The classic yet beautifully designed Rolodex was good enough for as long as it worked. But once the world became one big opportunity hub, the big black knobs used in the rotary file simply would not have been able to hold the number of cards needed to flip through, without the owner not being negatively impacted by missed business contacts.

And even then, as Google became the go-to place to look for virtually everything, searches continued to be burdensome and time-consuming.

Googling For Business

Here’s a simple example of why traditional Internet search engines are not the best at meeting business needs. Suppose I manufacture portable GPS devices for hikers, and I need to find a lithium battery manufacturer to power my units. So I Google “lithium battery manufacturer” and, to my surprise, Google has found about 27,700,000 results. That’s more than I need, and much more than I could ever sort through.

I look at the first 10 results, figuring they should be the most relevant. They include one battery retailer, a link to 10 manufacturers of lithium batteries for electric cars, an investment article on lithium stock, among other unrelated search results (note: Google results vary from user to user, so your results for the same search term could vary).

As I peruse a few more pages of results, I do find a few more lithium battery manufactures, but they are sprinkled throughout a mix of other, unrelated topics. And the deeper I go into the results list the harder it is to find what I’m looking for.

Exact Google Search

Of course, if I wanted to further leverage my search results, I could analyze a few hundred of them to determine which are most relevant to my lithium battery needs. To do this efficiently, I would love to be able to export the first few hundred results and filter out the irrelevant ones. Unfortunately, I can’t easily export my Google search results. So I patiently, and manually, plow through the results and cut and paste interesting possibilities into a spreadsheet. Later I’ll have to research every company to determine its potential compatibility. This manual approach works, but it requires a lot of labor. And even then, I suspect that there would be “nuggets” I would miss during my manual processing.

Accuracy of Search Results

That is why, particularly during these hard times, at the forefront of our work, is making sure that companies connect with only those best placed to deliver a real business outcome. Powerlinx’s mission is to make the process of searching for the most relevant business opportunities and partnerships fast and easy, so only the best matches appear, while helping members find new suppliers, expand product lines, reach new markets, look for funding, and even sell their business.