A Google Dork for Everyone
February 21, 2022
In my lectures about open source intelligence for law enforcement and other government professionals, I mention Google Dorks. I won’t go into detail, but the “dork” is a fancy way of saying a person who is an information professional with a knowledge of specialized commands can get semi-on point results from the online ad outfit. See for example this link. Do Googlers wear T shirts emblazoned with the phrase “Don’t be evil.” I saw such a shirt with the message “Don’t be Google,” but I may have misread.
What’s interesting is that Google Dorking is finding its way into the mainstream of the people who perceive themselves as “experts in online research.” Yep, the expertise is often similar to mastering an automatic teller machine, but that’s possibly a characteristic of our Covid era.
“Google Search Is Dying” has undergone a number of updates. The write up states:
Google still gives decent results for many other categories, especially when it comes to factual information. You might think that Google results are pretty good for you, and you have no idea what I’m talking about. What you don’t realize is that you’ve been self-censoring yourself from searching most of the things you would have wanted to search. You already know subconsciously that Google isn’t going to return a good result.
The punch line is “Google is dying.” Yeah, no kidding. When the wizard from Verity and Yahoo got involved, it was not dying. It was gifted a MOAB (that is the mother of all bombs or a disconnect from a query and stuff like precision and recall).
So what’s the fix?
A Google Dork.
Enter a query and stick “reddit” in the query. The idea is that some entity (bot or humanoid) will have posted more useful, authentic, relevant information on that service. One can be sporty and try wiki at the end of a query as well.
Google Dorking for everyone even the self proclaimed experts in online information search and retrieval! The challenge is that Google advertising is pumping cash, and that plus the bonuses for senior management is what makes Google search the outstanding service it is.
Stephen E Arnold, February 21, 2022
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