Good Search Engine

On 10/25/18 4:14 PM, Java Jive wrote:

[snip]

try looking for ...
Â*Â*Â*Â*Panasonic model hangs

That could work. I notice that the fewer words in a search query, the
greater chance that what you want doesn't get lost in so much irrelevant
stuff.

There's a very small chance of a successful web search for "something
you screw into a light socket to get an electric outlet for a fan".
Saying that in no more than 3-4 words might work.

[snip]

--
60 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2018 12:00:00 AM for 1
day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god but a great
rock and the sun a hot rock." [Anaxagorus, ca. 475 BC]

On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 12:17:37 -0500, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On 10/25/18 4:14 PM, Java Jive wrote:

[snip]

try looking for ...
****Panasonic model hangs

That could work. I notice that the fewer words in a search query, the
greater chance that what you want doesn't get lost in so much irrelevant
stuff.

There's a very small chance of a successful web search for "something
you screw into a light socket to get an electric outlet for a fan".
Saying that in no more than 3-4 words might work.

[snip]

Years ago, there used to be a game we'd play where people would try to
find a search term that would result in exactly one hit. I wonder if
that's even possible these days.

--

Char Jackson

wrote:
On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 01:39:24 +0800, "Mr. Man-wai Chang"
wrote:

On 10/25/2018 7:32 PM, wrote:
Hi,
Does anyone know of a search engine that will ONLY display
locations that have the words in your search text?
Use quotation marks like "your search text"?

Hi,
I am aware of using quotes, but that only "works" if the
words are related. Example, "cook book".

I would like to be able to find a location/site that contains
every word in the search string. Example: Panasonic,+"dvd recorder"+
endless+hello. Note: I have an issue with my Panasonic DVD recorder that
is "stuck" on "hello" display when turned on after I plug it into the wall
outlet. Normally, the "hello" would disappear after a few seconds and a
flashing "12:00 AM" would appear.

BTW, I also use duckduckgo.

John


"Panasonic DVD recorder stuck in demo mode"

"Panasonic DVD recorder stuck in mode"

"Panasonic DVD recorder hello"

Mode is a popular search term for electronics that
insist on modal behavior and race conditions in their
programming logic.

The third example is a tuning search, hoping to
find "more relevant terms" by accident. Examine
the returned results (each three line summary),
see if there is a term you didn't think of when
crafting the search.

Don't forget to include a model number. Model numbers
only help, if a particular model is the only one
with the behavior. If every product the company makes
does it, the model number won't help.

*******

The days of "precise search language" are over.

A subscription service won't fix this.

And you can (partially) thank all the SEO people for this.
They're the ones who ruined search engines for us. Most
of the programming in a search engine today, goes into
countering these people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search...e_optimization

In a way, it's a lot like the email spam situation. Email
has sunk so low, a lot of people won't use it or go near
it. The spammers have used every trick in the book to get
through filters. And the end result is, legitimate messages
from legitimate email servers are getting blocked or
bounced. The search engines have ended up in the same
dire situation, filled to the scuppers with spam.

Paul

On Fri, 26 Oct 2018 12:31:35 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

[snip]

Years ago, there used to be a game we'd play where people would try to
find a search term that would result in exactly one hit. I wonder if
that's even possible these days.

When I followed alt.usage.english, there was one mentioned where
the rule was:

Take two keywords that each, by themselves, return at least 1,000
hits and when combined return exactly one hit.

Considering how search engines will return results that match
only some of one's specified keywords, I am not sure how that game
could work out.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

"Gene Wirchenko" wrote

| Take two keywords that each, by themselves, return at least 1,000
| hits and when combined return exactly one hit.
|
| Considering how search engines will return results that match
| only some of one's specified keywords, I am not sure how that game
| could work out.
|

________________________________
| savory fennel |
________________________________

Did you mean "shop for fashion"?

On 10/26/18 12:31 PM, Char Jackson wrote:

[snip]

Years ago, there used to be a game we'd play where people would try to
find a search term that would result in exactly one hit. I wonder if
that's even possible these days.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a search return ONE hit. It wound be nice
to get at least one relevant hit on the first page.

I search for "theater" and get a bunch of hits. ALL in the first few
pages are irrelevant. I realize I want a theater in Dallas, so I change
the search to "theater dallas" and instead of the obvious, it not gives
EVEN MORE irrelevant hits, including some Dallas ones that have nothing
to do with theaters.

Adding words is the normal way to restrict something. Why do search
engines do it differently? If someone asks you about a theater in
Dallas, do you think they mean theaters in Houston and restaurants in
Dallas?

--
59 days until the winter celebration (Tue Dec 25, 2018 12:00:00 AM for 1
day).

Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"In addition I think science has enjoyed an extraordinary success
because it has such a limited and narrow realm in which to focus its
efforts. Namely, the physical universe." [Ken Jenkins]

"Mark Lloyd" wrote|

| I'm not sure if I've ever seen a search return ONE hit. It wound be nice
| to get at least one relevant hit on the first page.
|

I see it commonly with URL searches. Someone sends
me an article that's been spyware-ized and email
formatted by Constant Contact. The article perhaps
came from a blogger, who stole it from B.com, who
stole it from A.com. By searching for part of a unique
sentence I can find the original article and read it
comfortably online, rather than via a poorly formatted,
spyware email.

I find a similar problem has been getting more common.
For instance, I regularly read news at Slashdot. But they
commonly post an article with a link to, say, Geek3.com.
Then it turns out Geek3 just reprinted most of something
they stole from Geek2.com and Geek2, in turn, stole
it from Geek1.com. It's impolite at best, and risks accuracy.
So I like to search and find the real author. Fortunately, it
usually doesn't take many words to find a text string that
will only return one link.

On Sat, 27 Oct 2018 11:40:34 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 10/26/18 12:31 PM, Char Jackson wrote:

[snip]

Years ago, there used to be a game we'd play where people would try to
find a search term that would result in exactly one hit. I wonder if
that's even possible these days.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a search return ONE hit. It wound be nice
to get at least one relevant hit on the first page.


I don't think I ever saw a result like that either. I just tried a
Google search that I knew could only produce a single relevant hit.
It got 907,000 hits!

In message , Mark Lloyd
writes:
On 10/25/18 10:29 AM, pyotr filipivich wrote:

[snip]

What I hate are the sites where the more search terms I enter,
attempting to narrow the search, the more "results" I get. E.G., enter
adding marriage Registry" to a search for San Bernardino added to
the hits for "San", "Bernardino", those for "Marriage", and "Registry"
as well.

I notice the same problem. Shouldn't more words lead to a more limited
search, not more irrelevant items? That's the way words normally work,
"tyler zoo" applies to fewer things than "zoo". "tyler zoo gorilla"
even fewer.

There used to be guides from the search engines: I remember from (I
think it was) Altavista, that putting a + before a word meant it had to
be there for a result to be shown (and conversely for -). There was/is
also the _phrase_ - most commonly quotation marks; so for your [tyler
zoo] example, you'd search for ["tyler zoo"]. Unfortunately, this works
nowhere near as well as it used to - and most search engines on
company's sites, as opposed to google and so on, don't do phrase search
_at all_, which can be infuriating.

I have as my home page [not that I go there a lot, just easy to bring up
by hitting the home button]
https://www.google.co.uk/advanced_search?hl=en rather than just the
plain Google (I'm sure there is an equivalent .com one for non-UK folk);
I can _use_ it just like the normal one just by using the top box, and
as often as not I do, but it's handy having the other boxes available.
(It's also a plainer layout, which I like,)

As Paul says, it's the optimisation organisations that have spoiled
search engine usefulness for the rest of us. Google et al. have to work
so hard at countering these nefarious tricks, which makes it harder for
the rest of us: (a) the rules keep changing, (b) they can't produce a
search instruction page (like the old AltaVista one I had) because it'd
be useful to the SEOs.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Science fiction is escape into reality - Arthur C Clarke

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
[]
Years ago, there used to be a game we'd play where people would try to
find a search term that would result in exactly one hit. I wonder if
that's even possible these days.

I think it was called Googlewhacking.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Science fiction is escape into reality - Arthur C Clarke

In message , Wolf K
writes:
[]
Search for "theaters in Dallas".

Them li'l words are important. Really!

"theaters Dallas " means "... theaters or Dallas or both". Really!

Do you have a URL for a list of these little words, and what they mean?

Adding words is the normal way to restrict something. Why do search
engines do it differently?

Because unless told otherwise, the search engine sees a list of words
"A B C" as "Find A or B or C". A hit containing just one of those words
is correct.

Search for "A and B and C" if you want hits with all three words. But
the algorithm will eventually toss up hits that have only one or two of
the targets, because the algorithm designers know that sometimes a
single-word hit will have enough relevant info to be useful to you.

You mean literally the word "and"? And does it matter - or make any
difference - whether it's in capitals or not? Do you have a URL to a
(current) page explaining the grammar of such tips?
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Science fiction is escape into reality - Arthur C Clarke

In message , Mr. Man-wai
Chang writes:
[]
From: https://cleverclicks.com.au/blog/15-...search-tricks/

"Search for pages that contain specific words – To find pages that
have all the keywords you’re looking for in the copy, use allintext:
before the search terms."


Thanks: useful tip. Presumably it's interpreted as "all the words
_somewhere_ on the page". Do you know of a way of specifying that they
should be within x words of each other? (I remember encountering such
searches - I think it might have been back in my UNIX/EMACS days - but I
don't _think_ I've seen anything similar in the modern search engine
context.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Science fiction is escape into reality - Arthur C Clarke

On 10/28/2018 6:27 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
Thanks: useful tip. Presumably it's interpreted as "all the words
_somewhere_ on the page". Do you know of a way of specifying that they
should be within x words of each other? (I remember encountering such
searches - I think it might have been back in my UNIX/EMACS days - but I
don't _think_ I've seen anything similar in the modern search engine
context.)

You have to look at the advanced options of Google Search. Just google
"google search advanced".

Bear in mind that most users don't do those "stunts".

--
@~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3
ä¸�借貸! ä¸�è©�騙! ä¸�è³*錢! ä¸�æ�´äº¤! ä¸�打交! ä¸�打劫! ä¸�自殺! ä¸�求神! 請考慮綜æ�´
(CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

The following could be your starting point:

Google Search Operators: The Complete List (42 Advanced Operators)
https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advan...rch-operators/

--
@~@ Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
^ ^ (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10) Linux 2.6.39.3
ä¸�借貸! ä¸�è©�騙! ä¸�è³*錢! ä¸�æ�´äº¤! ä¸�打交! ä¸�打劫! ä¸�自殺! ä¸�求神! 請考慮綜æ�´
(CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_...sub_addressesa

In message , Mr. Man-wai
Chang writes:
On 10/28/2018 6:27 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
Thanks: useful tip. Presumably it's interpreted as "all the words
_somewhere_ on the page". Do you know of a way of specifying that they
should be within x words of each other? (I remember encountering such
searches - I think it might have been back in my UNIX/EMACS days - but I
don't _think_ I've seen anything similar in the modern search engine
context.)

You have to look at the advanced options of Google Search. Just google
"google search advanced".

Bear in mind that most users don't do those "stunts".

In the part of my post you haven't quoted. I did say I used the advanced
search page of Google.

I've seen your next post (the one with a 42 in it) - thanks, just going
to look at that now.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Tolerating intolerance is not a virtue." - Barry Shein