5 ms·

I still find that they often don’t do what i intend them to

Thorrez 4y ago
What do you intend it to do? Do you dislike that it looks in hidden text (e.g. img alt text), or that it ignores punctuation? Or are you saying it returns pages without the text on it at all? I don't think that's the case. Disclosure: I work at Google, but not Search.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  When I quote "two words" in a group I expect to only get results based on those two words, spelled with those characters, exactly as quoted. Not split, not with different spelling or related meanings, not with anything but actually the string of bytes which I have quoted.
  - Thorrez 4y ago
    Google doesn't replace them with split versions (except that it ignores punctuation), nor does it replace them with different spellings or related meanings. The words you search for will be there, in order, the only difference will be all whitespace and punctuation is treated as a space. >string of bytes which I have quoted That's tricky. What if there's a line break? What if you search for "some text" but the html contains "some <b>text</b>"? Punctuation would be a problem too. What if you searched for something with "-" (hyphen-minus, unicode 0x2d), but the page contained a "‐" (hyphen, unicode 0x2010)? What if you searched for something with a dumb quote, but the page contained a smart quote? What if you searched for something with a space but the page contained a non-breaking space?
metadat 4y ago
Yes, this. 50% of the time or more I need to flip to the burger "advanced" menu and add the "Verbatim" constraint. Apparently Google search has been optimized for the lowest common denominator of an idiot. Truly shameful. If anything, it's the idiots who should be forced to use the UX of lesser idiots like myself. Let them select the "Hazy" constraint from the advanced menu. If DDG (or any alternative not incentivized to serve dimwits) would do this by default, I'd switch in a heartbeat and never look back.
- phailhaus 4y ago
  Not a good idea, because it's much easier to figure out "google is treating my query too loosely" than "google is treating my query too strictly and there is such a thing as 'looser'". People would just think the results suck. Instead, it should be possible to set that as a preference so that it persists across your searches.
  - metadat 4y ago
    This is still optimizing for the LCD of an idiot. Ignoring quotes is unforgivable, IMHO. If I could opt out of this shitty Big-G reality by means other than suicide, I gladly would.
    - phailhaus 4y ago
      You are firmly in the minority, probably by an order of magnitude. Sorry, never happening.
  - Noumenon72 4y ago
    I added a search engine called "google verbatim" to Chrome with the URL https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=li:1 https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=li:1 and the keyword "g". So I just type "g whatever" in the address bar and get verbatim every time.
- danuker 4y ago
  Thank you for mentioning "Verbatim". As for the "hazy" mode, I suspect it's the defaut because it uses a cheaper, smaller index limited to popular queries.

What do you intend it to do? Do you dislike that it looks in hidden text (e.g. img alt text), or that it ignores punctuation? Or are you saying it returns pages without the text on it at all? I don't think that's the case. Disclosure: I work at Google, but not Search.

colechristensen 4y ago
When I quote "two words" in a group I expect to only get results based on those two words, spelled with those characters, exactly as quoted. Not split, not with different spelling or related meanings, not with anything but actually the string of bytes which I have quoted.
- Thorrez 4y ago
  Google doesn't replace them with split versions (except that it ignores punctuation), nor does it replace them with different spellings or related meanings. The words you search for will be there, in order, the only difference will be all whitespace and punctuation is treated as a space. >string of bytes which I have quoted That's tricky. What if there's a line break? What if you search for "some text" but the html contains "some <b>text</b>"? Punctuation would be a problem too. What if you searched for something with "-" (hyphen-minus, unicode 0x2d), but the page contained a "‐" (hyphen, unicode 0x2010)? What if you searched for something with a dumb quote, but the page contained a smart quote? What if you searched for something with a space but the page contained a non-breaking space?

metadat 4y ago

Yes, this. 50% of the time or more I need to flip to the burger "advanced" menu and add the "Verbatim" constraint. Apparently Google search has been optimized for the lowest common denominator of an idiot. Truly shameful. If anything, it's the idiots who should be forced to use the UX of lesser idiots like myself. Let them select the "Hazy" constraint from the advanced menu. If DDG (or any alternative not incentivized to serve dimwits) would do this by default, I'd switch in a heartbeat and never look back.

phailhaus 4y ago
Not a good idea, because it's much easier to figure out "google is treating my query too loosely" than "google is treating my query too strictly and there is such a thing as 'looser'". People would just think the results suck. Instead, it should be possible to set that as a preference so that it persists across your searches.
- metadat 4y ago
  This is still optimizing for the LCD of an idiot. Ignoring quotes is unforgivable, IMHO. If I could opt out of this shitty Big-G reality by means other than suicide, I gladly would.
  - phailhaus 4y ago
    You are firmly in the minority, probably by an order of magnitude. Sorry, never happening.
- Noumenon72 4y ago
  I added a search engine called "google verbatim" to Chrome with the URL https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=li:1 https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=li:1 and the keyword "g". So I just type "g whatever" in the address bar and get verbatim every time.
danuker 4y ago
Thank you for mentioning "Verbatim". As for the "hazy" mode, I suspect it's the defaut because it uses a cheaper, smaller index limited to popular queries.