The most popular search engine today for finding information about different companies
Google is the most popular search engine in the world as it has over 3 billion active users. It has also established itself as one of the smartest search engines, by being able to understand questions such as "who is Tom Cruise's wife" or "how many calories are in a banana". However, due to how quickly Google indexes and learns, it can be difficult for those searching for specific information about a company.
This blog post will take you through all the best platforms that are available to find out more about companies in detail. Some of those platforms may surprise you, as they do not fit into the usual 'Google' mould.
Social Media: Over the past few years, social media has become essential for many companies to keep in touch with their customers. It is a great way to find out more about a company and what it does. You can receive info about new products, services or changes that are happening within a company. Facebook – There are many approaches to find both companies and specific people on Facebook. One of the most popular is searching for them through Pages which work well due to how much info can be included. Twitter – Twitter is one of the most overlooked social media platforms when researching businesses and companies. I have lined out some steps below which I feel you should try when looking for Twitter handles. 1) Use "Advanced Search" and tick "Tweets and Retweets". This will allow you to search for tweets that are posted by a certain company or individual. 2) If Advanced Search doesn't return the results, it is because the person has deleted all of their Tweets, which is not a problem because they may still exist in the form of media or replies that they have made. 3) Try using hashtags on Twitter such as "#" and "?". Hashtags are one of the most used ways to connect with people who share your interests, which can be beneficial when looking up business accounts. 4) Another approach is to look up a persons name in a list such as 'Top Accounts'. 5) Also, you can use the "Top" tab. This will show you the most followed and retweeted accounts on Twitter, which may help you find accounts that are relevant to your findings.
Youtube: YouTube is a popular way for people to watch videos of companies and businesses. It's also worth searching for company information on Youtube through Google's advanced search by clicking "Advanced Search" in the corner of the browser, ticked on "Create Video Search".
Google Scholar – Google Scholar is an alternative to using Google when looking for academic records about researchers, universities and institutions. It can also be used to find out about published material about a specific subject or topic.
Google Books – This is not just relevant to finding information about a company, but it can also provide insight into their customer reviews and feedback on their services/products.
Wikis: Wikis are websites where contributors collaborate on creating content, however there is no assigned hierarchy of editors. They allow users to edit information and add a link to the original source, which leaves a 'trace' back to the original information. This can be useful for seeing how certain facts have changed over time. Wikipedia – Wikipedia allows you to enter in a company name and find out more about them. It can be used to find out more about the history of a company, who the CEO is and which products/services they provide. Some of this information may not be up to date or correct. You can also find some customers reviews of a company on Wikipedia as well. Wikidata – Wikidata is one of the newest Wikimedia projects that was launched in 2012. It aims to store structured data from many different sources, including companies and businesses (i.e Tesco). This can then be used for other websites like Wikipedia, Google or Bing to create links between those websites by using its unique identifiers (i.e Tesco's "P32U8").
Company Websites: This is the most obvious place to look for information about companies and businesses. There are a few things that you can do to find the information that you want. Google Reverse Image Search – This is one of my favourite tools to use which allows you to search for an image using Google. When searching for a company or business, I would advise that you search by images first, as it is a quicker way than going through each page on the website (which can be time consuming). What you can do is copy and paste an image of the company/business into a new tab in Google (or into your browser bar) then click on "Search by image". This will return results from Google images, which means that you can then use the tabs on the right hand side to find out more information. Open Site Explorer – This shows a site's backlinks, which could provide an insight into what other websites are saying about a company/business. The "Top Pages" tab is particularly useful to see what content on the site is popular and how many links it has gained. This type of information tells you whether or not the page is trustworthy and contains quality information that can be used in future referencing. Domain Registration Date – This can help you determine when a website was launched and when it was last updated. If the registration date (or dates) is older than the date the website was launched, it could mean that the company/business is not well established. If it has a long period of time in between, it can also be an indication that they are not active on their website. WhoIs – This allows you to find out who owns/runs a company/website. You can type in the domain and click "view results" which will bring up details about the owner and technical information about their website. Alexa – Alexa takes a look at how popular a certain website is and displays this information in various ways, including location of visitors. It also displays their number of monthly visitors and the amount of pageviews per month. This can be used to see if a certain website is popular, which will show you whether or not to research it.
Domain Name Techniques
Retrieving Domain Names – The method of retrieving domain names is the same as for other websites and social media platforms. You can use the "Web Site" tab in Google (or by clicking on "Advanced Search" in your browser) to find out more information about a domain name, such as who registered it and for what purpose they registered it. You can then look up this information on NameCheap or GoDaddy to see if you can purchase the domain name. However, before purchasing a domain name you may want to check out the "Registry" tab on the domain name, which will return information about who owns or controls that domain name. This can help you decide whether or not to purchase the domain name.
Domain Whois – You can use this tool to find out information about a domain like who registered it and when it was registered. It will also show you the registrant contact details, which could be useful if you wanted to get in contact with them.
Conclusion
There are many methods and ways of finding information about companies and businesses, however it is important to note that it is not always easy to find reliable information. There will be times when the information you find will not be up to date or correct. It is important that you use your knowledge and research skills to recognise how outdated the information may be and what kind of bias it has been written with. Sometimes, this is why a university assignment could get rejected because the evidence used has been found online; therefore, there could have been a risk of plagiarism.
A few extra tips for finding reliable business information:
Try searching for articles from well-known newspapers or magazines like the Wall Street Journal or Forbes .