Toolkit Addition

ToolKit: The "link:" Query

Don't forget to use the "link:" query when searching for potential candidates. The tool works best in AltaVista or HotBot. It shows you all (or most) of the sites that have links pointed at a particular URL.

For example, the query link:http://wwww.cisco.com (on AltaVista) or search for links to this URL (on HotBot) produce long lists of the links that point to Cisco's home page.

Included are a number of links to a web site called www.employees.org which is web space for employees and contractors at Cisco.

You'll find the same thing scattered around the web for many companies.

The link: query is also useful for gaining a grasp of the traffic patterns at a competitor's site. Since most traffic comes from links, a look at a sites link infrastructure should offer you a clear understanding of the forces that bring visitors to a site.

It's interesting to note that the two queries for Cisco produce wildly different results. AltaVista lists about 20,000 links pointing to Cisco while HotBot lists over 55,000. The differences between these two services are growing every day.

Search Tips

Boolean Operators Here's a quick review of the most common "Boolean" search terms.

Command	What It Means	Example
OR	Match Any	Recruiter OR Headhunter
-	Exclude	Database - Administrator (It means find all Databases but not Database Administrator)
AND NOT	Exclude	Database AND NOT Administrator
NOT	Exclude	Database NOT Administrator
BUT NOT	Exclude	Database BUT NOT Administrator
NEAR	Proximity	Database NEAR Administrator (search sites that use this command will allow you to search for the words Database and Administrator within 10, 20 or 100 words of each other)
NEAR/number	Proximity	Database NEAR/10 Administrator
*	Wild Card	run* (this will find all variations of the word from run, runs, running, etc. Some search engines work more smoothly if you use a wildcard for each letter.)
+	Match All	+Database+Administrator
" "	Match ALL	"Database Administrator"
AND	Match All	Database AND Administrator

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