Google's Strange Word Exclusion From Searches

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3086909

by anticitizen • 15 years ago

7 3 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Do a Google search for 'polaris mine depth' (without quotes). On the result page, scroll to the bottom. 'Tip: These results do not include the word "depth".' Can someone explain why Google omits seemingly relevant words from its searches?

Achshar• 15 years ago

maybe its because Google is not sure what 'Polaris mine' really is.. since there are a number of results on that page referring to Polaris mine as completely different things, Myspace, band site, services site, services review/info site and the obvious Wikipedia page and a gov site. PS Google usually tried to identify individual search terms and give then a 'presence' on internet. eg on searching 'X food shop yelp' google knows yelp is a reviewing site ('presence') and hence user is looking for reviews/info.

diolpah• 15 years ago

I've been noticing this for about half a year now, particularly when googling for technical documentation.

Google is falling down on its core product, because they can..

anon-e-moose• 15 years ago

I think the problem is that Google is increasingly optimized for the vast majority of people who have no idea how search engines work and don't put any thought into their query. They make it so that you can search for "i have this mole and i want to know if it is cancer and also can i get tickets for the knicks game tomorrow" and get something useful, but when you need to search a specific error or programming construct you're out of luck. I wish I could remember specific examples, but I keep having + operators and quotes ignored by Google, or searching for two equally important words and having the second result not feature one of the words. Highly irritating.

Google's Strange Word Exclusion From Searches

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