Checking a signature
A query that finds something is not yet a signature. Before relying on it, see what it finds, take out what does not belong, and know what its number counts.
Read the code, not just the list
Under each result the page shows the code around the match. Check that it is the product's code - a script tag, a widget, a setting - and not a mention of it: a link in an article, a logo in a list of integrations, a name in a menu.
Look at the end of the list
Results are ordered by the popularity of the site. The first pages are often the product's own site, its partners and well-known reviews; noise collects further down. Open one of the last pages too: if the sites there are still customers, the query is clean.
Take out what does not belong
A minus removes the pages that contain a phrase. Pick a phrase that appears only in the noise - a review site's markup, a word from comparison pages - and put a minus before it.
Namesakes. Another company may share the product's name, and its code then matches a search for the name - a hosting company's cookie, a library with the same word in it. Searching for the product's traces rather than its name avoids most of this; a minus on the namesake's own trace takes care of the rest.
Widen it
One trace finds the customers who use one part of the product - its widget,
say, but not its hosted pages. Check each further trace on its own first, then
join them with |. A narrow query is accurate but incomplete; each
trace added should bring in customers, not noise.
What the count means
- Home pages, by default - one per site. Without
depth:the number is a number of sites. Products that sit on an inner page - a booking form, a login link on a page for owners - are reached withdepth:all. depth:allcounts pages, not sites. A site comes with every indexed page that matches. To know how many sites that is, save the results as a cluster: a cluster keeps unique domain names.- Only sites with the code are counted. A domain that redirects to a customer's site has no code of its own and is not on the list; the site it redirects to is.
Narrow it down
site:- customers in one country domain. See Operators.snipexp:- versions, account ids and settings of each customer. See Regular expressions.- Clusters - keep the customer list, compare it next month, extract contacts from it.