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Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

alec.fyi

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Re: Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

#181

Post by kolektiv »

tomalpha wrote: post #109
neilduncan wrote: post #14

I live two towns over from Dorking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorking

I grew up in Dorking, but this is the first time (that I can remember...) that I actually read its wikipedia article. TIL: No one knows why 'Dorking' is called 'Dorking', but there's a English Place Names Society which since the 1920's has researched the origins of town names in England, and is considered [0] to be "the established national body on the subject". [0] https://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/

The -ing part of a place name is Saxon, from memory, something like "ingas" meaning "people of". So, People of Dork, literally, and whatever became Dork (a person/place/event) is probably lost to historical memory. We have an awful lot of places with "ing" in them around here, probably due to a lot of C7 Saxon settlement.

Re: Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

#182

Post by jimnotgym »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #32
chris_f wrote: post #25

A few corrections: The + (formerly used to force a term to be present in the result) and ~ (also find synonyms) operators have been deprecated. Google now advises to wrap the word in quotes instead of using the +. Google will also automatically look for synonyms without the use of ~. I have seen 'AROUND(n)' mentioned in many other places working as a proximity operator in Google, but I don't believe that is true and…

No longer have Google Chrome on any devices, switched over to Chromium Edge. Same browser, different overloads. Left the default search engine as Bing, but only because Duck Duck Go is useless for geographicly local search.

Useless? "Plumber Timbuktu" returns plumbers in Timbuktu.

Re: Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

#183

Post by peter_d_sherman »

A few thoughts:

1) Great information!

2) It seems like the world could use a book like Joe Celko's "SQL For Smarties", but for search engines. Yes, there are such books already, most notably O'Reilly's "Google Hacks" by Rael Dornfest, Paul Bausch, Tara Calishain -- but I think the world could still use a book covering more search engines and search techniques. The above web page would be a great starting point to an endeavor like that.

3) "Dorking" (love that term!) -- is going into my 2020 vocabulary lexicon!

Re: Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

#184

Post by hoseja »

jon_richards wrote: post #126
GordonS wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this has been the case for a long time, years anyway. I don't know if it goes back quite as far as when they removed the '+' operator tho. But bejesus, this drives me nuts! If I know the double quotes function even exists, then Google should know I actually want to use it as intended - it shouldn't decide "yeah, but maybe you'd like these irrelevant results too!"

I think it’s primarily for people copying and pasting something like an error message, which may have user-specific data in quotes. That should be what “not many results for...” is for, but Google is always trying to optimize away those clicks. Maybe they could add a “programatic” search feature with documented syntax for power users.

Add? They used to have one and actively removed it.

Re: Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

#186

Post by chris_f »

_zllx wrote: post #29
vezycash wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google randomly ignores "search term in quotes". Related:examplesite.com used to work well. Now, it's better to use sites like alternativeto.net. ~phrase is unnecessary because but google searches for synonyms by default phrase1 + phrase2 - Google randomly ignores it. I use it this way +compulsoryTerm Although rare, there are things I simply can't find using Google. But Bing would. If Google keeps it up, other search…

Doing some "related:" queries returns some interesting results that look human-curated and out-of-date. related:google.com shows results for Yahoo, Bing, AOL Search, and HotBot (which used to be a search engine, but the brand is now for a VPN provider).

That is great! It's like a search engine blast from the past.

Also interesting, related:bing.com gives me no results.

Re: Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

#187

Post by eitland »

solarist wrote: post #99
GordonS wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth mentioning that even if you put a term in double quotes, Google still tries to be too clever - you are not guaranteed to get results that contain your quotes search term :/

As a workaround and under search tools one can enable the “verbatim” option.

Verbatim doesn't work consistently: often it helps a bit, often it gets ignored it seems.

Re: Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

#188

Post by echelon »

jon_richards wrote: post #126
GordonS wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this has been the case for a long time, years anyway. I don't know if it goes back quite as far as when they removed the '+' operator tho. But bejesus, this drives me nuts! If I know the double quotes function even exists, then Google should know I actually want to use it as intended - it shouldn't decide "yeah, but maybe you'd like these irrelevant results too!"

I think it’s primarily for people copying and pasting something like an error message, which may have user-specific data in quotes. That should be what “not many results for...” is for, but Google is always trying to optimize away those clicks. Maybe they could add a “programatic” search feature with documented syntax for power users.

Power users aren't where the money is.

Re: Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

#189

Post by ColinHayhurst »

zeristor wrote: post #56
neilduncan wrote: post #14

I live two towns over from Dorking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorking

Didn’t it feature in “War of the Worlds”? My Dad worked for Mullard, which was renamed to Philips Electronics and relocated to Dorking.

Roots in the UK rocket industry that never was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullard_Space_Science_Laborato...

Another local here; 20 years in Horsham now Haywards Heath

Re: Dorking: the use of search engines to find very specific data

#190

Post by otr »

Wistar wrote: post #43
kebman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even wanna know how many times specialized searches have saved my ass, after multiple years on uni, and working as a writer, journalist, programmer, en even a musician! You can safely say that my entire life revolves around being good at doing various forms of searches.

I have long believed that the art of precision search should be taught at the primary level. It is a necessary skill.

That idea is present in the Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge. Basically search engines and the use of discussion forums to find information becomes a subject in schools etc. Though this is not the main point of the novel at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End

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