3 ms·

I think Google thinks that you and I, who want a search tool that does what you ask for, are a niche market not worth going after. I have no idea whether they'

by waqf 15y ago

I think Google thinks that you and I, who want a search tool that does what you ask for, are a niche market not worth going after. I have no idea whether they're right.

AlexandrB 15y ago
It won't happen overnight, but this could be trouble for Google. If it was still Google vs. Yahoo, it would be no contest, but Bing is nipping at their heels (at least in terms of search quality) and is actually pretty damn good.
- nooneelse 15y ago
  Isn't Bing also including social signals in personalizing their search results? If so, neither of them are just sticking to the task of being a simple search engine like we knew and loved years ago.
VikingCoder 15y ago
Have neither of you heard of verbatim search? http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/11/search-using-your-terms-verbatim.html http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/11/search-using-your-t... Or turning off Search Plus Your World? http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hf5K14O6Fwc/Twufv9LK1PI/AAAAAAAAALU/ZFkWokAloIM/s400/Toggle.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hf5K14O6Fwc/Twufv9LK1PI/AAAAAAAAAL... No, seriously... Knowing that these two things exist, are you still unable to search what you want to?
- waqf 15y ago
  Mostly, I'm able to search what I want but it takes me so many extra clicks that I can tell they don't respect my use cases. For example, if I could I'd set synonym replacement on but turn off assuming I misspelled what I typed. Where's the option for that?
  - VikingCoder 15y ago
    Out of curiosity ...what's an example search? Where, you typed a word, that looks convincingly like another word had been misspelled, but in fact is correctly spelled - but has synonyms that you want to look for?
    - waqf 15y ago
      It's not about a single search satisfying all of those properties. I'm just saying I want them all as defaults: that is to say, I don't find it reasonable that I should have to go find the search options page and turn verbatim search off every time I'm about to make a search where synonyms might be helpful, and turn it on again every time I'm about to make a search which might be autocorrected.
      - VikingCoder 15y ago
        ...so, if you type something where synonyms might be helpful, it should automatically use synonyms... ...but, sometimes you want to type something that looks like it should be autocorrected, but you want it to not autocorrect it... ...and it's not enough that you can do these things - you want them to happen automatically? I'm sorry, but that is not "a search tool that does what you ask for," that's MAGIC that you want. If you think a search engine exists that does this better, please tell us all about it, because I think it would be an example of an intelligent machine, in the Turing Test sense.
        waqf 15y ago
        I certainly can tell you about it, because robrenaud directed me to one in this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3508005 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3508005. I have just tested it and it does exactly what I asked for.
  - robrenaud 15y ago
    Add &nfpr=1 to your queries to disable full page replacement. You can trick your browser to doing this for you if you use the search bar by setting a custom search engine with that parameter.

by waqf 15y ago

I think Google thinks that you and I, who want a search tool that does what you ask for, are a niche market not worth going after. I have no idea whether they're right.

AlexandrB 15y ago

It won't happen overnight, but this could be trouble for Google. If it was still Google vs. Yahoo, it would be no contest, but Bing is nipping at their heels (at least in terms of search quality) and is actually pretty damn good.

nooneelse 15y ago
Isn't Bing also including social signals in personalizing their search results? If so, neither of them are just sticking to the task of being a simple search engine like we knew and loved years ago.

VikingCoder 15y ago

Have neither of you heard of verbatim search? http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/11/search-using-your-terms-verbatim.html http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/11/search-using-your-t... Or turning off Search Plus Your World? http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hf5K14O6Fwc/Twufv9LK1PI/AAAAAAAAALU/ZFkWokAloIM/s400/Toggle.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hf5K14O6Fwc/Twufv9LK1PI/AAAAAAAAAL... No, seriously... Knowing that these two things exist, are you still unable to search what you want to?

waqf 15y ago
Mostly, I'm able to search what I want but it takes me so many extra clicks that I can tell they don't respect my use cases. For example, if I could I'd set synonym replacement on but turn off assuming I misspelled what I typed. Where's the option for that?
- VikingCoder 15y ago
  Out of curiosity ...what's an example search? Where, you typed a word, that looks convincingly like another word had been misspelled, but in fact is correctly spelled - but has synonyms that you want to look for?
  - waqf 15y ago
    It's not about a single search satisfying all of those properties. I'm just saying I want them all as defaults: that is to say, I don't find it reasonable that I should have to go find the search options page and turn verbatim search off every time I'm about to make a search where synonyms might be helpful, and turn it on again every time I'm about to make a search which might be autocorrected.
    - VikingCoder 15y ago
      ...so, if you type something where synonyms might be helpful, it should automatically use synonyms... ...but, sometimes you want to type something that looks like it should be autocorrected, but you want it to not autocorrect it... ...and it's not enough that you can do these things - you want them to happen automatically? I'm sorry, but that is not "a search tool that does what you ask for," that's MAGIC that you want. If you think a search engine exists that does this better, please tell us all about it, because I think it would be an example of an intelligent machine, in the Turing Test sense.
      - waqf 15y ago
        I certainly can tell you about it, because robrenaud directed me to one in this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3508005 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3508005. I have just tested it and it does exactly what I asked for.
- robrenaud 15y ago
  Add &nfpr=1 to your queries to disable full page replacement. You can trick your browser to doing this for you if you use the search bar by setting a custom search engine with that parameter.