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Curiously, searching directly on the site with that quote produces "No results found," and then shows an inexact match with just that quote underneath. This is

Curiously, searching directly on the site with that quote produces "No results found," and then shows an inexact match with just that quote underneath. This is clearly a real bug on Google's side. https://imgur.com/a/2XFogU5 https://imgur.com/a/2XFogU5

lelandfe 5y ago
I may have figured it out. The site is committing hijinks with the text. They're manually wrapping text with ` `'s and then manually wrapping the source with spaces. Here's the HTML of the lines in question: <DIV>The voice was deep and melodious when it spoke. “David, we have been expecting you - this is what you have been searching for - this place, David, is where dreams are born.” It was at this moment David realized the being was speaking to him with its own voice, not by thought. David stood unmoving. He realized he had never dreamed before or even had ever slept. If you search for same-line sentence fragments you'll find the page: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+voice+was+deep+and+melodious+when+it+spoke%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+voice+was+deep+and+me.... Not an excuse: this is a case Google should handle. For posterity: https://imgur.com/a/DAUpLit https://imgur.com/a/DAUpLit
- xyzzyz 5y ago
 When every site was full of s and  s back in the day, Google had not been at all confused by it.
 - dnissley 5y ago
 Are we sure about that? My recollection is the same, but it would be nice to have some way of ensuring my memory isn't faulty...
 - capableweb 5y ago
 Just to remind you of how things were when Google first launched (1996): W3C just started with the recommendation of CSS level 1 (https://www.w3.org/Press/CSS1-REC-PR.html https://www.w3.org/Press/CSS1-REC-PR.html), people were using dl, dt, ul, li and blockquote elements for "styling" (layouting really) websites, Internet Explorer 1.0 was launched the year before and most people who wrote HTML documents were amateurs at best. It's a 100% bet that the markup of yore was messed up compared to todays "standards".

lelandfe 5y ago

I may have figured it out. The site is committing hijinks with the text. They're manually wrapping text with ` `'s and then manually wrapping the source with spaces. Here's the HTML of the lines in question: <DIV>The voice was deep and melodious when it spoke. “David, we have been expecting you - this is what you have been searching for - this place, David, is where dreams are born.” It was at this moment David realized the being was speaking to him with its own voice, not by thought. David stood unmoving. He realized he had never dreamed before or even had ever slept. If you search for same-line sentence fragments you'll find the page: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+voice+was+deep+and+melodious+when+it+spoke%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+voice+was+deep+and+me.... Not an excuse: this is a case Google should handle. For posterity: https://imgur.com/a/DAUpLit https://imgur.com/a/DAUpLit

xyzzyz 5y ago
When every site was full of s and  s back in the day, Google had not been at all confused by it.
- dnissley 5y ago
 Are we sure about that? My recollection is the same, but it would be nice to have some way of ensuring my memory isn't faulty...
 - capableweb 5y ago
 Just to remind you of how things were when Google first launched (1996): W3C just started with the recommendation of CSS level 1 (https://www.w3.org/Press/CSS1-REC-PR.html https://www.w3.org/Press/CSS1-REC-PR.html), people were using dl, dt, ul, li and blockquote elements for "styling" (layouting really) websites, Internet Explorer 1.0 was launched the year before and most people who wrote HTML documents were amateurs at best. It's a 100% bet that the markup of yore was messed up compared to todays "standards".