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Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

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Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

#141

Post by Matt_Cutts »

jerrya wrote: post #126
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #2

I know that a lot of people were sad that we switched from +word to "word" to do an exact match for a word. The good news is that we're rolling out a "literal mode" that will search for exactly the words you typed. It does a verbatim match with your words, so it turns off things like spelling corrections, stemming, synonyms, optionalized terms, and so on. I think we saw multiple proposals for this on Hacker News, so…

Can you confirm or discuss more about what this does to the "filter bubble?" In two windows of the same browser, I typed gyros, one immediately offered me an instant search result of gyros Phoenix (where I currrently am), the other window, in verbatim mode offered me gyros, gyroscope, and gyros recipe. (Don't ask me why I tried gyros as my search example.)

I believe verbatim mode turns off personalization, and it looks like it turns off localization as part of that. So the query [yoga] shows local places to do yoga for me, but in verbatim mode I don't see that.

Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

#142

Post by Matt_Cutts »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #133
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #2

I know that a lot of people were sad that we switched from +word to "word" to do an exact match for a word. The good news is that we're rolling out a "literal mode" that will search for exactly the words you typed. It does a verbatim match with your words, so it turns off things like spelling corrections, stemming, synonyms, optionalized terms, and so on. I think we saw multiple proposals for this on Hacker News, so…

Why does this query not do what one would expect. halo -"halo 2" -"halo 3" Also, removing "Advanced Search" from the main google.com and from the top of a search results page beats out moving "cached" to the preview page in terms of "stupidest decision Google has ever made".

I'll ask about the halo query. In the mean time, it looks like [halo -halo.2 -halo.3] does what you want.

Do you see a gear symbol in the top of main google.com and the results page? I think that's where Advanced Search is now.

Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

#144

Post by dncrane »

redthrowaway wrote: post #96
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #2

I know that a lot of people were sad that we switched from +word to "word" to do an exact match for a word. The good news is that we're rolling out a "literal mode" that will search for exactly the words you typed. It does a verbatim match with your words, so it turns off things like spelling corrections, stemming, synonyms, optionalized terms, and so on. I think we saw multiple proposals for this on Hacker News, so…

Still waiting on being able to search for punctuation. Being able to search for "$. ruby" or "$_ perl" or "$: edit: Just realized "$_ perl" actually does work. It would be nice, however, if we could search for these kinds of terms generally and not just in specific case.

I launched a search engine that does exactly this just over a week ago, you can see it here: http://symbolhound.com/

I freaked out when I saw this headline and thought it meant google had finally decided to implement this feature a week after my launch.

Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

#145

Post by drivebyacct2 »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #142
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this query not do what one would expect. halo -"halo 2" -"halo 3" Also, removing "Advanced Search" from the main google.com and from the top of a search results page beats out moving "cached" to the preview page in terms of "stupidest decision Google has ever made".

I'll ask about the halo query. In the mean time, it looks like [halo -halo.2 -halo.3] does what you want. Do you see a gear symbol in the top of main google.com and the results page? I think that's where Advanced Search is now.

Thanks for the query recommendation. Curious why the other didn't work, I feel it (or similar ones) have worked as I might expect in the past.

>Do you see a gear symbol in the top of main google.com and the results page? I think that's where Advanced Search is now.

Seems Android action-bar-esque almost, but yes, thanks.

Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

#146

Post by Matt_Cutts »

Shanewho wrote: post #76

This sounds like it has potential, although I can't test it yet. You should try searching Google for information on COM programming. Try finding information on "COM Events", for example. Good luck. Macy's is on the the first page! Bing is not any better.

I get "Understanding COM Event Handling" at #1, but agree that it's not ideal. Some words like COM or IT have dual meanings where sometimes you want to treat them like stopwords and sometimes you don't.

Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

#147

Post by Matt_Cutts »

anjc wrote: post #55
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm at a conference and can't easily get on our internal VPN from here, but I'll try to remember to circle back around when I can get on our VPN. But in general, you see a lot of stuff that looks like semi-random punctuation just sprinkled at the beginning of the query or throughout the query, things that look like people are using plus instead of space as if they're copying from an address bar, etc.

Ah ok that makes sense, thanks. I'm just mainly surprised at how little usage there was of the operator to begin with. I use it (used to use it) probably 20+ times a day, and would've assumed that it's common enough, at least in certain circles (academia etc).

Okay, I found the sample data. Lots of stuff like phone numbers: +XXX YYY ZZZZ. Lots of multiple plus searches, like +++++aaaa. Lots of people using + instead of space: aaa+bbb+ccc. Lots of searches with every word having a plus in front of each word: +aaa +bbb +ccc +ddd +eee. Some people surrounding words with plus: aaa +bbb+ ccc. Those were the first things that popped up in a quick glance.

Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

#148

Post by Dylan16807 »

It's still stemming for me. I'm using my normal pathological search of [["everything wrong" crossfade]]. Verbatim mode roughly cuts the number of results in half but keeps giving me pages that only have the phrase [[everything's wrong]] and not the phrase [[everything wrong]].

Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

#149

Post by redthrowaway »

dncrane wrote: post #144
redthrowaway wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still waiting on being able to search for punctuation. Being able to search for "$. ruby" or "$_ perl" or "$: edit: Just realized "$_ perl" actually does work. It would be nice, however, if we could search for these kinds of terms generally and not just in specific case.

I launched a search engine that does exactly this just over a week ago, you can see it here: http://symbolhound.com/ I freaked out when I saw this headline and thought it meant google had finally decided to implement this feature a week after my launch.

That's freaking fantastic. Shame it didn't get much notice on proggit. I'll resubmit it at a busier time and share it on G+ and whatnot. You might want to submit it here yourself, so you can answer any questions people might have and let the community get to know you. Try submitting it with the "Show HN:" heading. Send me an email (in my profile) when you do submit it and I'll be sure to swing by and give it one of the critical first upvotes.

Really cool tool; thanks for that.

Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms

#150

Post by edanm »

daveungerer wrote: post #51
JoshTriplett wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I like the previous "did you mean" behavior; if Google thinks I misspelled a word, or that I want a synonym, by all means give me the alternative, but by default I want the exact query I searched for, because more often than not I really did mean what I searched for rather than what Google thought I meant.

Can't agree enough this. I'm pretty sure user interface research has shown that it's incredibly frustrating to users when you tell a computer to do one thing and it does something else. The suggestions are helpful, but it should default to what I tell the fucking thing to search for!

"I'm pretty sure user interface research has shown that it's incredibly frustrating to users when you tell a computer to do one thing and it does something else."

You honestly believe that Google is doing something that is worse for the vast majority of their users? That makes the vast majority of their users more frustrated? And that they know this is true because research has proved it?

Why would they act like that?

Most of the people in this thread keep forgetting that they're not regular users. I'm willing to bet that the average Google user (90% of the population) often mistypes. I know I do, and I'm a pretty good speller and typist.

You keep forgetting that most people can't type fast, can't spell that well, and you know what, a lot of the people typing on Google don't even know English all that well, either. For them, Google's spelling auto-correct is incredibly useful.

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