Why this writer stopped using Google to find his past articles — and started using Authory instead
This article was originally published on Authory's blog.
Janos Gereben is what you would call a “true veteran” of the publishing world. He has been a writer and editor with the NY Herald-Tribune, TIME Inc., UPI, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, San Jose Mercury News, Post Newspaper Group, and for the past two decades has worked especially for the San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Classical Voice.
Given his distinguished career and his high level of productivity, Janos has written thousands of articles and opinion pieces in his life. Today, whenever he starts to write a new piece, chances are high that it’s on a topic he’s covered in the past. And a great starting point, naturally, is knowing what he actually wrote on the topic before.
Right now, I am writing separate stories about the SF Boys Chorus' 75th anniversary, a multi-million dollar auction on behalf of the Getty Foundation, and a new composition by Shinji Eshima - I have written much about all three over the years and instant access to prior coverage is very helpful.
The problem: If your body of work consists of thousands of articles, finding the right ones is not easy
Now, for Janos, that became a problem. With his vast body of work, how was he supposed to find prior pieces on topics that he covered before?
The go-to solution was Google. While the ubiquitous search engine is great if you are looking for something specific, it was a lot less helpful for Janos when it came to browsing and filtering his work. Janos wanted answers to queries such as “what pieces have I written on the topic of 'SF Boys Chorus' before? And which pieces on that topic for SF Classical Voice in particular?”
In essence, he wasn’t asking Google to find a specific piece but wanted a comprehensive list of everything (!) he had ever done on that topic. And that is simply not something Google provides. That’s why the process was cumbersome for Janos, and the results were still disappointing.
I tried but it didn't work.
The alternative to Google was to use the on-site search engines of the publications Janos wrote for. However, just like Google, they aren’t designed to surface what Janos was looking for and often did an even worse job.
The solution: A central place that indexed all of Janos’s work, making it easily accessible for the first time ever
After Janos started to use Authory, finding and browsing his past work became a breeze. To start with, Authory automatically found and imported Janos’ entire body of work which, at current count, is at least at 2,366 articles in different publications of what can still be recovered from the past half-century, much of this was before online storage.
All of these articles are now in a single place: Janos’ Authory account. In his Content section, he has a chronological index of his entire body of work at his fingertips anytime. It’s almost like an email inbox; instead of his emails, it displays Janos’ articles like a vast archive.
Janos' Authory Content Inbox
And just like with an email inbox or any proper archive, Janos can search and filter everything he has ever done in seconds. Taking the example from above, typing in “SF Boys Chorus” in the search input instantly results in a list of all his articles that remain online, Janos has written on that topic: 13 in total.
In the left sidebar, he can easily filter the results, e.g., by publication. That way, he can quickly find out that 12 of those were written for X and 1 written for Y.
Search Results for "SF Boys Chorus" in Janos' Authory account
In fact, Janos is very happy with the speed of Authory’s search and filters:
Authory's search engine is spectacular. Searching in my Authory account is far faster and more successful than using anything I’ve tried before.
Searching his work with Authory doesn’t stop there, though. Janos can click on any of the search results, and it will show him a 1:1 copy of the original article, safely stored in his Authory account.
1:1 copy of Janos' original article in his Authory account
This has two major advantages:
- When searching his work, Janos can read his past pieces right in his Authory account, where it’s displayed beautifully and without any annoying distractions like ads or paywalls.
- No matter what happens to the original piece, these copies are safe. So even if the original doesn’t exist anymore (and the sad truth is: all online articles will disappear at one point), Janos still has access to it via his Authory account.
Authory offers much more
Janos’s use case highlights very nicely how Authory can help content creators save time and be more efficient while searching and filtering their work.
The good news? That’s only part of what Authory does.
In fact, Authory is a real all-you-need solution helping content creators automatically handle everything that’s important after their content has been published. Besides amazing search and filter options, Authory also offers:
- A beautiful self-updating portfolio page
- Automated article backups of all your past and future content
- Detailed social media analytics
- An integrated newsletter system
- … and much more!
Join Janos and thousands of other content creators and be on top of your content game while saving countless hours of manual work every month: Try Authory for free!