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I don't understand why they never added + back after Google+ finally died. When I was at Google I actually went as far as looking for the code to re-enable it i

I don't understand why they never added + back after Google+ finally died. When I was at Google I actually went as far as looking for the code to re-enable it in superroot. If I recall correctly I actually found some of the code but never had time to learn enough about superroot to make and test a CL. Of course I probably wouldn't have actually been able to get it changed back just by making a CL but at least I would have learned why it couldn't be changed back.

grapeskin 4y ago
I feel like tech giants just absolutely never admit mistakes. Instead of reverting something and admitting it was a bad decision, they’ll at best completely relaunch a half-assed complete rehaul of it and pretend it’s a brand new feature. I guess it’s too hard to find a way to reframe adding back a + as something new. But god, I wish there were a way to do actual precise searches like there used to be. It’s especially awful with multilingual computing. I can search for things word by word in quotes, and Google will return things translated word by word into a different language. If I wanted that language, I would have input the words in that language. And there’s no escaping it, even if I change my settings to only search one language.
- dylan604 4y ago
  >I feel like tech giants just absolutely never admit mistakes. The only one that comes to mind is Apple's mea-culpa on the Trashcan MacPro. They actually sat down with reporters and admitted it was a bad design. That one stood out due to the actual admission vs the typical silently revert design back without admission of bad idea (like the butterfly keyboard, magsafe, touch bar, etc).
  - Klonoar 4y ago
    The difference may be that the MacPro target audience is less general and very vocal. Nowhere to really hide on that one.
- thomassmith65 4y ago
  But god, I wish there were a way to do actual precise searches like there used to be. It's probably not in Google's best interest to allow that. I assume Verbatim search puts higher load on Google servers, while simultaneously making it harder to confine the user to a Google-affiliated site (eg: AdSense client, Blogger, Youtube...)
- dannysullivan 4y ago
  I work for Google Search. Quotes replaced the + operator but work exactly the same way. They do precisely search for content with the exact terms specified. They really do. They will not look for translations and so on. If there's no match at all for a quoted term, we will show other matches but also make that clear with a special message. And maybe we shouldn't do that to make it even clearer there are no matches. But we don't ignore quoted terms when there's a match -- if you ever have an example where you think this has happened, I'd love to know if you're comfortable sharing, so we can investigate.
  - grapeskin 4y ago
    I search things in English daily. The results are translated word by word into similar sounding words in Japanese written in Katakana with zero English on the page. I’m sorry, but what you’re saying simply is not true. It’s immensely frustrating. Using bing, DDG, or literally any other search engine doesn’t have this problem. And I’m searching common words, common concepts, basic things that even the worst search engines will accurately provide results for. The most frustrating thing is sometimes the language will flip. I will get English on certain hours of the day. But if I make a single search in Japanese, it flips back into that mode and there’s no unsticking it.
    - dannysullivan 4y ago
      If you are quoting terms, we're not going to match what's quoted and not go beyond that. If you have an example of where using quoted terms, you find this happening, please share if you're comfortable. I'll forward to the team, and we'll investigate. If you're not quoting terms, we might go beyond the inputted language and the language preference if that seems useful. And if this isn't turning out to be useful for you, again, please share any examples you might be comfortable with (now or in the future). Ping me, and we'll look into it.
      - dannysullivan 4y ago
        Oh, and I meant "we're going to match what's quoted" in the first sentence of my reply. Sorry -- can't edit it now.
dannysullivan 4y ago
I work for Google Search. We have looked at this, and while never say never, reverting is hard from what I understand because it means we'd have to ignore the + symbol which turns out to be useful to recognize when it comes to international phone number searches.
- breakingcups 4y ago
  That seems like it is easy to special-case though.
  - dannysullivan 4y ago
    Not so easy, the engineers tell me. Again, never say never. I miss + myself, but quotes do work.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- chimprich 4y ago
  That seems like quite the edge case. I don't think I've ever searched for an international phone number. Is that worth making the search experience rather poorer for everyone? Besides: if you're searching for a phone number, you presumably are looking for an exact match, so how is treating it as such a problem?
  - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
    Are you by chance in North America? I suspect this is a much more common edge case in Europe where you have a bunch of countries within close proximity to each other.
    - chimprich 4y ago
      I live in the UK and travel regularly in Europe. I've very rarely Googled a phone number. The only times I can think of is when I've had an unknown number call me and I want to try to figure out who it was. (Of course, doing it the reverse way, Googling an org's name to find their phone number, is common). I'm suddenly curious as to why anyone would search for phone numbers regularly.
ASalazarMX 4y ago
Google+ has not died, it still wanders in Google Workspace purgatory.

grapeskin 4y ago

I feel like tech giants just absolutely never admit mistakes. Instead of reverting something and admitting it was a bad decision, they’ll at best completely relaunch a half-assed complete rehaul of it and pretend it’s a brand new feature. I guess it’s too hard to find a way to reframe adding back a + as something new. But god, I wish there were a way to do actual precise searches like there used to be. It’s especially awful with multilingual computing. I can search for things word by word in quotes, and Google will return things translated word by word into a different language. If I wanted that language, I would have input the words in that language. And there’s no escaping it, even if I change my settings to only search one language.

dylan604 4y ago
>I feel like tech giants just absolutely never admit mistakes. The only one that comes to mind is Apple's mea-culpa on the Trashcan MacPro. They actually sat down with reporters and admitted it was a bad design. That one stood out due to the actual admission vs the typical silently revert design back without admission of bad idea (like the butterfly keyboard, magsafe, touch bar, etc).
- Klonoar 4y ago
  The difference may be that the MacPro target audience is less general and very vocal. Nowhere to really hide on that one.
thomassmith65 4y ago
But god, I wish there were a way to do actual precise searches like there used to be. It's probably not in Google's best interest to allow that. I assume Verbatim search puts higher load on Google servers, while simultaneously making it harder to confine the user to a Google-affiliated site (eg: AdSense client, Blogger, Youtube...)
dannysullivan 4y ago
I work for Google Search. Quotes replaced the + operator but work exactly the same way. They do precisely search for content with the exact terms specified. They really do. They will not look for translations and so on. If there's no match at all for a quoted term, we will show other matches but also make that clear with a special message. And maybe we shouldn't do that to make it even clearer there are no matches. But we don't ignore quoted terms when there's a match -- if you ever have an example where you think this has happened, I'd love to know if you're comfortable sharing, so we can investigate.
- grapeskin 4y ago
  I search things in English daily. The results are translated word by word into similar sounding words in Japanese written in Katakana with zero English on the page. I’m sorry, but what you’re saying simply is not true. It’s immensely frustrating. Using bing, DDG, or literally any other search engine doesn’t have this problem. And I’m searching common words, common concepts, basic things that even the worst search engines will accurately provide results for. The most frustrating thing is sometimes the language will flip. I will get English on certain hours of the day. But if I make a single search in Japanese, it flips back into that mode and there’s no unsticking it.
  - dannysullivan 4y ago
    If you are quoting terms, we're not going to match what's quoted and not go beyond that. If you have an example of where using quoted terms, you find this happening, please share if you're comfortable. I'll forward to the team, and we'll investigate. If you're not quoting terms, we might go beyond the inputted language and the language preference if that seems useful. And if this isn't turning out to be useful for you, again, please share any examples you might be comfortable with (now or in the future). Ping me, and we'll look into it.
    - dannysullivan 4y ago
      Oh, and I meant "we're going to match what's quoted" in the first sentence of my reply. Sorry -- can't edit it now.

dannysullivan 4y ago

I work for Google Search. We have looked at this, and while never say never, reverting is hard from what I understand because it means we'd have to ignore the + symbol which turns out to be useful to recognize when it comes to international phone number searches.

breakingcups 4y ago
That seems like it is easy to special-case though.
- dannysullivan 4y ago
  Not so easy, the engineers tell me. Again, never say never. I miss + myself, but quotes do work.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
chimprich 4y ago
That seems like quite the edge case. I don't think I've ever searched for an international phone number. Is that worth making the search experience rather poorer for everyone? Besides: if you're searching for a phone number, you presumably are looking for an exact match, so how is treating it as such a problem?
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  Are you by chance in North America? I suspect this is a much more common edge case in Europe where you have a bunch of countries within close proximity to each other.
  - chimprich 4y ago
    I live in the UK and travel regularly in Europe. I've very rarely Googled a phone number. The only times I can think of is when I've had an unknown number call me and I want to try to figure out who it was. (Of course, doing it the reverse way, Googling an org's name to find their phone number, is common). I'm suddenly curious as to why anyone would search for phone numbers regularly.

ASalazarMX 4y ago

Google+ has not died, it still wanders in Google Workspace purgatory.