One of the best tips for helping users to locate articles on our site is to avoid the use of too-specific searches. Most of the subjects we write about are based upon items that circulate widely on the Internet, and they are subject to repeated alteration, revision, truncation, and wholesale rewriting as they are continually forwarded and reposted via e-mail and web sites. Therefore, the optimal search strategy is to avoid pasting specific phrases from items (such as subject lines or opening sentences) from items into our search engine and instead focus on selecting a few distinctive words or names to use as search terms.
For example, one item which has garnered a good deal of attention is a text dealing with Brookfield Properties' purported ownership of New York's
Zuccotti Park (which was used as a rallying area and camp site by some Occupy Wall Street protesters). Many visitors looking for our article on this topic have come away empty because they searched for phrases such as "THIS CON GAME WILL BLOW YOUR MIND," "Do you remember the Wall Street Protesters?" or "(OBAMA): Brookfield Properties/A MUST READ," none of which appear in the Example text reproduced on our page. (Those phrases were all added later, after the text had been circulating for several months). A much better approach would be to simply search on the
combination of "Zuccotti" and "Brookfield," words which are distinctive enough that they are not likely to turn up in more than a few articles (especially in combination).
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