3 ms·

Can you give an example? Sometimes it cannot find what I am searching for, but I have never thought it was intentional.

by dexwiz 10y ago

louthy 10y ago
Try searching for 'hoogle'. What I want is this: https://www.haskell.org/hoogle/ https://www.haskell.org/hoogle/ - not the website I am already on typing a search query in to! tbf, I don't feel the same way as the GP. But this search always struck me as crazy in the past.
- azdle 10y ago
  Odd, works for me: http://i.imgbox.com/gEw5Rutx.png http://i.imgbox.com/gEw5Rutx.png What do you get?
- dexwiz 10y ago
  Not going to lie, I have seen people put Google into the Chrome omnibar, to then search something on Google. When I point the redundancy out to them, I am usually met with, 'Well that's just how I do it.' I bet there are more people doing that, and mistyping, than searching for a Haskell package.
  - c22 10y ago
    I use a lot of devices, on some of them when I type my search into the address bar I get directed to something stupid like Yahoo. So now I've trained myself to always navigate to my desired search engine (usually Google) before performing my search. If it makes you feel better though, I do type out the "http://" http://".
  - kasparsklavins 10y ago
    I'm one of those people that types "youtube" into the omnibar and then click the first result. Typing the extra .com at the end is too much of a hassle when auto complete fails me.
- fpgeek 10y ago
  I just tried this in a private window. Yes, "google" is a suggested search when you type "hoogle", but that seems only fair. After all, G and H are next to each other on a QWERTY keyboard. I'm sure a typo for google swamps deliberate searches for hoogle (maybe even for me, but then I have a custom search keyword). They're also suggesting other Google services you might want (Translate, Maps and Drive, when I tried), not just the one you're already using. More generally, I don't see how overly generic suggestions amount to dumbing-down Google Search. If I actually persist and search for "hoogle" (which I had to do anyway in the days before search suggestions) I get the Haskell results I want, even without any connection to my Google account.
- nl 10y ago
  It's the first result for me. It does have a "did you mean 'google'". I wonder if the increased search volume over the past hour since you posted this updated the probability that it was a mistyping? It wouldn't surprise me - unique vocabulary (think hashtags) created all the time, and Google is pretty good at responding to that.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    Yup. Doesn't even suggest Google anymore for me, and all the results seem to be Haskell related, save for some unfortunately named altcoin.
crystalmeph 10y ago
PhantomGremlin may be referring to Google's personalized search results[0]. This can be turned off though, either through account settings or opening a private window, I think. However, it seems you can't shut off location-based personalization, at least while logged out. For example, search "pizza" without quotes in a private window. In addition to showing you a map with nearby locations based on geolocation, the actual results will also include pizza places near your geolocation. I can imagine that there are probably scenarios where that kind of personalization might negatively affect someone searching for general information, although I can't think of any particular use cases off the top of my head. [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Personalized_Search https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Personalized_Search
- dexwiz 10y ago
  I have noticed the geolocation search, ironically because it brings up the wrong results when I am on a vpn. If a search `weather`, I except local weather. But if I am on my work VPN, I get the weather for a few states away.
PhantomGremlin 10y ago
Can you give an example? I've posted about this before, here's an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11386924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11386924 Here's a snippet from that post: Nowadays, when I search for something like this: "search phrase one" "search phrase two" I will get a plethora of hits that omit one or the other of those words or phrases, starting with the very first page of results.
- Veedrac 10y ago
  Search tools → All results → Verbatim This prevents basically all of Google's word heuristics, like searching for related words or dropping parts of the search.
  - PhantomGremlin 10y ago
    I didn't know that one, since I use Google search without JavaScript enabled. Show me how to do that search qualification ahead of time, e.g. from the Firefox search box, and not as a post processing step after a search is completed. Or how to do that without JavaScript enabled. That kind of thing was easily possible before. A long time ago I bought a book called Google Hacks[1]. It had all sorts of good tips on how to search better. E.g there were Perl and Python scripts to interface with Google. Now, running scripts like that will probably get your IP address banned (I don't know for sure, I haven't tried lately). My point remains, Google used to be easy to use for advanced searches, without JavaScript. Not any more. There's a lot missing now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hacks
    - dingaling 10y ago
      > Show me how to do that search qualification ahead of time, e.g. from the Firefox search box Add this as a search provider: http://mycroftproject.com/search-engines.html?name=google+verbatim http://mycroftproject.com/search-engines.html?name=google+ve... The '&tbs=li' paramater is the magic flag, for 'literal'
    - Veedrac 10y ago
flukus 10y ago
One frequent one I ran across is that I'm searching for "one two three", where "three" is the highly specific term I'm after. Google will return the more frequently searched "one two" results. Another is the date control, google thinks older is better but it very often isn't. The date options suck too. Last week is usually zero hits, last month maybe one unrelated one, but then last year returns far too many. What I really want is to add a weighting so that newer stuff has higher priority.

Can you give an example? Sometimes it cannot find what I am searching for, but I have never thought it was intentional.

by dexwiz 10y ago

Can you give an example? Sometimes it cannot find what I am searching for, but I have never thought it was intentional.

Try searching for 'hoogle'. What I want is this: https://www.haskell.org/hoogle/ https://www.haskell.org/hoogle/ - not the website I am already on typing a search query in to! tbf, I don't feel the same way as the GP. But this search always struck me as crazy in the past.

azdle 10y ago
Odd, works for me: http://i.imgbox.com/gEw5Rutx.png http://i.imgbox.com/gEw5Rutx.png What do you get?
dexwiz 10y ago
Not going to lie, I have seen people put Google into the Chrome omnibar, to then search something on Google. When I point the redundancy out to them, I am usually met with, 'Well that's just how I do it.' I bet there are more people doing that, and mistyping, than searching for a Haskell package.
- c22 10y ago
  I use a lot of devices, on some of them when I type my search into the address bar I get directed to something stupid like Yahoo. So now I've trained myself to always navigate to my desired search engine (usually Google) before performing my search. If it makes you feel better though, I do type out the "http://" http://".
- kasparsklavins 10y ago
  I'm one of those people that types "youtube" into the omnibar and then click the first result. Typing the extra .com at the end is too much of a hassle when auto complete fails me.
fpgeek 10y ago
I just tried this in a private window. Yes, "google" is a suggested search when you type "hoogle", but that seems only fair. After all, G and H are next to each other on a QWERTY keyboard. I'm sure a typo for google swamps deliberate searches for hoogle (maybe even for me, but then I have a custom search keyword). They're also suggesting other Google services you might want (Translate, Maps and Drive, when I tried), not just the one you're already using. More generally, I don't see how overly generic suggestions amount to dumbing-down Google Search. If I actually persist and search for "hoogle" (which I had to do anyway in the days before search suggestions) I get the Haskell results I want, even without any connection to my Google account.
nl 10y ago
It's the first result for me. It does have a "did you mean 'google'". I wonder if the increased search volume over the past hour since you posted this updated the probability that it was a mistyping? It wouldn't surprise me - unique vocabulary (think hashtags) created all the time, and Google is pretty good at responding to that.
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  Yup. Doesn't even suggest Google anymore for me, and all the results seem to be Haskell related, save for some unfortunately named altcoin.

crystalmeph 10y ago

PhantomGremlin may be referring to Google's personalized search results[0]. This can be turned off though, either through account settings or opening a private window, I think. However, it seems you can't shut off location-based personalization, at least while logged out. For example, search "pizza" without quotes in a private window. In addition to showing you a map with nearby locations based on geolocation, the actual results will also include pizza places near your geolocation. I can imagine that there are probably scenarios where that kind of personalization might negatively affect someone searching for general information, although I can't think of any particular use cases off the top of my head. [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Personalized_Search https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Personalized_Search

dexwiz 10y ago
I have noticed the geolocation search, ironically because it brings up the wrong results when I am on a vpn. If a search `weather`, I except local weather. But if I am on my work VPN, I get the weather for a few states away.

PhantomGremlin 10y ago

Can you give an example? I've posted about this before, here's an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11386924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11386924 Here's a snippet from that post: Nowadays, when I search for something like this: "search phrase one" "search phrase two" I will get a plethora of hits that omit one or the other of those words or phrases, starting with the very first page of results.

Veedrac 10y ago
Search tools → All results → Verbatim This prevents basically all of Google's word heuristics, like searching for related words or dropping parts of the search.
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  I didn't know that one, since I use Google search without JavaScript enabled. Show me how to do that search qualification ahead of time, e.g. from the Firefox search box, and not as a post processing step after a search is completed. Or how to do that without JavaScript enabled. That kind of thing was easily possible before. A long time ago I bought a book called Google Hacks[1]. It had all sorts of good tips on how to search better. E.g there were Perl and Python scripts to interface with Google. Now, running scripts like that will probably get your IP address banned (I don't know for sure, I haven't tried lately). My point remains, Google used to be easy to use for advanced searches, without JavaScript. Not any more. There's a lot missing now. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hacks
  - dingaling 10y ago
    > Show me how to do that search qualification ahead of time, e.g. from the Firefox search box Add this as a search provider: http://mycroftproject.com/search-engines.html?name=google+verbatim http://mycroftproject.com/search-engines.html?name=google+ve... The '&tbs=li' paramater is the magic flag, for 'literal'
  - Veedrac 10y ago

flukus 10y ago

One frequent one I ran across is that I'm searching for "one two three", where "three" is the highly specific term I'm after. Google will return the more frequently searched "one two" results. Another is the date control, google thinks older is better but it very often isn't. The date options suck too. Last week is usually zero hits, last month maybe one unrelated one, but then last year returns far too many. What I really want is to add a weighting so that newer stuff has higher priority.