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Even putting politics & world events aside, Google Search doesn't seem to get better. For me the biggest disappointment is when they turned off the ability to

Even putting politics & world events aside, Google Search doesn't seem to get better. For me the biggest disappointment is when they turned off the ability to search for "an exact match within quotes", as well as the ability to use +plus and -minus to refine results. (EDIT: could be wrong about that, I thought it was disabled at some point) But the most dumbfounding is the fact that you still get several year old results whenever you search for a bug, hardware/driver issue, or even simple programming questions related to a not too old framework or API. Every time I have to go into the advanced options to restrict the results to one year, or one month.. you'd think they would make recent activity the default and then let the user know they can "search older results".

muxator 9y ago
Really? Naively, I was still continuing to put my "queries in quotes" and using + and - to refine my search. When did it stopped being supported?
- johndoe489 9y ago
  My bad. I could swear it was removed at some point but I can't find articles. A quick test reveals maybe the change is that you can't do an exact "ascii" search, ie. google searches for an exact sequence of words, but the casing may be different , there-may-be-dashes and so on.
  - redtuesday 9y ago
    To use the plus sign like behaviour you now need to use quotes (since 2011). Instead of: mars +landings +failures you now have to do: mars “landings” “failures” Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-sunsets-search-operator-98189 https://searchengineland.com/google-sunsets-search-operator-...
- brians 9y ago
  When Google Plus was big. 2011? Quotes still work, and also have an effect like +
wonderous 9y ago
Appears you’re wrong about which of the search operators are currently supported by Google: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433 https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433 The + operator was retired when Google+ was launched, because + was needed as a searchable character rather than an operator.
brazzledazzle 9y ago
There's been so many times that old results have saved my bacon. I like that they give me everything and allow me to make the decision to narrow it down as needed. Sure, it can be annoying when you're searching for results that are relevant for recent versions of software or libraries but even in those situations old results can be great because they lead to solutions that are still applicable or relevant GitHub issues that lead you where you want to go. That said, it would be nice if it wasn't buried and was exposed as a slider but I'll take what they're giving.

muxator 9y ago

Really? Naively, I was still continuing to put my "queries in quotes" and using + and - to refine my search. When did it stopped being supported?

johndoe489 9y ago
My bad. I could swear it was removed at some point but I can't find articles. A quick test reveals maybe the change is that you can't do an exact "ascii" search, ie. google searches for an exact sequence of words, but the casing may be different , there-may-be-dashes and so on.
- redtuesday 9y ago
  To use the plus sign like behaviour you now need to use quotes (since 2011). Instead of: mars +landings +failures you now have to do: mars “landings” “failures” Source: https://searchengineland.com/google-sunsets-search-operator-98189 https://searchengineland.com/google-sunsets-search-operator-...
brians 9y ago
When Google Plus was big. 2011? Quotes still work, and also have an effect like +

wonderous 9y ago

Appears you’re wrong about which of the search operators are currently supported by Google: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433 https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433 The + operator was retired when Google+ was launched, because + was needed as a searchable character rather than an operator.

brazzledazzle 9y ago

There's been so many times that old results have saved my bacon. I like that they give me everything and allow me to make the decision to narrow it down as needed. Sure, it can be annoying when you're searching for results that are relevant for recent versions of software or libraries but even in those situations old results can be great because they lead to solutions that are still applicable or relevant GitHub issues that lead you where you want to go. That said, it would be nice if it wasn't buried and was exposed as a slider but I'll take what they're giving.