Is it possible to have Google return only relevant results for terms that all appear on the results pages?

I can't explain how infuriating it is to get result after result containing only one or even NO search terms that I've requested. Even looking at the cached page produces no results, however Google claims that pages pointing to that one use those words... Ok, how about a link back to those source pages?

In the search results I see a bunch of highlighted words that I didn't even search for. I'm really tired of Google second guessing what I'm actually looking for.

Any example searches to demonstrate the effect?

I've found that putting terms in quotes sometimes helps to say "no, really, I want to search for this exact word, not any variations." Like, you'll get different results for renting vs. "renting". But, I dunno if that's a simpler case than you're talking about.

I've been noticing similar lately, not sure what is going on. My workaround has also been to use quotes, but it is annoying in any case.

I don't think these issues are going to be fixed ever. According to CEO Schmidt, Google knows better than you do and knows what you will be doing next. I should just accept the fact that I really don't know what I'm doing and Google does.

More from the creepy cretin here:
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20101...ouse-then-move/

Google should really dump his dead weight fast. He's a personification of everything that's wrong with that company.

That exact quote could easily be changed to Steve and Apple you know :P

That said, yes, it is a bit stupid about the if you don't like it then move comment. It does appear to be taken slightly out of context but if you're the CEO of Google then you should be a tad more tactful with your remarks especially regarding privacy.

I would be happy if they just removed the search crawler honeybots like Experts Exchange. Sites like this are apparently presenting different content to the Google crawler than to regular web users. That kind of behavior should get them banned from Google permantely.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8614

Regardless, an option for "never show me results from this domain" would be nice.

My site was banned back in 2006 for doing just that, supposedly showing users and the spider different content. However in my case it was part of my web standards and accessibility work - and Google blacked me out for quite some time.

Nefarious use of hidden content is ground for getting removed from their index.

I'm still puzzled by that site. If you just look at the top of the page then its got the blanked out bits that tell you to pay/subscribe to see the answer but if I scroll to the end of the page, I see the answers anyway...

Maybe you get to see correct answers if you pay?

I do really have to wonder what's running through Schmidt's head at times, since this isn't anywhere near the first time he's blurted out one of these really stupid comments in regards to privacy. It's getting to the point where I'm reconsidering my use of any of their products, including search. Not that my lone act will affect their bottom line in any meaningful way, but it's pretty sad when I trust Microsoft's privacy policies more then Google.

Ugh! I despise that site! Every time I'm stumped by a PC issue and I Google for a solution, I get that site as a result. At this point my eye is trained to simply ignore it.

But sadly, I do agree with you Bruno that I've noticed the same behavior and I've been puzzled by it for quite some time now. There have been dozens of times where I search for exactly what I want to find, and the results will not contain even a single word of my search, and they won't be of any help.

The only thing is, they're still my favorite search engine. Maybe it's time, after eight years or so, to give Alta Vista another try...

Umm in most cases, just scroll all the way to the bottom for the solution.... Not sure why it's this way but it is. I didn't realise it stole its answers from elsewhere, but it does sometimes provide a suitable solution.

Don't go there, Alta Vista is owned by Yahoo, and they've destroyed it. Even before they messed it up, Alta Vista's results seemed to be derived from Google's.

I really need an alternative to Google. I search for industrial stuff a lot and I'm getting pages of "pollution" results (globalspec, thomas, alibaba, etc...) Google really needs a "never show me results from these sites" option.

Hmmm... interesting... I just tried searching for "ac motor" and "anemometer" and got good results for both, the "pollution" sites were not even on the first two pages of results...

I just searched for the following without using quotes: "iphone perly's map"

The first result is Perly's corporate site and it doesn't mention iPhone anywhere on it.

The second result must have been produced by Eric Schmidt's own evil hands, as it is matching on 'Pearly' - which is clearly NOT what I typed into the search.

The whole first page of results is a train wreck of gargantuan proportions.

Or even "iphone ontario golden horseshoe maps" where the first 6! results don't contain the term "iphone" at all.

What were you trying to find? Were you using google.ca? (Perly's is apparently a Rand-McNally brand name used inside Canada.) The Perly's web site is just a login page. The corporate site's own search returns no results for "iphone", and their listing of Perly's branded products doesn't show anything like that at all.

Were you wanting Google to create a new web page that incorporated all of your terms, despite no such page apparently existing?

"+iphone ontario golden horseshoe maps" appears to return results that actually include the text "iphone"

What was I trying to find? Based on what I typed isn't that obvious? Since I'm not a moron, I don't use Google to take me to things I already know about or to go to specific URLs that I also already know.

BTW, Perly's isn't owned by Rand McNally. Hasn't been since 2008 when it was sold off along with all of Rand Canada to a Canadian company.

I don't know if Perly's is producing a Perly's map product for iPhone. I could visit their web page which might list an existing product and I can also visit the App Store. Except I'm pretty confident that specific app doesn't yet exist. So I turn to Google in hopes of finding other people looking for or discussing the same topic. perhaps a forum thread somewhere mentioning something about a future app. A blog post announcing something that might not yet be listed on the corporate site, etc... The normal stuff one would use Google for,



If the page doesn't exist, I expect zero results.

I don't expect Google to return a page that does not, at a minimum, include every search term I typed, exactly as I typed it.

What originally made Google superior to other search engines was that it only used to return matches for what you typed. You didn't have to include "+" or anything silly like that. I remember dumping Altavista for Google back when the G first appeared.

In the cached copy of the first result for the perly's search, it says that "iphone" exists only in pages pointing to that result. Well you know what Google? Show my THOSE pages, because that's what I want to see.

All I know is that Perly's/Canadian Cartographics is missing a HUGE opportunity here. They have all the digital IP to make some great mapping software and instead they're still only doing paper. It's great paper, but I'm sure they're losing sales to software solutions. Of course the same can be said about Rand McNally in the US - by at least an order of magnitude.

"As you can see from the unedited interview, my comments were made during a fairly long back and forth on privacy. I clearly misspoke"

but that isn't what it is supposed to do. It is supposed to include at least one of those search terms, but sometimes not even that depending on how the referrer pages are ranked.

As you mention, use the + notation or the advanced search page to do this. Or you can easily exclude pages from searches.

I've bene trying out Bing as an alternative, just to see how they do things differently. And already I like the "we know better then you" behavior with a search term I used today:

db.view

Google just assumes I was stupid and shows me completely worthless stuff as the first results. Bing did similar, but with this at the very top:


Now I will give credit for Google on the instant search though, as I could add a few additional key words and see the changes instantly, without having to hit return, wait, click, type, return, wait... Now if they would also just add in the "we changed your search for you, click here to really search for what you typed" consistently.

but google still has the "Did you mean xyz?" feature at the top of the results list.

Not for me...

Not, as I remember it.

That every result would would contain every search term, without adding modifiers, was one of the reasons I liked Google.

YES! That's was one of the huge improvements from using Altavista way back in the day.

I'll have to give bing another try. What I remember, the first time I tried it, was that it put me thru a kind of twenty questions farce.

Hunh! I went to a website on the basis of the summary that appears beneath each Google search hit, and the website did contain some (not all) of my search terms, BUT... it did not contain the information shown in the summary.

Is this normal?

tanstaafl.

Yes. That summary is based on the cached copy, and on a dynamic site, the cached copy will almost always be out of date. On a non-dynamic site it may have simply been updated since the snapshot was taken by Google.

Sadly, on the types of searches we're talking about in these threads, I tend to use the cached page about 75% of the time. Perhaps that's a big part of the problem, that Google is giving too many cached results?

The next part of Google Instant is here and its Instant Previews. It appears to be a JPEG image of their cache?

I ended up giving up on Bing, as it was coming up short in other areas. Going back to Google, I found one way to tell why they showed a result. It seems if you click the cached link, it will provide some info at the top, like this:

(using my earlier example of db.view)

Every time I've found a result that was missing a word I typed, or in this case it changing what I searched for, it's using info from pages that link to the result.

Now if only I could find a setting to turn this behavior off, I'd be happy. Really annoying to put in a 6 word search, and have it return results that only contain 5 of the words, due to the sixth being on some other linked page.

Put a '+' in front of every term you require.

+I +know +that's +annoying +with +UBBthreads, +guess +I +never +realized +it +was +mandatory +with +Google +too.

Yeah, that's really awful. You didn't used to have to do that with Google. I don't think Google realizes how awful that search behavior ("sites that link to this page") is for people like us who search very specifically. Perhaps for the average user, who might be searching for more general terms and ideas, it's not as noticeable.

What I'd like is a way to permanently block specific domains from my search results. For example, "NEVER EVER show me results for Experts Exchange."

Hmm. You could probably hack together some kind of addon or Greasemonkey script that always inserted -site:experts-exchange.com to your queries but thats prolly a little annoying...

I never understood the point of that website. The top of the page tries to convince you to register/pay by hiding the replies but if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you can see the replies anyway?

Can't remember the search now, but did come across one this past week where even the linked pages didn't have the term I typed in. Filed feedback on that one. Maybe if enough people do this, Google will get the hint that some of us would like an option to search for everything that we type, without having +to +type +like +this.

Also, now looking into a way to outright block any Gawker media site from my search results. Lifehacker stuff comes up from time to time, but their new site crap now tries to trap the browser. Clicking back just reloaded the story, instead of taking me back to my Google search results.

This makes me think of two topics-

1) I use tabs to surf any list, opening up new tabs and holding the original list open. No reloading required.

2) The Gawker 'facelift' is crap. I've dropped my visits (gizmodo and jalopnik) by about 90% because of it. Why is it crap? Because I want to look at a list of headlines, not ONE GIANT STORY and a tiny list on the side. Also, load ALL the comments, dammit, not just the 'featured' ones. WTH does that mean? 'Featured comment'?? It's all a step backwards, IMO.

I tend to use tabs if I'm researching something in depth, but skip them if it's a quick lookup search. The Lifehacker trap caught me due to a quick lookup, and it was even more frustrating since I was using the magic trackpad gestures. It's just not possible to gesture quick enough to get two back commands to be issued to defeat the trap.

I'm not a fan of the new design for the most part, but I don't dislike it as much as others seem to. Even Kevin Purdy of Lifehacker, though, strongly insinuated that he disliked the redesign.

As for the "featured comments" thing, I don't understand your dislike of it. There are large buttons at the top of the comments that let you change what it displays, switching between "Featured" and "All." I have it show all comments myself.

The main thing that annoys me about their featured comments is that it doesn't seem like people get pushed into the "featured" strata very often. I think it's left up to the users to promote other users to "featured" status and then they always show up as featured commenters. Seems like a weird system to me.

What I have always liked about their comment system is that replies to comments are hidden by default. This is essential, and something that blogs like Engadget NEED to implement. On Engadget, someone posts the first comment and then every commenter after that tends to insert their comment as a reply to that first one, and they do it just so they won't end up further down the comments page. If replies aren't shown by default, they'll just create a new comment of their own, and actual conversations can happen (not that Engadget commenters are the best conversationalists in the world).

Anyway, I wanted to compliment part of Lifehacker's comment system, even if I don't think it's perfect. Comments are a huge challenge for blogs anyway, especially popular ones.

With the old site, the two choices *show comments and *expand replies were held in a cookie, so with any subsequent visit to any other page, I'd see the same view as last time.

I don't want to click 'all' for every page.

I'm really kind of peeved at them and have not poked around for the controls for the page. I just haven't been interested in expending energy toward getting it back closer to the way it was- instead I just stopped going there.

I've seen some discussion about the possibility of arranging the page back to something more familiar, but again, I haven't done the research to see what that is all about.

I don't have an account there. I didn't like the account setup requirements for some reason and was very happy just lurking. I don't want to have to 'log in' just to get the page to view the way I want.

/rant

edit:
Ok, 'blog view' was easy enough to click... But what's the point of the sidebar with headlines if I've got all the headlines I want in blog view?
still not happy.

edit2
Ok- frustratingly clicking around on various buttons and views, I happened across a commenter that mentioned this:
http://ca.gizmodo.com/
"ca" for "classic" I suppose.
Now I am happy.

I think you're talking about two different things at the same time.

The setting you're talking about now was to expand replies to all the comments. That has nothing to do with featured comments, so that's where you confused me.

You are correct that now there is no way to leave replies expanded, but I don't want that anyway. If I see a comment that I think needs following up and I see there's already a reply, I'll expand it, otherwise it clutters things up and has the potential to break conversations like I said happens at Engadget.

On the topic of Google search results, I just happened to come across this in my Google Reader.

Goodbye, Experts Exchange!

[edit]What Dignan said ^[/edit]

Sorry I wasn't more explicit, but that's the exact subject of the post right before yours

Oops!

The new Gawker layouts are just plain broken unless you use Google Chrome.

Using any of them in classic mode, dipping into a full article, results in extra junk being loaded into the history, trapping the user in the article page.

In Chrome the back function works, but even in Chrome, it has problems, failing to return to the column position of the article read.

Added:

Didn't realize it at first but the article titles jump around depending on the associated image size. Don't like that at all.

Gizmodo still hasn't fixed their crap.
I've been using ca.gizmodo (and ca.jalopnik) to get at the old style layout, but for some strange reason during the early part of the day these sites show stories from February 23.
At least today it's Feb 23, could be different each day.
Still sorta odd.
I wondered if anyone else noticed and plugging 'february 23rd gizmodo' into google, I came up with this random blog entry that pretty much sums up how dumb they were to change their format:
http://fartonice.com/graphics/gizmodo-and-digg-when-web-design-goes-wrong/

Anyone else notice that when navigating back from clicking on a search result in Google that the search query and results are not the ones you just used to find the result you just previously clicked?

Example:

Search for blue roses
Don't click on any results
Search for red roses
Click on any result
Navigate back with the browser's back command/button
Google search string says "blue roses" and shows results for blue roses

Arrgh!

Sorry, Bruno, but I think you're going to have to blame this one on your own computer. I just tried exactly what you said in Chrome, Firefox, and IE, and none of them do what you say. When I go back, it gives me "red roses" and the corresponding results.

It may very well be an incompatibility with Safari, but nothing on my system has changed in the past few months in terms of software, but Google HAS rolled out changes to their search page.

A new Safari was just released, so I'm going to try it out to see if anything changes.

Works fine for me using Safari under Mac OS X 10.6.6, without the recent Safari update.

They have, but I'm not having the problem you are. Maybe it's something that was wrong with your system before they made whatever change they did that made the problem evident? I'm just saying, I've tried it on a couple computers now, and I suspect I'll have three more tomorrow I can try it on, but I'm guessing I'll see the same thing. Granted, I don't have any Macs to test on, though.

Seems to work fine after updating Safari. Strange.

I've reproduced the problem again. Here are revised steps for trying to duplicate the issue. Seems like it works if I do exactly what I wrote before. Sorry.

All without quotes.

Search for "blue roses"
Click on any result
Use BACK command in browser to return to results
Search box correctly reads "blue roses"
Type over the word "blue" with the word "red" and search
Click on any result
Use BACK command in browser to return to results
Google search string says "blue roses" and shows results for blue roses

Obviously "blue roses" is an example, it seems to happen regardless of what I'm searching for.

The "back" button in this case is totally the responsibility of the web browser program, not the site. So it's got to be some odd twist in Safari that's doing it there.

Cheers

I still can't replicate the problem Bruno is seeing in Safari on google.com and google.ca. Tried logged in and logged out, and I always see red roses when I click back. Maybe you have an extension wrecking havok with Google for some reason.


Not looking forward to when sites do muck with back incorrectly using HTML5.

That's already a problem, though. In fact, some form of it may well be Bruno's current problem, at least if "Instant" ajax search is turned on. After all, in that case the results page would have been about blue roses when it was first visited, and only later ajaxed itself into being about red roses as the result of some keypress events. So on browsers (including Iceweasel, FWIW) where you do see red roses when you return to the page, something clever is happening, probably to do with all the ajaxy bits rewriting the current page URL.

Peter

Unfortunately there are countless sites that prevent the back button from actually going back to the previous page/site.

Results start to appear in Google LIVE as I type the search query. So if anyone is trying to duplicate the issue, make sure that this happens for you too.

Yep, I see the changes live. If you wait a little bit, the URL bar even updates to show the new search. I did try again, with http://google.com still in the URL bar by the time I searched for blue roses and clicked a result. Clicking back did return me to the full URL with blue roses in the search.

Does the same issue happen if you turn off all extensions?

Now that Google instant is rolled out everywhere, I do actually like it better then the old way. It seemed odd at first, but it does save time when trying to refine a search, usually from having to go back and add + or " around something.

I thought that turning off extensions might fix the issue, but it's still screwy.


Start Safari showing Top Sites page
Search for "blue roses" using search bar/field
Click on any result
Use BACK command in browser to return to results
Search box correctly reads "blue roses"
Type over the word "blue" with the word "red" and press ENTER to search
Click on any result
Use BACK command in browser to return to results

Google search string sometimes says "blue roses" and shows results for blue roses

If it says RED, use BACK again to see if it then shows the BLUE search.

Use BACK command yet again and it should return to Top Sites (your browser's home page)

Next use FORWARD and the page should show the blue roses search - more often than not, I'm getting "red roses" showing up here.


That's what's happening with the Extensions mechanism turned off.

Items of Note... I start the search using the built-in browser search bar. I go BACK and FORWARD using the keyboard. I always press ENTER/RETURN after each search term is typed, even though Google is doing its live thing.

Cool. No more need to use extensions to block sites in Google results.

When blue is typed over red, google dynamically updates the search.
But the browser hasn't been instructed to fetch a new url.
So, no blue roses url is pushed into the history.
Selecting a blue roses result pushes that into top of the history.
Back pops the last url, and you get red roses.

If blue is typed over red, and return pressed, the browser pushes blue roses into the history. Now the back button will work as expected.

Any who didn't experience the problem were likely hitting return without realizing it.

But I am pressing return and still seeing the problem. And in fact going forward-backward from my home page will not always show the same search item in Google.

Earlier I was trying the example in FF.

Just retried it in Safari, updated yesterday, no problems with fwd back.

A question, when you write about typing into the search bar. Is it the one in Safari's menu bar or the one in Google's web page?

I'm seeing the URL bar update about 3-5 seconds after I stop typing, and this is when I'm not hitting return. From my tests, it's looking like the browser (Safari in my case) gets pushed a URL update at the same time results appear, but delays updating the URL displayed until things settle down. If I pick a link before the URL bar updates, I always get the last result I typed when I hit back.

If I do the exact steps Bruno last listed with Safari, I see the same thing, but only when I go back before the search then attempt to go forward. Forward twice always returns me to red roses. Never been able to recreate the issue going backwards, only when a forward is in the mix do I see some oddness.

Not sure if this is relevant for anyone but me, but the solution to the February 23rd battle is to use
http://ca.gizmodo.com/?p=1

Meanwhile, 'Blog mode' on their main site is a bit better than where they started the 'upgrade'. Wish I could shrink or disappear the sidebar.
http://gizmodo.com/#!classic

I forgot to update this thread regarding the odd Page Back behavior with Safari and Google.com

Since last posting I have installed a brand new drive in my MacBook Pro (128GB Kingston SSD) and installed Mac OS 10.6.7 from scratch.

I still experience the issue.

So, given that google's search functionality sucks and their results are highly polluted with crap sites, what is good these days?

Everyone else with Google Apps accounts being spammed over the past month or two about changes coming up? I don't know about everyone else, but I don't need 106 emails about the subject.

The funny thing is, none of the emails are actually for the three domains I have set up with Google apps. They're all for domains that I helped other people set up for which I am not an admin.

I received a single email in regards to billing changes. I don't know why you'd be getting so many...

This isn't about billing changes. The recent changes are a complete migration of Google apps accounts over to a brand new system that gives owners access to over 60 Google services, all integrated and accessible through the normal Google portals.

Like I said, I haven't received a single email for the domains that I actually own and admin myself, only emails for a few that I had previously set up for other people. That's the oddest part of all.

Nothing at all received here related to Google Apps on my domain hosted at Google.

Here's the complete text of one of the "two week" emails:

I got about three of those, for the one domain I have using Google Apps. I ignored all of them, as I have less than a dozen users.

And I'm STILL getting messages. And no mention of what domain it's relating to. Typical Google.