How to search events between two dates in WP?

Searching Google for specific events taking place at hotels around the country

• I would like to set up a standardized Google search process for finding meetings, conferences, and events taking place at hotels across the country. I will have the information for the hotel name, the event dates, and the city for all my search requests. What I want to know is the best google search format to find these events. For example, I know that Microsoft had a meeting at the Doubletree San Jose on April 12, 2004. I want to know what the best search process would be to search Google to see if this specific event on this specific date at this specific hotel is listed somewhere on the internet. My objective is to set up a standardized search process so that I can have a uniform search process to search for these events on Google. In addition, my objective would be to only have Google return the top 20 matches to each search request.

• Answer:

  OK, baileyone-ga. Time to get this show on the road. I?ll get to actual search strategies in a moment. But first, a quick clarification about the internet (to the extent that *anything* can be clarified when it comes to the internet). Your comments mentioned that you want to search Google and also search the internet. However, Google does exactly that -- searches the internet. There is no need for separate strategies. There are other search engines such as AltaVista or Yahoo! Search which also search the internet. They all do a very good job. I?ll describe search strategies using Google as an example, but other search engines will do nicely as well, in case you want to explore other options. The area where you *should* have separate searches is in searching websites vs searching news sources. Google handles these separately...more on that below. Before rating the answer I?ve provided here, please let me know if there is anything about it that is unclear, or if you simply need additional information. Just post a Request for Clarification to let me know how I can help you further, and I will be happy to do so. Happy Googling! pafalafa-ga ========== Let?s say you?re searching for the following event: ----- The Current Status and Future Trends in Technobabble Thursday and Friday, June 24-25, 2004 Omni Carlton Ritzy Schmitzy Hotel San Francisco, CA ----- The first thing to do is copy JUST THE TITLE of the meeting: [ The Current Status and Future Trends in Technobabble ] and paste it lock, stock and barrel into the Google search box at: ://www.google.com/ Google is very good at recognizing the names of things, and vaulting matching names to the top of their search results. If there are web pages containing the exact phrase, or something very close to: The Current Status and Future Trends in Technobabble most of the time they will show up in the very first few search results. Next, conduct the very same search at Google News: http://news.google.com/ This will search millions of recent news articles and press releases for the conference of interest. If you have the exact name of the meeting, most of the time these two simple searches will do the trick -- either the results will appear at the top of the search results page, or there isn?t much out there on the internet about this particular meeting. It?s pretty easy, actually. =========== However, there are times when you may want to try a more sophisticated search: --If a conference with the same name is repeated at different times and you?re having trouble pinning down the latest one; --If a conference with the same name is repeated at different places and you?re having trouble pinning down the one in the city of interest to you; --If the name of the meeting is a bit too generic (e.g. ?Information Strategies?); --If the meeting goes by several names, and is not showing up in search results. If the conference is one that repeats itself from year to year, it?s a good idea to add the year of the meeting you?re interested in to the search box: The Current Status and Future Trends in Technobabble 2004 If the same conference is held all over the country in 2004, and you only want information on the San Francisco meeting, then add some geographical information: The Current Status and Future Trends in Technobabble (san francisco OR SF) Note that I used the ?OR? command (always capitalized) to tell Google to search for the city name OR the common initials. Most of the time this is enough, but for some cities like New York, you may have to add a few other common names: The Current Status and Future Trends in Technobabble (new york OR ny OR nyc OR manhattan) (It makes no difference if the city name is upper case or lower case letters, but the ?OR? must be upper case). If you want to make the search even a bit tighter, then put quotes around city names if they have more than one word): The Current Status and Future Trends in Technobabble (?new york? OR ny OR nyc OR manhattan) ========== For meeting names that are too generic, then it will help to include some other key identifying terms. Let?s say someone *was* foolish enough to name their conference ?Information Strategies? and it was being held at the same place, same dates as our Technobabble example. Then a good search would be: ?information strategies? 2004 (san francisco OR sf) (carlton OR ritzy) Note a few things here: --conference name is in quotes -- this forces Google to look for the exact phrase, ?information strategies?, rather than the individual very generic words --year and city names we discussed already -- these help to pinpoint the particular meeting of interest to you. --some key terms from the hotel name are all that are needed. I didn?t include the entire hotel name since it might go by a shorthand name (e.g. ?The Carlton?) and adding the full name could just confuse things. --nor did I add the June 24-25 date to the search. Unlike years, months and days can be quite variable (June 24 vs 7/24), and as a rule of thumb, it?s better off not working them into a search. ========== Google has plenty more tricks up its sleeves, but I?m going to stop here. Give these search strategies a try and see how they work for you. I suspect that you?ll find most of what you need with just these simple searches (assuming, of course, that information about the meeting exists on the internet -- if it doesn?t, no amount of sophisticated searching will find anything!!!). However, if for any reason the results aren?t satisfying your needs, just let me know. I?ll be glad to continue working with you on this until you squeeze every last bit of information you can out of the splendid Google search engine. All the best, pafalafa-ga