5 ms·

I remember back in the old days search engines were explicitly saying that words like "and" "how" etc.. were ignored when returning the results for your search.

by krelian 13y ago

I remember back in the old days search engines were explicitly saying that words like "and" "how" etc.. were ignored when returning the results for your search. These days these words are becoming the key to get you the results you are actually looking for.

1qaz2wsx3edc 13y ago
I'm going to answer this from a technical point of view. I find search is best done by using precedence. For example say my question is: "how to use rails with devise and omniauth", I break it down to the group in which I think nets the most results should be the first keyword and so on. 1. rails 2. devise 3. omniauth rails+devise+omniauth: https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+devise+omniauth https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+devise+omniauth rails+omniauth+devise: https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+omniauth+devise https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+omniauth+devise omniauth+devise+rails: https://www.google.com/search?q=omniauth+devise+rails https://www.google.com/search?q=omniauth+devise+rails how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+use+rails+with+devise... The top results are normally similar. With exception to the "how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth" search, which is rather different. From my standpoint the "rails+devise+omniauth" yields the best results as the source of truth is closer to the github documentation "OmniAuth: Overview · plataformatec/devise Wiki · GitHub", over third party information "#235 Devise and OmniAuth (revised) - RailsCasts". Using "how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth" gets rather off topic after the 3 or so results. Another tactic I use is searching like a command line. For instance: "wiki list breaking bad", or "imdb iron man". This don't work with smaller properties, so "site:example.com" is another awesome tool. Just my two cents.
- hrkristian 13y ago
  Quotes do not require the plus sign as a placeholder for space, unless I'm missing something. I often use quotes to search for specific Linux error messages with great success; any hit that isn't a direct match gets shafted.

by krelian 13y ago

1qaz2wsx3edc 13y ago

I'm going to answer this from a technical point of view. I find search is best done by using precedence. For example say my question is: "how to use rails with devise and omniauth", I break it down to the group in which I think nets the most results should be the first keyword and so on. 1. rails 2. devise 3. omniauth rails+devise+omniauth: https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+devise+omniauth https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+devise+omniauth rails+omniauth+devise: https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+omniauth+devise https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+omniauth+devise omniauth+devise+rails: https://www.google.com/search?q=omniauth+devise+rails https://www.google.com/search?q=omniauth+devise+rails how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+use+rails+with+devise... The top results are normally similar. With exception to the "how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth" search, which is rather different. From my standpoint the "rails+devise+omniauth" yields the best results as the source of truth is closer to the github documentation "OmniAuth: Overview · plataformatec/devise Wiki · GitHub", over third party information "#235 Devise and OmniAuth (revised) - RailsCasts". Using "how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth" gets rather off topic after the 3 or so results. Another tactic I use is searching like a command line. For instance: "wiki list breaking bad", or "imdb iron man". This don't work with smaller properties, so "site:example.com" is another awesome tool. Just my two cents.

hrkristian 13y ago
Quotes do not require the plus sign as a placeholder for space, unless I'm missing something. I often use quotes to search for specific Linux error messages with great success; any hit that isn't a direct match gets shafted.