Noticible algorithm change

kw's with dashes, periods no longer treated by google?

[paulk]

Any of you guys here noticed that in this new google update it no longer seems to be including dashes or periods in the search term results, for example take a phrase such as this...

message boards

now make variations of it and do a search of each phrase in google:

message.boards
message-boards
message/boards
message(boards
message>boards
message=boards

if you look at those variations, they all bring the same exact result so apparently google now knows that you intend to be searching for "message boards" and just simply ignores those extra variables in between....anyone have thoughts on this?

paul

[Pricey]

Aye, this seems to be the case.

Although message_boards will still turn up a different result. And for some reason so will Message*Boards.

[mayor]

That's not what I'm seeing ...

message boards 4,560,000
message-boards 889,000

[edited by: mayor at 3:46 pm (utc) on May 30, 2003]

[Pricey]

Oh yeah, I didn't check that when I checked \o/

[Slade]

mayor: typo...

but anyway...

message-boards 808,000
message boards 5,080,000

[mayor]

confirming message-boards = 889,000 from Philadelphia.

[Tropical Island]

That's intersting - from Venezuela using Google english:
message boards 683,000
message-boards 683,000

[Marketing Guy]

From Spain

message boards: 1,200,000
message-boards: 998,000

Scott

[spikedo55]

From Wash, DC:

message-boards 849,000
message boards 5,020,000

[Eltiti]

From The Netherlands (using English GG):

message boards: 1,020,000
message-boards: 967,000

...all over the place, huh?!

[Botum]

From Uruguay:

message boards: 1,090,000
message-boards: 964,000

Yeha!

[mil2k]

From India:

message boards: 4,880,000
message-boards: 994,000

[giggle]

From Thailand:

message boards: 5,020,000
message-boards: 854,000

[gilli]

From Oz

message boards: 4,560,000
message-boards: 885,000

[percentages]

There was a post on another SE board related to this. Those folks seemed to agree that results in the US were not consistent with results in other locations.

Something seems to be changing, but I don't see a world-wide consensus yet.....give it a few days and let's see what shakes out!

[glengara]

From Ireland:
message boards: 1270,000
message-boards: 1200,000

[shaadi]

You will roll out on this Mil2k

From my office and mumbai:

message boards: 5,040,000
message-boards: 864,000

[deejay]

From New Zealand:

message boards: 4,600,000
message-boards: 846,000

[vagelis_t]

From Greece:
message boards: 5,040,000
message-boards: 864,000

[mil2k]

Since you mention Shaadi i tried from an altogether different location in Mumbai and got :-

message boards: 5,080,000
message-boards: 808,000

So i basically agree with Percentages and i will give it more time. :)

[allanp73]

From Canada:
message boards: 1,270,000
message-boards: 1,200,000

[albert]

Maybe I'm missing a point, but it seems to me that joining keywords with hyphen brings up results with keywords in the order as joined.

Using google.com:

message boards 1,090,000
boards message 1,090,000

message-boards 964,000
boards-message 107,000

... and look at highlighted keywords.

[Chris_D]

Every so often someone says that Google can suddenly 'tell' that you meant 'this' when you typed 'that' - just check the archives.

Usually - it's foreign language characters eg café v cafe - and the post says something like "hey wow - I searched for cafe and I got the same results for a search on café - so Google knew..."

Software101 - characters get processed as numbers.

Look at a html escape sequence code table. Latin characters are 'numbers' when a machine/ software 'reads' them. And an underscore is not a hyphen!

eg:

- a lower case e is = hold down alt & type 101 using the numeric keypad then release alt key
- whereas é is alt 0233

- hyphen is alt 45
- underscore is alt 95
- space is alt 32

It has been well documented that some characters are are ignored in a search string eg:

message%boards 4,670,000
message~boards 4,670,000

But if a piece of software confuses one number for another different number - thats generally broken software or a 'bug'...

So from Sydney Australia:

message boards 4,550,000
message-boards 838,000
message_boards 46,700
red herrings 42,700
red&herrings none

:)

Chris_D

[jady]

Florida US:

message boards = 5,080,000

[ulounge]

Even though the number of results returned are different I am seeing serious flaws in the new algo.

A search for "message board" will bring up
... He sent the message. Board the ship.

Two sentences in which message board has no meaning.

or for the same search will bring up
... Leave a message (Board meeting in progress).

I see results like this in the top 10 while other more suited results with "message board" in the title header or page content are pushed out of the top 10.

I can't understand it. I can only hope when all the chips fall issues like this are taken care of.

[Oliver]

From Italy

message boards > 1,070,000
message-boards > 942,000

yeaaaah!