JOAT A rolling stone gathers no moss...unless it's a hobby he does on the weekends.
I have a printed paper copy of this (recent reprint) It's a good read.
Once again you have come up with a great site, JOAT! What is especially fun about this is that my Father In Law uses a lot of these things daily.
-- "We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"
Tim Douglass
Sat, Dec 17, 2005, 12:59pm (EST-3) snipped-for-privacy@bendcable.com (Tim=A0Douglass) sayeth: Once again you have come up with a great site, JOAT!
It would be even greater if I could come up with stuff like this on purpose. It's another gem found while looking for something else entirely. Just another thing to love about google.
JOAT A rolling stone gathers no moss...unless it's a hobby he does on the weekends.
"It's better to be lucky than good"
-- "We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"
Tim Douglass
Are others finding Google less and less useful? It seems that just about anything one searches for returns in excess of 100k hits, and usually more on the order of 1M hits. Despite claiming that it will return only results that contain all of the keywords selected, I'm finding more and more that many of those hits only contain a few of the keywords for which I was searching, thus cluttering up my search with irrelevancies. It also seems that if I don't find what I was looking for on the first couple pages, the remainder of the search results is either repeats or largely irrelevant.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+Sat, Dec 17, 2005, 7:59pm (EST-2) snipped-for-privacy@hadenough.com (Mark=A0&=A0Juanita) one of them wonders: Are others finding Google less and less useful?
It also seems that if I don't find what I was looking for on the first couple pages, the remainder of the search results is either repeats or largely irrelevant.
I'm tried probably most of the search tools out there, and I still prefer google. Yay google.
JOAT A rolling stone gathers no moss...unless it's a hobby he does on the weekends.
The Mark & Juanita entity posted thusly:
Searching with Google has some quirks to bear in mind, and requires some creativity.
Next time you find a page that has only a few of your keywords in it, check the page source. Chances are you will find those other keywords in parts of the source that are not visible.
Larry
Yes, and here's why.
On the plus side ... If you precede a search term with a minus symbol (ie -widget) google will exclude all returns that have widget on them. This can help to narrow the returns a lot.
Art
You can do a lot more than that to narrow your search. Most of the possible search parameters are on the advanced search page, but you can construct a search much mor quickly just by typing it in. For example:
(plan,kit) (boat,ship) (wood,wooden) -model
will find pages with: plan OR Kit AND boat OR ship AND wood OR wooden ANDNOT model
The same syntax also works on e-bay and most other search engines. A properly conducted search can save hours of digging. 'Course you do miss some wierd stuff.
The old computer adage, "GIGO" (garbage in, garbage out) applies to searching with Google and others as well.
You need to refine your search. If you haven't already tried it, try using the advanced search feature of Google and carefully craft your search parameters.
Using just the single search line and putting in sabre saw will net you your million or so hits. By adding a bit of specificity to the search you'll quickly pare that down and receive a more meaningful, useable result.
As for the first couple pages being more relevant to your search? That's the way Google is supposed to work. The way it tells you it's working.
Here's a link to their help page on refining your search:
On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 19:59:43 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm, Mark & Juanita quickly quoth:
Yes, I'm finding the same thing. And when I switched to A9, it came up with precisely the same hits as Google. The only advantage is that it also qualifies me for a 10% discount on all Amazon purchases, even on used books from their resellers!
We need to whine to them, not to ourselves, though. Let's all send them email detailing our gripes. If they get quite a few at one time, it just might sink in.
On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 00:52:08 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, Oleg Lego quickly quoth:
The fact that site pages are spamming Google with keywords does nothing to help us with our seareches, PulledLeg.
Sun, Dec 18, 2005, 12:03am (EST-3) snipped-for-privacy@zzzz.com (Wood=A0Butcher) doth advisth: If you precede a search term with a minus symbol (ie -widget) google will exclude all returns that have widget on them. This can help to narrow the returns a lot.
True. But, I seldom use a minus sign, because sometimes I find some of the most interesting sites that way. I only use that when I'm really, really, intensely looking for something specific. In fact, if I mis-spell a search word, sometimes I'll let it go, just to see what comes up.
For one project, for myself, I searched for around 6ix month. With no usable results. Changed search words, and search phrases, quotes, no quotes, minus sign, every pertinent word I could think of. Zip results. Then one day happened on a site that had something related, with a word I would never have suspedted related. Stuck that in my search words, and within three days had all the information I was after, and more.
Sometimes if you don't find what you're looking for, it's not google's fault; it's yours - because you're not using the right buzz word(s). It ain't rocket science, just means you're not being patient enough. Or maybe just not using your imagination - that seems to happen a lot arond here.
JOAT You'll never get anywhere if you believe what you "hear". What do you "know"?.
- Granny Weatherwax
On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 08:17:36 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Lobby Dosser quickly quoth:
Right you are, + you can stack ANDNOTs, too.
-(model,balsa,brass)
And that can be the worst outcome ever. I've found so MANY neat items which were misfiled or misspelled.
... snip
Thanks for that short-cut. One problem I'm seeing is that as often as not, I will get links, using your example, that despite the AND function return results that only contain "kit" or "wooden" and none of the other required AND'ed terms. That is where I get frustrated.
When one has time, the wierd stuff is fun and often useful. But there are times when one wants (or needs) *the* answer and needs it *now* not after wading through several hundred pages of irrelevancies.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
I'm quite aware of the advanced search features of Google. That is what is causing my frustration. If I tell Google that I want references that contain A AND B AND C but NOT D, I don't appreciate getting hits back that contain A AND B but NOT C or even worse, some combination of A, B, and C and also including D.
(Caps aren't shouting here, only added to indicate the boolean function)
Now, some of this may not be Google's fault, but it may be people burying other possible key words in their html source in order to increase hits to their sites. But that doesn't make the Google search any less useless or time-consuming.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
I'v run into the same thing. In some instances the ANDed word seems to be on another page at the same site. What I'd like to see is a 'proximity' search - (Boat AND Kit WITHIN 10 WORDS), for example. AFAIK, none of the common search engines allow this or something similar.
Quite often I will do the initial search and then re-do to exclude a lot of the junk. Sometimes I'll refine an e-bay search several times; particularly if I'm going to save the search.
Have you tried WebFerret? Sometimes I have better luck with it and it can hit all the major search engines in one hit.
At one time, there were professional searchers - perhaps there still are. Back in college a friend of mine was a librarian and she specialized in searches. Back then electronic searches and data bases were a Spendy proposition and you were required to use the Pro for your search ($), Then you had to pay for the search time ($), then you had to pay for the short descriptions of the results ($$), then pay for the abstracts ($$$). I learned quite a bit about searching while doing my MS on my own dime.
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