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?