Defining search agents is sometimes an art. But with NewsMachine’s system, you have full control.
Entering keywords in the first two search fields is usually easy. “Any of these words (OR)” and “All of these words (AND)”. But there’s a lot more you can do to tweak your agents.
The key is often to try, adjust, and try again.
1. Use the third field: ‘Not one of these words (NOT)’. Here you can exclude hits containing specific words.
2. spelling errors. If the words you search for are often misspelled, you can add different spelling variants. This applies, for example, to differences in British or American English.
3. plurals, endings, or abbreviations. By adding an asterisk*, you capture different endings after a word.
4. Capitalization. If you use capital letters in your search terms, words with only lower case letters will be filtered out.
5. Separate or compound words. Add more variations to your keywords.
6. Review your choice of news sources. You can choose a variety of parameters to limit your media monitoring. For example, you can opt out of languages, countries, or individual sources.
Train your agent with AI
Today you can also train your agent with AI. By indicating whether a hit is “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”, the search agent learns which articles are relevant to you.