Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Are There Any Search Engines Left That Don't Try To Think For Me?
An anonymous reader writes: As a programmer especially, I'm becoming increasingly unhappy with Google searches. They try very hard to present me with what they think I'm searching for instead of what I'm actually searching for. This issue mostly shows up when searching error messages, obscure type and function names and stuff like that. What I think though, is that I only notice the issue when searching for stuff I know a lot about, namely programming, but my queries get distorted when I'm searching for just about anything, I just don't know enough about the subject to notice. Are there any alternative search engines left that don't think they know better than me what I'm looking for and just search for my phrase, like in the 2000s?
Searching for exact strings is an option with Google, but what search engines are the most hands-off to start with?
Try enclosing your error output in quotation marks. That tells Google that you're looking for that phrase, not just that combination of words.
Going to be unpopular, but I've noticed I get better results when I'm logged in. When I search for programming terms that are not obviously unique to programming (example: "Spring" from Spring Framework) I get relevant results as Google knows I'm usually searching for programming related material, if I need to a "clean" search I can go to incognito for a second to get that.
Or just add "Google Verbatim" to your search engine list:
http://mycroftproject.com/sear...
startpage.com works reasonably well and doesn't try to outsmart you too much; I find it works well for error messages. They also don't track you, so that's nice.
Specifically for error messages, put double quotes around the string for more accurate results. Adjust to avoid including local information. Example: (a made up) error message "An application on your machine rudolph process number 28433 for user barbie_doll has caused an inexcusable memory management error." would be searched as:
"An application on your machine" "process number" "for user" "has caused an inexcusable memory management error".
As someone else said, if it's a linux machine, make the first word "linux". Or the flavor of linux, or if windows, include that and the version, or if appropriate the name of the application.
"Windows 2008" IIS "401 unauthorized" "access list"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
No, results are still distorted due to geolocation, language and other unknown techniques. I encounter this issue in a very painful way when I travel.
At home I search for widgets and get a listing of widgets. Good or bad, it is a listing that I get every time I search for widgets when within my home town.
When I travel to a foreign country, I CANNOT reproduce those same results, even if I specify the location as being my home city. In some cases these searches will provide not a single similar widget link to those that appear on the first three pages at home. It's HUGELY frustrating.
But, it also gives me pause about what results I am missing out on when I'm at home. My results(incognito even) are so targeted that I don't see any results outside my sphere. I'm sure that there are probably significant developments in widgets in Brazil, or Italy, or Japan. But, even if I use google.jp to search when I am in my hometown, my results are still mostly the same as searching google.com, just in Kanji.
For a few years now, Google has been getting increasingly less useful due to its "increased intelligence". I want information on widgets. I don;t need that information curated because of where I am or because my neighbor searched for J-Lo.
if you use a proxy use https://www.google.com/ncr
the NCR stands for no country redirect. It'll take you to the US site and give you us results.
Did you mean... "are there any humans left that know how to RTFM?" Google provides instructions on advanced use cases such as these.
Advanced Search Form:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
Advanced operators to filter and fine tune results:
https://sites.google.com/site/gwebsearcheducation/advanced-operators
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Google (and all other search engines) try their best to return the results the user has asked for.
More precisely, they try their best to return the results they infer that the user would really want, based on the syntax of the query.
It's never going to be perfect at doing this, if only because people use the same phrases in different ways from time to time.
Yes, it's never going to be perfect at inferring what the user wants. The original poster is complaining that Google has been getting worse at inferring what he wants, especially for particular narrow queries.
I've seen the same problems he has. Perhaps that's an unfortunate side-effect of trying to do a better job of handling most users' queries.
If Google (or the search engine of your choice) is returning results that aren't what you want, then your best option is to make the query more specific. Either add relevant keywords, search for a phrase instead of individual words (using quotes), or exclude some other keywords (in Google, prepend - to the beginning of the word you want to exclude...other search engines are probably similar).
Yes, the original poster is quite aware of quoting; as he says, "Searching for exact strings is an option with Google". What he wants is a search engine that doesn't try as hard to infer what the user really wants, rather than one that has to be forced, with more use of quotes, to just look for the damn string. Perhaps that's a sufficiently small niche that no search engine would bother to offer that, and he'll just have to live with typing more double-quote characters.
There is, but unfortunately you can't set it up as a default, and you have to select it after you've done your search.
Go to Search Tools, you'll see a drop down currently marked "All Results", change it to "Verbatim", and you'll get a classic Google search (for the most part.)
I'm finding about 90% of my Google searches end up with my selecting that option. Google, seriously, when are you going to fix this?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Your google-fu is broken. /supported/ google-fu.
Google did away with the plus, in favour of doublequotes, long ago.
See https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433 for all the
There is, but unfortunately you can't set it up as a default, and you have to select it after you've done your search.
Go to Search Tools, you'll see a drop down currently marked "All Results", change it to "Verbatim", and you'll get a classic Google search (for the most part.)
I'm finding about 90% of my Google searches end up with my selecting that option. Google, seriously, when are you going to fix this?
If you put &tbs=li:1 at the end of your search URL, you'll get verbatim results.
http://symbolhound.com/
Your search returned 1,245,245 results, none of which included the actual text you typed, but at some point in the past they apparently linked to pages that did contain the text you typed.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
to the end of your URI.
Wow, you're right. They've co opted the + to search Google+ pages. WTF? From the page you linked to: "[+ symbol usage:] Search for Google+ pages or blood types Examples: +Chrome or AB+"
I'm not. they USED to let you store a list of domains to NEVER EVER allow in the results. They removed that because the scumbag aggregator sites bitched.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You are attacking a person's search engine based on something that has nothing to do with their search engine.
From the site's front page:
Submit your site to the world's first search engine that filters out corporate propaganda and government disinfo!
With your help, we are building the internet's largest search engine for those searching for information and news on liberty, natural healing, central banks, food freedom, advanced science and a multitude of other topics no longer allowed in NSA-controlled search engines.
I bet google spends millions every single year just combating the SEO and other crap that goes on with Search. They can't direct term search or the results would immediately be polluted beyond use by SEO. Google has had to adapt to these changes.