Author Topic: What the heck has happened to Google search? (Read 45,396 times)

sajman99 · « **Reply #25 on:** April 11, 2011, 09:04 PM »

Ah, thanks for the info guys. So mouser's hard work is paying dividends.

It's very nice to now see relevant DC discussion threads show up in Google.

mouser · « **Reply #26 on:** April 11, 2011, 09:44 PM »

yep, posts on the forum are now in google an hour or two after they are made, which is very cool.

ewemoa · « **Reply #27 on:** April 12, 2011, 01:51 AM »

nosh · « **Reply #28 on:** October 25, 2011, 10:12 AM »

Am I really late to the party or did Google just drop the + operator from their search syntax? Is it some bizarre decision related to their Google+ service? (I feel silly even suggesting that.)

I noticed for the first time today when I got this message at the top of the search results:

Quote

The + operator has been replaced.
To search for an exact word or phrase, use double quotation marks

So now double quotes signify both "whole phrase search" and "required in results"?
What if I want to include a phrase in my search that doesn't necessarily have to be in the results? How do I frame my search query then? WTF, Google!

Update: OK, I see it is a recent development.
http://www.ditii.com/2011/10/23/google-plus-search-operator-discontinued/

Quote

The plus operator was useful for single words and it was intuitive, considering that the minus operator is employed to exclude results that contain a certain word.

Wasn't simplicity one of the virtues that helped Google become a household name? Looks like it's time to seriously start looking at alternatives.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #29 on:** October 25, 2011, 11:31 AM »

Quote from: nosh on October 25, 2011, 10:12 AM

Update: OK, I see it is a recent development.
http://www.ditii.com/2011/10/23/google-plus-search-operator-discontinued/

Quote
The plus operator was useful for single words and it was intuitive, considering that the minus operator is employed to exclude results that contain a certain word.
Wasn't simplicity one of the virtues that helped Google become a household name? Looks like it's time to seriously start looking at alternatives.

Great, that'll put a dent in my Google-fu. I frequently do did searches for "this phrase"+"this phrase" ... Now I'm not sure what to use. What a PITA.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #30 on:** October 25, 2011, 11:59 AM »

It just means that Google want to throw even more crap results and advertising in your face.

I am finding Google less and less useful as time goes on - you almost always get confronted by dozens of irrelevant results to wade through.

Try looking for a hardware manual ore a device driver and it doesn't matter how specific you are in your search terms you are confronted by pages of annoying websites trying to charge you for things that are freely available from the manufacturers websites.

Now they just made searching for specifics even harder!

Any suggestions for good alternatives?

IainB · « **Reply #31 on:** October 25, 2011, 12:13 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on October 25, 2011, 11:59 AM

Any suggestions for good alternatives?

Well I just did a search for "best search engines" on mamma.com and got a wall of the sort of rubbish that you referred to, but there were a couple of specific hits that at least had titles that reflected the query, though I didn't look at them in detail as I was in a hurry.
So, you might find an answer to your Q there.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #32 on:** October 25, 2011, 01:47 PM »

Duckduckgo.com is good alternative and Bing search results are much better these days.

nosh · « **Reply #33 on:** October 25, 2011, 02:19 PM »

Duckduckgo has 0 results for a search query that got 200,000+ hits on Bing and 400,000+ on Google. $:-\$
I love the minimalist interface + customizability but I'd feel like I was constantly missing out on stuff if I made it my primary search engine.

Bing seems like the only viable alternative, ATM.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #34 on:** October 25, 2011, 02:25 PM »

Which is that query ? I'm asking this because they're taking data from both BIng and Y!BOss. So either the sites in that query are filtered by yegg or maybe there is some other reason.

nosh · « **Reply #35 on:** October 25, 2011, 02:40 PM »

dog vaccination swelling +betnovate

I initially thought DDG didn't support the + operator, but that's not the case. I'm sure the difference is not that big, still, it's enough to stop me from using it.

Edit: Funny! If I just swap words and turn the query into:
dog swelling vaccination +betnovate - I get hits.

Apparently, it's the word order that's important but I can't find any place to toggle that setting. Does NOT inspire confidence!

Edit2: More weirdness: Clicking the query (in this post) from Firefox doesn't get hits but on the iPad it does.

cyberdiva · « **Reply #36 on:** October 25, 2011, 03:02 PM »

Your saying that clicking on the query in Firefox got no hits made me click on it in Firefox. Sure enough, it got no hits, but it did offer a suggestion:

No results. Try:
dog vaccination swelling betnovate

And that got lots of hits, including this very discussion in DC. So perhaps DDG doesn't support the +?

J-Mac · « **Reply #37 on:** October 25, 2011, 03:05 PM »

I ran into this in Google last week and had a fit. Double quotes cannot replace what the plus sign did; it can give you exact phrases but you could use the plus sign to ensure Google included a word that they were aritrarily tossing out for results. The reason? They are coming out with searches specifically for Google+ and the plus sign in the search query will automatically make it a G+ search only. Truly sucks!

Another wonderful change to their search page: The "cached" link will no longer appear with the results but will only be available in the "Instant Preview", so you'll have to hover your mouse over the preview icon, allow it to expand to the right of the results, and then find the "cached" link in there. Of course this is "for our own good", don’t you know...

BTW, I would love to use Duck Duck Goose - the concept sounds nice, but I don’t get nearly enough search results when I use it. Hell, I may be back to Yahoo soon for my searches.

Thanks!

Jim

nosh · « **Reply #38 on:** October 25, 2011, 03:23 PM »

Quote

And that got lots of hits, including this very discussion in DC. So perhaps DDG doesn't support the +?

It does, try a simple query that's sure to get hits with a plus. Also, the second query I listed has a plus in it.

mahesh2k · « **Reply #39 on:** October 25, 2011, 06:43 PM »

I got hits from both firefox and chrome. I don't know what is the issue with browser. I'll pass this on their official forum.

NigelH · « **Reply #40 on:** October 25, 2011, 10:01 PM »

Problem is, even the Google scrapers tend to be slow - although Scroogle is pretty good.

Quote from: Carol Haynes on October 25, 2011, 11:59 AM

Any suggestions for good alternatives?

I've also used Ixquick on occasion with fairly positive results

Quote

the world's most private search engine

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #41 on:** October 26, 2011, 01:13 PM »

Where do people find these search engines.

Thanks Nigel I will give it a go.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #42 on:** October 26, 2011, 04:16 PM »

Quote from: Carol Haynes on October 26, 2011, 01:13 PM

Where do people find these search engines.

Google?

mahesh2k · « **Reply #43 on:** October 26, 2011, 05:13 PM »

Author Topic: What the heck has happened to Google search? (Read 45,396 times)

sajman99

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

mouser

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

ewemoa

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

nosh

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

Stoic Joker

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

Carol Haynes

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

IainB

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

mahesh2k

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

nosh

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

mahesh2k

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

nosh

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

cyberdiva

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

J-Mac

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

nosh

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

mahesh2k

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

NigelH

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

Carol Haynes

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

Stoic Joker

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?

mahesh2k

Re: What the heck has happened to Google search?