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A few corrections: The + (formerly used to force a term to be present in the result) and ~ (also find synonyms) operators have been deprecated. Google now adv

A few corrections: The + (formerly used to force a term to be present in the result) and ~ (also find synonyms) operators have been deprecated. Google now advises to wrap the word in quotes instead of using the +. Google will also automatically look for synonyms without the use of ~. I have seen 'AROUND(n)' mentioned in many other places working as a proximity operator in Google, but I don't believe that is true and haven't found it to work in any logical way. Also the use of parentheses to nest queries is not necessary in Google. It is actually required for Bing on complicated queries though.

mehrdadn 6y ago
The plus operator in the page appears to be binary rather than unary. I've never used it. Is that affected as well? (Though I'm confused why AND is necessary. Isn't it implied normally?)
- chris_f 6y ago
  That is correct. AND is added by default and is never necessary in Google. It's a little confusing because fo how Google implemented some of the operators. The boolean + operator in many cases is used in the same way as AND, but Google originally used it to let users to force a specific word to be present in a search result. So a search for Fish +Chips was a search for both words, but 'Chips' MUST be present. The equivalent search today is Fish "Chips". It's a little annoying because it requires typing another character, and it it is still not always respected.
  - mcswell 6y ago
    I think the default is more like AND/OR. If AND were the default, and I put a list of five words in without any 'AND' or 'OR', then I'd expect to get only pages that have all 5 of those words. Now of course google looks for synonyms, unless you put quotes around each search term (which ostensibly blocks synonyms, although as you and others mention, this doesn't always work). But afaict, returned pages don't even necessarily have synonyms for all five search terms. That's especially true for words that don't have much semantic content, but it seems to be true even for very specific words. And that's more like OR.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
No longer have Google Chrome on any devices, switched over to Chromium Edge. Same browser, different overloads. Left the default search engine as Bing, but only because Duck Duck Go is useless for geographicly local search.
- jimnotgym 6y ago
  Useless? "Plumber Timbuktu" returns plumbers in Timbuktu.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
    I'm on Launceston Tasmania, DDG returns results for Launceston Cornwall England. I'll try again though as your sibling comment suggests it's improved.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  I don't know what they did but several weeks ago DDG got magically better at geographic local search (I do not live in the US and pound my head on that one too). One day I actually DID need to find something local and so I dutifully typed my search into the FF url bar and hit enter. My default search is DDG but my brain stroked off for a second because the results that came back were 100% what I was looking for and I thought I was on Google. Give it a shot again, they're getting better.
abarrettwilsdon 6y ago
Updated the article to reflect and credited you for the contribution!
EE84M3i 6y ago
When you say "deprecated", you mean as in "discontinued" right? Not just like, discouraged?
- flywheel 6y ago
  Whoever the first developer was that used "deprecated" got it kind of wrong, the word should have been "depreciated". Deprecate: "express disapproval of." Depreciate: "diminish in value over a period of time." I kind of cringe when other developers say "deprecated". Edit: Versioning and not removing APIs is kind of the way to go, so you don't break client apps that possibly can't be updated easily or at all. "Depreciated" is a far better word to use with a far better outcome. AWS versions their APIs, they don't remove old ones. "I disapprove of using this API and we're taking it away at some random date" vs "this isn't the latest API, use the current one for new development" seems like a pretty stark difference in thinking to me. YMMV.
  - tines 6y ago
    But "express disapproval of" is exactly the meaning intended when we say that a feature is deprecated. It signifies that it is best practice not to use it.
    - harha 6y ago
      If it’s given as a warning then yes, e.g. the dplyr package in R sometimes outputs “feature xyz is deprecated and will be removed in version x.x”. Often though it’s used when the feature is already removed, i.e., it’s not only best practice not to use it, but also impossible with that version.
      - efreak 6y ago
        In this case, depreciated is incorrect. Removal has already happened, the "period of time" is already over.
        6y ago
GordonS 6y ago
Worth mentioning that even if you put a term in double quotes, Google still tries to be too clever - you are not guaranteed to get results that contain your quotes search term :/
- devjungle 6y ago
  This must be a recent change? It's been driving me nuts lately. I have to resort to adding a lot of negated search terms to compensate but it's still sub optimal.
  - JasonFruit 6y ago
    It seems to me that after a few negated search terms are included, they are taken less strictly; "minus" seems to mean "probably minus".
  - GordonS 6y ago
    No, this has been the case for a long time, years anyway. I don't know if it goes back quite as far as when they removed the '+' operator tho. But bejesus, this drives me nuts! If I know the double quotes function even exists, then Google should know I actually want to use it as intended - it shouldn't decide "yeah, but maybe you'd like these irrelevant results too!"
    - jon_richards 6y ago
      I think it’s primarily for people copying and pasting something like an error message, which may have user-specific data in quotes. That should be what “not many results for...” is for, but Google is always trying to optimize away those clicks. Maybe they could add a “programatic” search feature with documented syntax for power users.
      - hwillis 6y ago
        A moderate-length string of quoted words (>5?) used to return zero or near zero results and a suggestion to try without quotes- imo ideal
Razengan 6y ago
Google has been gradually becoming useless for anything but the most basic/popular terms, over the last few years. Just now I had to give up trying to look up "the term for fans that are paid actors" and variations. Asking on Reddit or Stack Overflow would be faster than Google's search engine for some things now.

mehrdadn 6y ago

The plus operator in the page appears to be binary rather than unary. I've never used it. Is that affected as well? (Though I'm confused why AND is necessary. Isn't it implied normally?)

chris_f 6y ago
That is correct. AND is added by default and is never necessary in Google. It's a little confusing because fo how Google implemented some of the operators. The boolean + operator in many cases is used in the same way as AND, but Google originally used it to let users to force a specific word to be present in a search result. So a search for Fish +Chips was a search for both words, but 'Chips' MUST be present. The equivalent search today is Fish "Chips". It's a little annoying because it requires typing another character, and it it is still not always respected.
- mcswell 6y ago
  I think the default is more like AND/OR. If AND were the default, and I put a list of five words in without any 'AND' or 'OR', then I'd expect to get only pages that have all 5 of those words. Now of course google looks for synonyms, unless you put quotes around each search term (which ostensibly blocks synonyms, although as you and others mention, this doesn't always work). But afaict, returned pages don't even necessarily have synonyms for all five search terms. That's especially true for words that don't have much semantic content, but it seems to be true even for very specific words. And that's more like OR.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

No longer have Google Chrome on any devices, switched over to Chromium Edge. Same browser, different overloads. Left the default search engine as Bing, but only because Duck Duck Go is useless for geographicly local search.

jimnotgym 6y ago
Useless? "Plumber Timbuktu" returns plumbers in Timbuktu.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  I'm on Launceston Tasmania, DDG returns results for Launceston Cornwall England. I'll try again though as your sibling comment suggests it's improved.
RonanTheGrey 6y ago
I don't know what they did but several weeks ago DDG got magically better at geographic local search (I do not live in the US and pound my head on that one too). One day I actually DID need to find something local and so I dutifully typed my search into the FF url bar and hit enter. My default search is DDG but my brain stroked off for a second because the results that came back were 100% what I was looking for and I thought I was on Google. Give it a shot again, they're getting better.

abarrettwilsdon 6y ago

Updated the article to reflect and credited you for the contribution!

EE84M3i 6y ago

When you say "deprecated", you mean as in "discontinued" right? Not just like, discouraged?

flywheel 6y ago
Whoever the first developer was that used "deprecated" got it kind of wrong, the word should have been "depreciated". Deprecate: "express disapproval of." Depreciate: "diminish in value over a period of time." I kind of cringe when other developers say "deprecated". Edit: Versioning and not removing APIs is kind of the way to go, so you don't break client apps that possibly can't be updated easily or at all. "Depreciated" is a far better word to use with a far better outcome. AWS versions their APIs, they don't remove old ones. "I disapprove of using this API and we're taking it away at some random date" vs "this isn't the latest API, use the current one for new development" seems like a pretty stark difference in thinking to me. YMMV.
- tines 6y ago
  But "express disapproval of" is exactly the meaning intended when we say that a feature is deprecated. It signifies that it is best practice not to use it.
  - harha 6y ago
    If it’s given as a warning then yes, e.g. the dplyr package in R sometimes outputs “feature xyz is deprecated and will be removed in version x.x”. Often though it’s used when the feature is already removed, i.e., it’s not only best practice not to use it, but also impossible with that version.
    - efreak 6y ago
      In this case, depreciated is incorrect. Removal has already happened, the "period of time" is already over.
      - 6y ago

GordonS 6y ago

Worth mentioning that even if you put a term in double quotes, Google still tries to be too clever - you are not guaranteed to get results that contain your quotes search term :/

devjungle 6y ago
This must be a recent change? It's been driving me nuts lately. I have to resort to adding a lot of negated search terms to compensate but it's still sub optimal.
- JasonFruit 6y ago
  It seems to me that after a few negated search terms are included, they are taken less strictly; "minus" seems to mean "probably minus".
- GordonS 6y ago
  No, this has been the case for a long time, years anyway. I don't know if it goes back quite as far as when they removed the '+' operator tho. But bejesus, this drives me nuts! If I know the double quotes function even exists, then Google should know I actually want to use it as intended - it shouldn't decide "yeah, but maybe you'd like these irrelevant results too!"
  - jon_richards 6y ago
    I think it’s primarily for people copying and pasting something like an error message, which may have user-specific data in quotes. That should be what “not many results for...” is for, but Google is always trying to optimize away those clicks. Maybe they could add a “programatic” search feature with documented syntax for power users.
    - hwillis 6y ago
      A moderate-length string of quoted words (>5?) used to return zero or near zero results and a suggestion to try without quotes- imo ideal

Razengan 6y ago

Google has been gradually becoming useless for anything but the most basic/popular terms, over the last few years. Just now I had to give up trying to look up "the term for fans that are paid actors" and variations. Asking on Reddit or Stack Overflow would be faster than Google's search engine for some things now.