SKILL / Research
Plans: Pro & AgencyFederated and Regional Search
Broaden discovery across regional and alternative search sources, including language-specific research.
Read the step-by-step user guideFederated and Regional Search answers a question that one vantage point can hide: what appears about this subject in regional, language-specific and alternative search sources that mainstream search results do not surface? Nexus broadens discovery across supported regional and alternative indexes and returns a deduplicated assessment, with each reference attributed to the source it came from. Every finding links to inspectable evidence, so this agentic OSINT Skill adds reach without losing the trail back to the source.
What you get
A deduplicated assessment of what regional and alternative search sources add about the subject.
Using Federated and Regional Search in an investigation
Subjects who operate in a particular country, publish in a language other than English or keep a small footprint on the mainstream web can look invisible from one vantage point and well documented from another. The result is organized for comparison rather than volume. References that appear in several sources are merged so you are not counting the same page twice, and each reference shows where it was found, so material that surfaces only in one region or language is easy to spot — often the material worth reading first. Every reference remains a discovery lead until it has been examined at source, and the assessment says so explicitly. Findings link to inspectable evidence and stay in the case, where people, organizations and identifiers can be added to the relationship graph and carried into a BLUF Situation Brief or a case report.
Federated and Regional Search is most useful for cross-border due diligence, subjects with ties to a specific market, and investigations where the working language is not English. Run it after Public-Source Research or Enhanced Public Web Search when the mainstream picture looks thin or one-sided, or from the start when you already know the subject’s region. Pair it with Deep Public Research when the objective needs a fuller cited investigation.
Example objectives
Run the Skill directly, or describe the objective in your own words — these are the kinds of questions it is built to answer.
Ask Nexus
“What do regional and non-English search sources show about this supplier that mainstream results do not?”
Ask Nexus
“Search for this person’s name in its original-language spelling and tell me which references are new compared with the English-language results.”
Ask Nexus
“Which references about this brand appear only in sources local to its home market?”
How Federated and Regional Search fits the investigation
A Skill is one move inside a case. The findings stay in the case file, where the evidence behind them can be checked, graphed and reported.
- 01
Choose or describe
Pick the Skill from the Skill Library, or describe the objective in your own words and let Nexus work out which Skills fit the question.
- 02
Review the evidence
Open the evidence record behind any finding and read the original public source before you rely on what it says.
- 03
Add to the case graph
Promote the people, organizations and identifiers you accept into the case relationship graph, straight from their evidence records.
- 04
Brief and report
Turn the case into a BLUF situation brief and, on Pro and Agency, into a structured PDF report with chain of custody.
Evidence before conclusions
What Federated and Regional Search cannot establish
Nexus keeps supported findings, possible matches, contradictions and information gaps apart instead of blending them into one narrative. These are the boundaries Federated and Regional Search states up front.
- Results from regional and alternative indexes are discovery references until the original source has been examined and corroborated. Federated and Regional Search labels them as such.
- Coverage depends on the supported indexes and on what they have indexed. A no-result does not establish that the subject is absent from a region or language.
- A name that appears in another language or script may belong to a different person or organization. Matching across languages requires corroboration before attribution.
Best for
Teams that reach for Federated and Regional Search most often.
Related OSINT concepts
The vocabulary this Skill works in, defined in the glossary.
Related Skills
Skills investigators commonly run next, in the same case.
Frequently asked questions
What does Federated and Regional Search add to a normal search?
Federated and Regional Search extends discovery beyond mainstream search results to supported regional, language-specific and alternative search sources. Nexus merges duplicate references, keeps a record of which source each reference came from and returns an assessment focused on what the additional sources add. Use it when a subject is tied to a particular country or language and the mainstream picture looks incomplete.
Can Federated and Regional Search research a subject in another language?
Federated and Regional Search supports language-specific research, so an objective can name the subject in its original spelling or script and ask for references in that language. Nexus attributes each reference to the source it came from, which makes it clear which findings come from local-language material. Cross-language name matches still need corroboration before you attribute them to your subject, and the assessment keeps that caveat visible.
Which Nexus plan includes Federated and Regional Search?
Federated and Regional Search is available on the Pro and Agency plans. It fits investigators who regularly work across borders or in more than one language, because regional and language-specific discovery sits alongside the registry, media and infrastructure Skills that cross-border casework draws on. Pro opens 43 of the 47 investigative Skills and Agency all 47.