Google is one of most accurate and usable search engines every developed. The geniuses at Google Labs (labs.google.com) are always coming up with new innovative ways to allow people to search for information. With over a billion pages indexed, Google is largest search engine and should stay that way for foreseeable future. That being said, basically any information that you could possibly imagine is somewhere on Google including information on your company and your competition.

Here is how you can find out everything you can imagine about your competition in five easy steps:

1. Locate your competition's domain name.

2. Type in Google Search Bar: link:companyname.com -site:companyname.com. This will show all web pages (excluding their own pages) that have a link pointing to your competitors web site.

3. Document ALL of links in document (I use Excel personally).

4. Repeat process except with a www in front of their domain name, then two more times but instead of "link", write "inurl".

5. Now list you will be left with will provide following key information about your competition:

evaluate your potential partner first. Outsource to them only if they successfully pass through your appraisal sieve.

Here are some important evaluation criteria and methods for assessing them: ---> Criterion: The OSP Should Be Web-Savvy Check if OSP has a website. If they do not, in all probability dealing with them will yield a bad experience. If they

have a website, check whether their postal address and telephone number are displayed on it so that they are physically

reachable. Give OSP credit if website has mostly text with limited graphics, has almost no animation, clearly explains what

OSP is doing and is easy to navigate. This implies detailed knowledge on website design, which increases their ‘web-savvy’

rating. Your CAD outsourcing is most probably going to involve transferring large amounts of data over web. This calls for an OSP

who is proficient with email.

To evaluate this, send OSP a message asking for more information and see if you get a response within 12 hours. The

response should be perfectly focused on your question. You have to be careful an autoresponder (ie, a web-based answering

machine) is not replying to you, so formulate your question to require a tailor-made reply. Subsequently send two more questions related to work you are considering giving OSP. Check whether these responses

too are timely and relevant. If OSP has a form on their website for sending them email, give them extra points (smart webmasters do not put their

email addresses on their websites to discourage Spam robots from finding addresses and sending junk mail to them). ---> Criterion: The OSP Should Have a Satisfactory Profile Email OSP a questionnaire that gathers a wide range of information on them. Decide whether you like what you find. This

questionnaire should cover address information, telephone number of individual dealing with you, company history,