1000+ Places and New Features

This past week the 1000th Place was entered into the Googility database! So far Google doesn't give me any information on the number web pages that totals in the Googility Custom Search Engine, but it has to be around 10,000 dog agility related pages. A big step forward from the few hundred I started out with.

I've also added two new features to the website over the past month

Descriptions for Each Place
For each Place in the Googility database you can now provide up to a 500 word description. This is displayed at the top of the page for each entry. So you can add additional information that lets visitors know more about your Place.

Browse/Search By Label
Each Place can have up to a dozen labels associated with it to help visitors fine tune their search. I've created a new page that lets you browse all the Places with each Label by clicking on the tab with a Label name. The page allows you to sort by the Place Name, City and State. You can also search within a Label selection by clicking on the search icon shown in the diagram below:


I found this new page interesting because it let me easily see how many of each Label is in the database.

Thanks to those of you who added Places to Googility and I hope you enjoy the new features.

Adding Your Agility Business, Web Site or Blog

With the improvements to the Googility website it is now easy for anyone to add or update the information for their favorite agility business, web site or blog to the Googility database.

I've created a short screencast demonstrating how easy it is to do. It also demonstrates some of the new features of the site.

Click on the image below to view the video:



This article describes some of the benefits of adding a business, web site or blog to Googility.

Community Supported Googility

I've just completed a complete rewrite of the Googility.com website. I have changed the philosophy of the web site so that it can better serve the agility community and added a bunch of new features.

For the Community and by the Community

Soon after starting Googility I found that there are so many agility related web sites that it would be a full time job to inspect them all and categorize them correctly. So I wrote this new version of the site to allow anyone to add and update the information in the Googility database. I also provided pages so anyone can browse the information.

Just like Wikipedia, all edits and additions are moderated and changes are not applied to the database until they are approved. This is to prevent mischievous people or spammers from putting inappropriate sites or information in the database.

As information is added and updated in Googility Google automatically updates the search engine, so it is always searching the latest websites and blogs.

So the future of searching for agility information on the web is now in the control of all of us in the agility community.

New Features

For searchers using the site:

• Same great custom search results!
  Search for "A Frame" in Google then search using Googility you'll see the difference.
  
• Browse businesses, websites and blogs in the Googility database
• Search for businesses, websites and blogs by name
  
• Get contact information for businesses (i.e., For Your Canine)
  
• Get driving directions to/from businesses (i.e., For Your Canine)
• More coming soon!
  

For agility blogs, websites and businesses:

• You don't need a website.
  It is increasingly unusual for agility businesses and trainers to not have a website. But even without one, when "search nearby" is implemented your location will be found just like all other businesses!
• A page giving the contact information for your business, website or blog.
  
• Driving directions to your location
• The contact and driving direction page's addresses doesn't change so you can link to them
  
• Your site gets higher rankings in web searches.
  Your site benefits from the permanent links from Googility.com
  

In an effort to answer questions about the new site I've written up a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list with a link in the footer of every page.

There is also a Contact Us page in which you can leave any suggestions or comments. I want to know what you think.

What's Next?

The FAQ hints at two next directions: searching near a location and mobile access. These two features can go hand in hand. As more agility businesses add their street addresses a natural thing to do is put them into Google Maps so you can search for a trainer, classes, or ring rental near your home. Once I add mobile support you could do the same while driving cross country right from your cell phone...

Get Better Results When You Refine Your Search

My initial efforts on Googility have been focused on adding new sites and web pages to the search engine. As I've learned more about Google Custom Search I started adding new features. The first new feature is search refinements.

I've placed every site and page in the engine into one or more categories. So when you search for something you'll see a new line appear above your search results stating: "Refine your search for:" and a list of categories applicable to your search will appear. If you click on one of the categories the search results will be further filtered to only include the pages in that category.

These refinements/categories should make it easier to find the pages that best fit your needs.

Here's an example for the results for "a frame":



The red ellipses show the refinements for the whole page and the labels associated with the first result in the list.

Here are categories that should cover useful groups of sites:

• Blogs
  blogs primarily containing agility training/trialing content.
  
• Clubs
  groups of agility folks with our without training or trialing facilities.
  
• Equipment
  manufacturers, plans, parts, materials.
• Forums
  an online forum searchable by Google.
• General
  any site with wide interest in agility or that makes it not fit the other categories.
  
• Organizations
  agility sanctioning bodies, e.g. AKC, USDAA.
  
• Services
  video, registration, trial secretary services, etc.
  
• Stores
  a site that is primarily for sales or a significant section of a site with other content (not just selling a couple items) generally excludes entries in the equipment category. i.e. the AgilityNerd Store is categorized only under store not equipment.
  
• Training
  Facilities and individuals who offer classes, workshops, seminars or private instruction.
  
• Training Facilities
  a training and/or trialing facility or school usually with instruction available
• Video
  site contains agility related professional or amateur video.
  

Of course some sites fit into multiple categories. Rachel Sander's Fast Forward Dog Sports site is in both the "Trainers" and "Training Facilities" categories because she gives seminars around the country and offers training at her home location. The WI-IL Agility Group is in both the "Clubs" and "Training Facilities" because they are a club but also offer classes and trials at their location.

These categories are still a work in progress. Adding too many specific categories makes the refinements less useful (not enough or no sites match) and too few/broad categories returns too many sites. One challenging entry is Agility Record Book an excellent "donation-ware" software program for tracking your competition and training runs, it is currently in the "Services" category.

Please let me know if these refinements are useful in your searches!

Search Only a Specific Site

Googility uses Google Custom Search to provide its search functionality. Consequently, you can use all of the advanced Google search functionality to modify your searches to get just the pages you really want.

The Google Guide web site provides a very thorough but readable overview of all of Google's features. The advanced operators description includes descriptions of all the keywords you can add to a regular Google search.

I think for Googility users a useful operator is the one that lets you specify a single site to search. To search only the AgilityNerd blog for articles on the Front Cross you type "front cross site:agilitynerd.com" into the Googility search box. It would get you these results (click the image for a better view):


As you can see only articles from the AgilityNerd blog containing "front cross" are displayed.

So if you want to search a specific site use the "site:" operator. You might also take a look at Google Guide for even more tips to make searching the web even easier.