I wanted to put my research method into a post. It may help others who are trying to find something, not necessarily doing huge research but maybe just to find a picture. One part I can't really teach is the ability to use websites in other languages without being able to read it yourself.
Searching in online classified sites: Ebay (Ekkiy searches international Ebays), PriceMinister (France), Yahoo Auctions Japan, Yahoo Auctions Hong Kong, Kijii/CraigsList, Mercadolivre/Mercadolibre (South America), Tmall, DCFever, etc.
- You can find the images of actual items, often in loose form. Helpful in some cases (like Ebay or YA) where you can zoom in the picture and read things off the box or whatever. Good way for getting a barcode, but sometimes you can't make it out. Sometimes you can find what something looks like, but you can't use the image. It helps to know what you are looking for when using a general search.
Google, and Google Image Search: When using Image Search, it will show you things unrelated to your search. Google will often change search terms on you and there doesn't seem to be a way to stop it, even if using quotes. When you are on a regular search page, it will say that it is searching for something other than what you typed in, but on Google Images, it doesn't do this.
When searching for things outside of your region, try to search using the native language. You can use Google Translate for this. Of course, we know that Google Translate is not perfect, but you can use it to find the correct search terms. For example, if you are trying to find something about a Korean game or system, put the English (or whatever) into translate. Then take the output and search for it. But what you are doing here is finding anything similar. Visit a couple pages that are related to the terms you are using, and see if that site is using the same words that Google Translate gave you or not. Then you would want to search using the terms the actual site uses in case of there being an actual difference.
Also be aware that different languages use different words for things. For example, some countries would use the term 'carton' instead of 'box' in their native language. Take care when translating to Hebrew or Arabic, as their text is reversed (it will play tricks on your search bar and typing) and even I get confused trying to insert quotes lol.
If you get stuck and just can't find something, you can try searching for the thing's barcode. In the US it is a UPC, in Europe it is EAN and in Japan it is JAN. (Japan being the hardest because Google will search for January also). This will often put you onto retail sites that will have that info, but do not immediately trust the barcode it tells you. Search on that barcode to make sure it is correct. If you find a picture of an item using the barcode in Google Image search, actually go to the page and make sure it is correct, or that it isn't one of those pages that just has multiple on there for whatever reason. Those UPC lookup sites like UPCFinder or whatever else are often not as helpful as they seem.
And remember that JAN does not use the T at the beginning that is on the actual packaging. Do not search with the T prefix, just as we are not to put it on entries in the DB either.
