dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
2503

Fluker
join:2005-04-07
West Lafayette, IN

Fluker

Member

Google Search results not working right these days.

So I've noticed in the last 6-12 months that Google tends to dumb down searches and assume you aren't looking for exactly what you typed. This is especially noticeable if you are searching for something similar to a popular topic.

This isn't an exact example but it's something I made up to get the point across.

suppose you search for: Dog tricks

Google will come back with results for dog food.

So you search for: Dog trick -food -supplies -shopping

Again Google comes back nothing but stuff related to food. 2/3's of the results don't include the word 'tricks' or any other variation of the word. Blogs on "Tricks and tips for choosing dog food" crowd the results.

So you try: "dog Tricks" -food
again, dog food, and half the sites don't include the precise set of words I'm searching for and Google didn't give me the usual 'could not find exact phrase, these results omit quotes". No it just ignores you which is totally blood boiling-ly infuriating when you know exactly what you want but your query gets dumbed down before being processed.

This is bad enough for me that despite using Google for just about everything internet and phones based and wanting to buy a phone with Android, I would instantly switch search engines just so I can have literal instead of semantic results.

Any tips on how to make Google work like it did last year? I feel like half the websites I used for finding obscure drivers, code, random info etc., it's all been hidden away and Bing/Yahoo are even worse yet.

Gbcue
Premium Member
join:2001-09-30
Santa Rosa, CA

Gbcue

Premium Member

said by Fluker:

So I've noticed in the last 6-12 months that Google tends to dumb down searches and assume you aren't looking for exactly what you typed. This is especially noticeable if you are searching for something similar to a popular topic.

This isn't an exact example but it's something I made up to get the point across.

suppose you search for: Dog tricks

Google will come back with results for dog food.

So you search for: Dog trick -food -supplies -shopping

Again Google comes back nothing but stuff related to food. 2/3's of the results don't include the word 'tricks' or any other variation of the word. Blogs on "Tricks and tips for choosing dog food" crowd the results.

So you try: "dog Tricks" -food
again, dog food, and half the sites don't include the precise set of words I'm searching for and Google didn't give me the usual 'could not find exact phrase, these results omit quotes". No it just ignores you which is totally blood boiling-ly infuriating when you know exactly what you want but your query gets dumbed down before being processed.

This is bad enough for me that despite using Google for just about everything internet and phones based and wanting to buy a phone with Android, I would instantly switch search engines just so I can have literal instead of semantic results.

Any tips on how to make Google work like it did last year? I feel like half the websites I used for finding obscure drivers, code, random info etc., it's all been hidden away and Bing/Yahoo are even worse yet.
I don't know what you're using, but when I search Dog Tricks, the first 10 results are all about dog tricks.

Snowy
Lock him up!!!
Premium Member
join:2003-04-05
Kailua, HI

Snowy to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
said by Fluker:

Any tips on how to make Google work like it did last year? I feel like half the websites I used for finding obscure drivers, code, random info etc., it's all been hidden away and Bing/Yahoo are even worse yet.
You might try clearing out your cookies, completely.

psafux
Premium Member
join:2005-11-10

psafux to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
I have had no issues at all with Google. I use them 100% of the time.

Stefania
Jezu Chryste, Kubi
Premium Member
join:2003-03-17
Chicago, IL

Stefania to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
Try adding a plus (+) sign next to "tricks". This will require all results to have the word tricks in them.
Stojko
Premium Member
join:2007-10-20
St John's NL

Stojko to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
No problems with Google search here...

Bill Neilson
Premium Member
join:2009-07-08
Alexandria, VA

Bill Neilson to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
I have to agree with most here.

My dog tricks search came up with dog tricks
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross to Fluker

Member

to Fluker
Depending on where you are located geographically (and therefore which group of Google servers you hit), the quality of your search results may vary. But I also have noticed what appears to be a serious overall degradation in quality of Google searches over the past few years. Any search using over two or three search terms seems pretty useless these days, and last year when I tried to use Google to do some basic research it just plain old wouldn't work. This was from repeated searches over a period of several weeks. If Google was something that I'd had to pay for then I would have demanded my money back, at the time.

Which is pretty sad because Google is still my default search engine and I'm in no particular hurry to switch to something else unless I'm forced to. But it wasn't my first search engine and it looks like it won't be my last.

Locutus65
Why bother?
Premium Member
join:2001-05-24
Houston, TX

Locutus65 to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
Better yet use Google Advanced Search. »www.google.com/advanced_ ··· ch?hl=en

Put your query in the second line.
I put in Dog Tricks and went through the first 2 pages of results and nothing but Dog Tricks showed up.

googleworks
@174.3.99.x

googleworks to Fluker

Anon

to Fluker
First 30 pages or so are all dog tricks and dog training. Google working as intended.

Johkal
Cool Cat
MVM
join:2002-11-13
Pennsyltucky

Johkal to Fluker

MVM

to Fluker
You may have some malware redirecting your search.

La Luna
Fly With The Angels My Beloved Son Chris
Premium Member
join:2001-07-12
New Port Richey, FL

La Luna to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
Searching for dog tricks comes back with multiple pages to nothing but dog tricks, no problem here.

alanhdsl
Premium Member
join:1999-10-09
Phoenix, AZ

alanhdsl to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
Nothing but dog tricks for me, too.

I know what you mean, though. But it seems less common these days, not more. The main problem was link spam where a spammer would link a whole bunch of unrelated terms to their spam page.

You can force a word to be included like dog +tricks, which may work better than trying to exclude terms.
sailor
Premium Member
join:2003-10-21
Long Island

2 recommendations

sailor to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
Well I put in dog tricks and one gave me instructions on how to teach my dog to drive. So I printed out the instructions, took my dog and put him in my car and then followed the instructions.

Worked so well he just took off by himself.

Fluker
join:2005-04-07
West Lafayette, IN

1 edit

Fluker

Member

man I picked a bad (or good) example.

Here's a better one though. I'm working on a laptop with a quirky bios that prevents known good HD images from booting.

»www.google.com/search?q= ··· flashing

Just on the front page, numbers 1,3,5,8 do not include the phrase "nw8440". Am I alone in my frustration?

n1zuk
making really tiny tech things
Premium Member
join:2001-10-24
Malta

n1zuk to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
Quoted header from Google's cache of the first search engine hit from the previous post's link:
quote:
This is Google's cache of »www.geekstogo.com/forum/ ··· 277.html. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Jan 6, 2010 01:55:51 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more

Text-only versionThese search terms are highlighted: won t boot blinking These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: nw8440 flashing
These results move up in the Google search results as the linking page has links matching your search term(s).

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

1 edit

CylonRed to Fluker

MVM

to Fluker
The bold parts of the results tells you what it matches on. So while those did not match the 'nw8440' - they DO match on the other search items you entered.

Use the advanced search to refine the search better.
quote:
Find web pages that have...
all these words:
this exact wording or phrase: tip
one or more of these words:
OR OR
tip
But don't show pages that have...
any of these unwanted words:
Crypto_Bug
join:2001-05-31
Torrington, CT

Crypto_Bug to Fluker

Member

to Fluker
Why not just use Google search directives to narrow your search.

alanhdsl
Premium Member
join:1999-10-09
Phoenix, AZ

alanhdsl to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
Yes, as I suggested above, if you put "+nw8440", all the pages returned will have it.
Expand your moderator at work
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO to alanhdsl

Premium Member

to alanhdsl

Re: Google Search results not working right these days.

said by alanhdsl:

Yes, as I suggested above, if you put "+nw8440", all the pages returned will have it.
Double quotes add nothing to quality of that request. '+' simply means that you want to get that word in search results, which is the same as simply including those words in your common search criteria...

It's weird to see that Google makes ranks of pages that omit some words in your request bigger then ranks of pages that contain all the words from your request. I'd expect to see those pages with all words requested to come first...

And BTW, you can't force Google make search for exact phrase either. Look at this recent thread: Google search query containing hyphen.

alanhdsl
Premium Member
join:1999-10-09
Phoenix, AZ

alanhdsl to Fluker

Premium Member

to Fluker
Yes, the quotes are not necessary in this case -- I was just trying to separate it from the rest of the sentence. I suppose a better way is to do something like +nw8440 to distinguish it.

Anyway, Google's Page Rank more heavily scores the tags used by links to a page rather than the text of the page itself. The theory is that other people are referring to the page that way, so that might be what you're looking for too.

This has its faults, of course -- that's why Google bombing works.

On the other hand, it makes keyword spam harder.
Expand your moderator at work
OZO
Premium Member
join:2003-01-17

OZO to alanhdsl

Premium Member

to alanhdsl

Re: Google Search results not working right these days.

In any case, I really miss the ability to search Google for a particular phrase only. I don't need any modifications of my request or any guesses about what am I possibly looking for - no, not at all. When I'm asking for it, I know what I'm looking for and I need the only results containing that exact phrase and nothing else. No babysitting, please...

How to make such request (using double quotas, single quotas, square or angle brackets or whatever) it's up to Google to offer. But we really need that.