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> Bing is currently more literal-minded than Google. Google is using too much popularity-based machine learning to "correct" what you're searching for. It's bec

by swang 12y ago

> Bing is currently more literal-minded than Google. Google is using too much popularity-based machine learning to "correct" what you're searching for. It's become difficult on Google to search for a non-popular thing that happens to be close to a popular search target. Google does not treat quote marks as a mandatory exact match any more, just a hint. One of the biggest things that irks me now about Google. Sometimes I want to search just for the word, "sofa" I don't need you to match it with "relevant" other words like "couch"

proexploit 12y ago
Why not? I consider sofa and couch to be synonyms. This lets me do two searches in one.
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  Well, you used to be able to use "sofa" with google, which would exclude 'couch' etc. but then they killed that. Still works with other search engines.
  - jpatokal 12y ago
    sofa -couch still works. Also, verbatim mode: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/142143?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/142143?hl=en
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      Won't sofa -couch exclude pages that have both words?
- spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
  sometimes you dont want that eg try to find solutions for open directory problems on OSX Server (as the docs for OSX server are F%$^ S%^t) you get lost a low quality results about how to make OSX work with Micrsofts AD! if I wanted those results I would search with Acive directoy as part of the flipping query!
- josteink 12y ago
  > Why not? I consider sofa and couch to be synonyms. This lets me do two searches in one. For you. For this one use-case. Which may or may not be good. It's the effect of this scaled up, for all use-cases Google's cluster can identify, for all users which is bad. It's one of the reasons I use DDG instead of Google these days.
collyw 12y ago
Not quite the same, but I quite like the fact that Google is way better at spelling than I am.

by swang 12y ago

proexploit 12y ago

Why not? I consider sofa and couch to be synonyms. This lets me do two searches in one.

blueskin_ 12y ago
Well, you used to be able to use "sofa" with google, which would exclude 'couch' etc. but then they killed that. Still works with other search engines.
- jpatokal 12y ago
  sofa -couch still works. Also, verbatim mode: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/142143?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/142143?hl=en
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    Won't sofa -couch exclude pages that have both words?
spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
sometimes you dont want that eg try to find solutions for open directory problems on OSX Server (as the docs for OSX server are F%$^ S%^t) you get lost a low quality results about how to make OSX work with Micrsofts AD! if I wanted those results I would search with Acive directoy as part of the flipping query!
josteink 12y ago
> Why not? I consider sofa and couch to be synonyms. This lets me do two searches in one. For you. For this one use-case. Which may or may not be good. It's the effect of this scaled up, for all use-cases Google's cluster can identify, for all users which is bad. It's one of the reasons I use DDG instead of Google these days.

collyw 12y ago

Not quite the same, but I quite like the fact that Google is way better at spelling than I am.