As a new prospect researcher with Aspire Research Group I am constantly reading and learning new techniques. I recently came across a very helpful document on the internet: Google and Beyond: Making the Most of Search Engines for Prospect Research by Steven Hupp. He explains many useful search options within Google Search and expands upon the topic to speak about other search engine and meta search engine options. I thought I would share the search techniques that I found most useful while reading his presentation.

When using Google Search, you can use the ordinary Google search box or click the Advanced Search link near the box. I am describing how to use the everyday Google search box.

Using Quotes
The first advanced operator (otherwise known as useful thing to help make your searching more productive) is one that most people who have used Google already know about. When searching for a prospect (Jane Doe) put her name in quotes: “Jane Doe”. This weeds out all the search results that have Jane and Doe but not together. I use quotes for all the known combinations of the donor prospect’s name (e.g., Jane Doe, Jane E. Doe, Jane Evermand Doe)

The Asterisk
You can also use the asterisk with quotes. If you put “Jane Doe * Pennsylvania”, the * acts as a wild card and will produce search results that include all Jane Doe “any word at all” Pennsylvania. This can be helpful if you are not sure where in Pennsylvania a prospect lives or want to find all the places she might be involved within the state.

The Minus Sign
Another advanced operator that can be very time-saving is the minus sign (-). When you are searching a prospect’s name and it is relatively common or there is another specific person who is not your prospect who keeps showing up and taking over all the search results, simply put “Jane Doe” –ski ball and all the ski ball results will go away.

Domain Search
One can also use Google search to look specifically at a single website. Site searching looks like this: “Jane Doe” site: aspireresearchgroup.com. This will produce search results that only include Jane Doe’s name when it shows up on the website in question.

Type of File
The final search function that Mr. Hupp mentions that I think could be really helpful to people doing prospect research is the filetype search. In order to do this search type: “Jane Doe” filetype: pdf (or whatever file type you want) and the Google search results will only include documents of that particular file type where Jane Doe is mentioned. This would be particularly useful when used with PDF documents, as so often they include foundation reports and donor lists.

Happy Searching!
By using these tips on more productive Google searching, I hope that your searches will become less like searching for a needle in a haystack and more like searching for a colorful drinking straw in a haystack. 😀

Go Ask Aspire
And of course you can always ask Aspire Research Group to find your donor prospect in the haystack for you! We provide some of the most thorough donor prospect profiles in the business! Click here for more information.