Search Australia Help

Search Australia was added to the JustLocal site to assist those who wish to search. JustLocal isn't about searching, it is about going to a postcode area and then clicking on the business you wish to use.

To make it easier for JustLocal users who wish to use the search engines to find products and services independent of area, adding Search Australia made sense. When I search I really don't want to see large overseas companies or directories dominating the search results. I decided to build my own search facility and I hope others find it useful. The following explains Search Australia and provides some useful tips.

1. Search Australia only provides results for sites which use com.au, net.au, gov.au, org.au, id.au and asn.au. Many businesses register other domains such as .com domains, but most Australian businesses will try to use a .au domain if they can. Using .au domains as the first level of restriction helps to isolate sites to be more than likely Australian sites.
2. Google's search results can easily be overwhelmed by directories so instead of easily finding the site for the company you want, you end up going to a directory. I've excluded  dozens of directories whose only real purpose is to get between you and the site of the business.
3. Hundreds of millions of searches a year end up in Google when really there is no need. I took the top sites and words people search for and now if you enter one of these business names you'll go direct to the site. For example enter 'weather' and you'll go direct to the Bureau of Meteorology. Enter 'ANZ and you'll go direct to the ANZ site.
4. For those who would prefer Google doesn't know everything about them I decided why not make it easier to use the other main search engines and that way you split your search queries across multiple search engines and Google knows less about you. Enter g, y, or b to go to Google, Yahoo or Bing respectively. Enter the letter for the search engine, a space and then your phrase you wish to search for and you'll go direct to the results for that search engine. Keep in mind you go to the full search engine so the filtering no longer occurs.
5. If the Search Australia search engine doesn't give you the result you want for some reason, go to the Search Australia page and enter one of the letters g, y, or b and go direct to Google, Yahoo or Bing. I find if I want to open up the search to perhaps do a global search after using Search Australia, I copy my search criteria, go to the Search Australia page, enter the letter for the search and paste my search criteria I can then do a broader search.
6. For me eBay and Gumtree make it harder for me to find things so I decided to exclude eBay and Gumtree results. If you want to search eBay or Gumtree just enter 'eBay' or 'Gumtree' from the Search Australia page and go to the eBay or Gumtree site.
7. I've added Search Australia as my default search engine to Internet Explorer. Now I can enter searches directly into the address area. You can add Search Australia from my Fun With Search page. Search Australia is located near the bottom of the page.

So to summarise Search Australia provides you with easy access to Australian sites, quick direct access to commonly search for sites, the removal of dozens of directories with the aim of helping you find what you want more easily. You can even add Search Australia as your default search to Internet Explorer and make using Search Australia even more convenient.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.JustLocal.com.au