Google as a research tool

The power of search engines used for "research" can be
overrated without proper, old fashioned hands-on research
to back it up.



Just a throwaway post for what it is worth, but have you ever been so bored or curious that you Googled your own name?

On the Share Investor Blog almost everyone who has had a piece written about them has checked out that piece and their competition has also done similar.

The public relations departments of companies clearly have people who do this, should I be worried?!

I'm not about to tell you here who is Googling themselves(sorry about that, and it gives me an investing advantage) because these shy folk want to keep their anonymity, and that is fair enough, but there are also a number of brokers and serious heavyweight financial institutions who get their info from Google and that has got me wondering about the credibility of the information and expertise that they in turn pass on to their clients.

I would like to think that financial institutions or brokers making decisions with their clients money might like to actually visit the institutions they have been Googling from time to time to get the full picture, and I'm sure that most do but there is a tendency with human nature when a search engine is at your fingertips, to get lazy. I'm guilty of that as I'm sure some of my readers are.

So, you know important companies are listening and reading what we all say about them online so give them a chance to hear what you have to say and it might just make a difference somewhere along the line.

You can do that on the Share Investor Blog by either using the social network sites like Digg and Stumble Upon and spreading links from this site and others. Links for most of these sites are located at the bottom of each article or make a comment on this site itself where it says "comment", again at the bottom of each article. Its really easy.

For those of you who have commented, thanks, and for those of you who would like to, I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions, positive or negative.


Related reading from Share Investor

Google: Has it lived up to the hype?


C Share Investor 2008