Liane - 12:12 pm on Jun 16, 2005 (gmt 0)

While I don't expect it to happen anytime soon it would be nice if the masses learned how to search more precisely.

I agree ... it won't happen anytime soon! People are too lazy to type "what+I+want+to+find" ... your logs prove that! What percentage of people (who are not technology freaks) know or care about using quotes, plus or minus signs?

Google themselves have not done their jobs in educating the public on the "how to" search front. The "Advanced search options" is too much like work. Searchers just want to plug in the words and go!

If they offered three, "in your face options" at the search box saying:

Option 1:

1) Search for exact match only
2) Search for close matches
3) Search for anything resembling this phrase

Option 2:

1) Set my default search setting to: 1, 2, 3
2) Display unselected options.
3) Do not display unselected options.
4) Display "Change default search setting" beside search box.

If Google would offer options to the user which aren't as convoluted as their advanced search options, I think they could train the vast majority of searchers how to search ... once and for all. They would see the quotes, plus and minus signs that google would insert into their searches and would likely try searching other engines by placing these signs in their searches as well.

Google could really turn this into yet another grand way of "helping" searchers find things more easily. I'm surprised they haven't done something like this already.