything from the Green Political Party to the alternative music group Green Day. Entering “green” on FacilityZone’s Article Search function yields results of articles specifically covering sustainable design, construction and operations.
On all search engines, the more specific the search terms, the better the results. That's true for Article Search as well. One thing to be aware of, however, is that Article Search is a little different than general search engines in that two or three is the maximum number of search terms that will still yield good results.
For instance, if a user wanted to learn about green strategies employed by The Getty Center, a Los Angeles art museum and research center, entering “Getty Center green” in FacilityZone’s Article Search function yields several trade magazine articles about the facility’s LEED-EB certification and awards for sustainable strategies. With a general search engine’s results to the same search terms, a user would likely have to go several pages deep or add several more search terms to find the same number of facility-related pages returned by FacilityZone’s article search.
FacilityZone Article Search doesn’t return results pages on manufacturers’ Web sites, but users that are interested in finding product information can simply use the regular FacilityZone search function.
“We really think this Article Search function is a valuable tool for facility professionals,” says Ehlert. “We know facility professionals are busy, and we’re hoping this option will help them locate the information they need, but save them time doing so.”
Tips for Using Article Search
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