# 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 with `depth:all`.
- **`depth:all` counts 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](https://publicwww.com/docs/clusters/): 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](https://publicwww.com/docs/query-syntax/operators/).
- `snipexp:` - versions, account ids and settings of each customer. See [Regular expressions](https://publicwww.com/docs/query-syntax/regex/).
- [Clusters](https://publicwww.com/docs/clusters/) - keep the customer list, compare it next month, extract contacts from it.

Source: https://publicwww.com/docs/signatures/checking/