This may not be a good one for this forum, but here it is: while I own DevonAgent - I rarely use it. When I do, there’s always the return learning curve at the 11th hour!
Any suggestions for a smarter search?
This is the sort of search that has me coming to DevonAgent.
In this case: I am searching the web for a specific industrial product.
But experiencing difficulty drilling down to the creature I need. Crafting a search that gets me away from the junk early as much as possible. And perhaps filtering out, yet retaining sites which are without images as lower quality, secondary search options.
There are so many advert sites with scant information & user forum [opinion] hits that I come to realize I am not using DevonAgent well at all. Or perhaps vendors are so horrible at tagging their products, in combination with my bad choices.
Anyway, suggestions would be appreciated, if it has me using DA better in the future.
Example: The crux of a recent search:
Door stop, meaning a lever mechanism that is NOT a hinge, but allows a door to swing 90 and 180 degrees, locking in those positions & is released from the lock by your foot (hence “foot stay”).
The alternative would be a product that allows 90 or more degrees, yet can lock at 90, to see if I can make something to facilitate the 180 degree swing.
The crucial issue in crafting queries is to reflect the use of terms and exact strings in the Web pages that you are searching.
“Door stop” should probably be your first term, enclosing the string within quotation marks.
Is “foot stay” commonly used to describe the type of door stop you are looking for? If so, add that also as an exact string. Or, if that would be the best descriptor used in the door stop industry, make that the primary term.
I have no idea what angles are standard or available in such door stops. So the question is whether the strings 90 and/or 180 should be included in the query, or whether you leave out that level of query and winnow through the results instead.
I never thought doorstops could be so instructive but here we are with Bill’s first sentence which is advice that is so simple but just never occurred to me! My searches will be better constructed now I am sure. (And if anyone thinks I am being sarcastic, I am not).
Seems like an interesting challenge. So, using DA, and searching Google there for
"door stop" "foot stay" (180 or 90)
I received 5 hits, the first three (all from eBay) seemed relevant (as far as I can tell), but the last two were so strangely off the mark I cannot see why they have anything do to with the query. The name of the last site is not even printable in present company.
Thanks for all the replies.
I haven’t had a chance to test drive them, yet. will let you know if sufficient hits come up.
Searching for items like this is a great use for DevonAgent - assuming I can fashion the query well enough.
I did try some deep searches (without quotes) before I posted, which yielded a pretty large number of hits, quite a few were way off the mark, including vacation stays! Using any web browser for a product search is fraught with some issues.
"Door stop” yields a ton of mechanisms. “Foot Stay” - I’m not certain if that’s a common enough term, but the idea is that it is a kick-disengage for the “lock” to close the door & is a term used by some manufacturers. Thus, tend to be used at the bottom of a door.
There are industrial part aggregators (Thomson Register, for example) that is a common place to search for industrial parts, but past experience indicates that it [used to] be riddled with bad sites & malicious links.
180 degree may not be common enough.
There are some very nice devices I found, but they don’t flip the door.
There are more preferences in the part as well - stainless steel & probably oil-less bearings if bearings are used, for example. But I thought that might be asking too much.
Likely nothing will fit my use exactly, but querying to find something close was the challenge.
My general search with 2 sets of search terms, each in quotations yielded 1839 items. But the search window was empty (did better this morning). I also used a comma & space as a separator & included 180.
There is no way to indicate “similar to” is there? To bias toward a type of hit that at least is in the ballpark?
The results list is long, but the actual search didn’t show up.
Checking a manufacturer during the day from work - there was a parts aggregator site that disallowed search spiders.
So the question is whether the strings 90 and/or 180 should be included in the query, or whether you leave out that level of query and winnow through the results instead.
but here we are with Bill’s first sentence which is advice that is so simple but just never occurred to me! My searches will be better constructed now I am sure. (And if anyone thinks I am being sarcastic, I am not).
