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by einr 2688 days ago
It feels like the philosophy has become "return lots of results at any cost".

For instance I just now searched for a specific e-mail address that ends with "@hotmail.co.jp" -- since it didn't find any hits with the full address, it decided to strike out the username part and return thousands of results for just "hotmail.co.jp". This is literally useless and they should know better.

It just gets worse and worse for technical searches too, I find. Searching for stuff like datasheets for chips and vintage obscure computer programs and peripherals rarely returns anything useful without "wrapping" "everything" "in" "quotes".
2 comments
icebraining 2688 days ago
They have a Verbatim mode which doesn't do that (as much?), but you have to click on Tools → All Results → Verbatim every time.

Alternatively, if you can edit the URL used by your browser, you can just add "tbs=li:1" to it; for Firefox, you can add it as an alternative Search engine by running this on the Console:

  window.external.AddSearchProvider("https://gist.githubusercontent.com/popthestack/1530165/raw/c99a1c5e6e783aecffa432397a527f557944926d/google-ssl-verbatim.xml")
This doesn't invalidate the overall point, of course, it's just a personal tip.
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einr 2688 days ago
Yeah, I used to have verbatim mode as a separate and default search provider in Firefox, but I had to stop using it as my default -- I find sometimes it's just too verbatim and it's like using Altavista in 1996 all over again.

I feel like Google a few years ago had struck a decent balance between trying to be smart (sometimes automatically including synonyms to your search terms, etc.) while still respecting your actual search terms. Now it's way too far gone in the "assume user is a total idiot and doesn't know what he wants" direction.

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garyclarke27 2687 days ago
Yes Good Point - I've noticed many more missing terms in the past few weeks. Extremely irritating - Problem is Verbatim mode is buried and cannot be defaulted and does not work with Time Filter, Time Filter is often essential for useful searches. More control for advanced users is settings is required, Mobile first layout still annoys me on Safari iPad, so much so that, I have to iCab Browser - lets you change the user agent and lots of useful options such as Text Sizes
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kazinator 2687 days ago
The principle is probably more like: return such approximate results that, among them, advertising doesn't look out of place.
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