I often use the Internet to research things related to training, development and learning, and like you, I use the search engines. Over the years, I’ve become increasingly frustrated at the amount of junk that I have to wade through when looking for good content. I’m not here to criticize the businesses that somehow rank highly for terms, but have almost nothing to offer. But I am here to begin talking about a solution.
In the past we have created directories of articles on various topics — training and development has one here. Since we collect good stuff, we ended up sharing them, which is actually how our various directories got started, and why, truth be told, we offer directories on subjects that are of interest to ME! I like to develop tools that solve problems for me, because often my problems are the same as your problems. And then we can share them free, hopefully.
Well, I thought, what if there was a search engine specifically to cover training, development, learning and such things, where the criteria for inclusion (to be searchable) would be as follows:
- unique, rich and valuable content on relevant topics
- free access to materials without fee or requirement to register
- preference (all things being equal) to smaller sources with excellent material who are simply not discovered because of how the general search engines work.
Then I wondered if it could be done. It could. I could create a tool to do what I (and hopefully, you) want it to do. Provide easy time saving access to subjects pertaining to training and learning.
So that’s what the World’s Greatest Training and Development Search Engine is, and yes, it is tongue in cheek. We have been available for just about 48 hours, but we’re working on it with the aim of being the best search and research tool available. Here’s a simple looking search box (that you can add to your blog or website):
This version fits almost everywhere. We’ll have other examples and code for people who want to add this engine, but if you want the simple one above, just copy the following code, and past it where you want the search box to go.
(Sorry, we are having a glitch in posting the code. We’ll put it all in a handy text file for you)
As you can imagine, I’m a bit cramped for time, so here’s a few points: First, you can try out the search engine (which is really in very early testing) by using the following widget (it’s another method for getting the search box:
Second if you want to make the search engine available to your users, you can do that by clicking here, and then clicking on the link about adding the search engine to your blog or website. It's just a simple cut and paste.
You can also add the search engine to your Google homepage if you have one at the same time.
Would You Like To Help?
We see this as a kind of community effort, and we could use your help. Right now, we could really use:
- feedback on the results (it's early and we have a long way to go so feedback is important),
- suggestions about what wonderful websites that fit the criteria above should be included and searchable. If you own one by all means let us know in the comment section. Good publicity for you, great for all of us, and if you do help out, we would hope you would deploy the search engine on your site (but of course that's up to you).
That's it for the moment. Questions, comments, feedback in the comment section below, thanks.
