OMG Finally. This will make one IT Guy's day job much easier, and the same guy's weekend/evening programming life easier too.;
Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
71–80 of 168 posts
Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
#72And, of course, the "search for what I actually fucking typed" mode is completely undiscoverable, hidden behind another click, and which can't be defaulted into. This is a good bandaid, but is still a bandaid. I have still switched away from Google to a search engine that will actually search for what I told it to, not one that thinks it can guess my meaning. (Not to mention one that doesn't wrap all the outgoing URL…
> wrap all the outgoing URLs in click-tracking garbage then uses JavaScript in an attempt to hide it, with no way to opt-out Speaking of which, is there any way to disable or bypass that kind of crap? (e.g. with a user-script or something?) It's incredibly obnoxious. And sadly Google's not the only on that does it. Frankly, it seems like a major design mistake from my perspective that Javascript is allowed to manipul…
> Speaking of which, is there any way to disable or bypass that kind of crap?
If you have JavaScript disabled, or these particular event handlers somehow blocked, the href is never replaced.
> Javascript is allowed to manipulate the status bar
That's disabled by default in most browsers (see in FF about:config, dom.disable_window_status_change -> true). Look at the mousedown handler of links to see that the href attribute is changed on mousedown.
Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely the case that You might be surprised and discouraged to discover that most people don't know about things like the minus operator to exclude terms from search results. If you really want to be depressed, read this: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/crazy-...
Could you explain how exactly the + operator is used incorrectly? I know that personally i often end up with bizarre looking searches, purely because i know what i'm searching for. e.g. it might include purposeful spelling mistakes, requiring the plus to avoid autocorrection...but this doesn't mean i'm using the + incorrectly. I just can't imagine somebody, potentially, understanding boolean logic, describing a searc…
Could it be that + is used by people who just don't know that Google treats it specially? Syntax of Google search is rather not common knowledge among general population. This might be a case especially when searching for books, songs, movies, magazines, etc. with '+' in title.
Example queries (random ideas):
- 18+ movies
- children + fire proverb
- 2+3D magazine
- C++
- ++ operator
EDIT:
There are plenty of queries with + signs in autocompletion hints in Google search - like 18+ clubs, 2+2 forums, 0+ blood type, NaOH+H2SO4, etc.
Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
#74I still love Google's search product but I am not real happy with the recent UI changes they have introduced. I particularly don't care for the preview arrow thing that now goes down the right side: I keep triggering the damn thing on accident.
Yes, THANK YOU! I find myself doing that as well. I don't understand why that is seen as an improvement.
Also, I always used the + to mean "the following word or quote surrounded string HAS to appear in the result text".
That seems different than quotes meaning "use this text exactly as i typed it".
Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
#75I 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…
I always used the + to mean "the following word or quote surrounded string HAS to appear in the result text".
Was this incorrect?
Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
#76This 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.
Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't really the solution we were looking for Matt. Can we replace the + operator with something else? How about¬? We don't use that very often to the point I don't even know what it's called, but it's there on the keyboard in one keypress.
I'll pass the feedback on. Part of the issue with + is that it turned out a lot of people were mistyping queries with + when as far as we could tell, they weren't trying to match an exact word. Getting further off the beaten path with a more rare character might help though.
Currently Google offers me the ability to change the background image on the Google home page.
How about the ability to use something like Google "classic" with the old way of using the + sign?
Hide it as an off-home page selection, that way only people who really want it will choose it.
I'd also be interested in something similar for an "advanced search syntax" mode. Probably not very useful for the majority of people, but could be something a minority might be very passionate about.
Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
#78Earlier 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!
Actually, spelling might be the only exception to that rule.
If you genuinely misspell a word, it's nice to have it fix it for you in one motion.
Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
#79It might be just my home and work connections and their latency, but for me the auto-complete has hugely slowed down my searches.
I type rather fast (as you can tell by all the typos in my posts) and today I type something in and then wait for all the auto-complete options to settle down.
Sure, I don't have to hit the search button to get results anymore. But previously it was faster to type, then hit search, then get results. Much faster.
Re: Google adds verbatim search mode for your exact search terms
#80It might be just my home and work connections and their latency, but for me the auto-complete has hugely slowed down my searches. I type rather fast (as you can tell by all the typos in my posts) and today I type something in and then wait for all the auto-complete options to settle down. Sure, I don't have to hit the search button to get results anymore. But previously it was faster to type, then hit search, then ge…
Mine returns faster than I can finish typing and look down.