Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I do a search for four keywords and Google decides to ignore one or two of them. Probably it thinks they might not be that important. But if they were not important - would I bother to enter them?
I make a search for "widget" and google is displaying results for "wodget" and "wadget" - just in case I made a typo. Not only displaying a "did you mean wodget" but already inlcuding results for "wodget" at the top of the SERPS. How dumb is that?
In fact I can hardly do a search without adding a "+" before all search terms - because without google is trying all kinds of weird word stemming, trying to correct "spelling mistakes" that do not exist or ignoring search terms.
Also google can't seem to grasp that there are indeed people out there understanding more than one language.
I search in google germany for an english term and google is only showing german results - the absurdest results that by chance contain one of the words I entered or none at all - but are written similar.
Because it has probably decided that I don't speak a foreign language. So I have to go to google.com - am redirected to google.de again and can then confirm that I really want to search on google.com on english by clicking on a link that says "google.com" in english.
Same when I search for a term in french. I have to go to google.fr and then click on "search in french" to get french search results. Would I visit google.fr if I wanted to search in German? Hello Google - there are people out there that can speak more than one language.
So by trying to making decisions based on IP, default browser language and what not, Google is achiving the contrary of what it wants to achieve - getting dumber and more frustrating to use - instead of more intelligent.
How about having a little trust in the user - he might actually know what he is doing when entering search terms.
Anybody have similar experiences lately? Anybody know a search engine out there that tries not to "think"? Becaues yahoo seems to do similar things. When will search engine developers finally understand that it is not possible to create an "intelligent" search engine. Leave it to the user to make intelligent input, but don't try to be intelligent yourself.
Anybody have similar experiences lately? Anybody know a search engine out there that tries not to "think"?
Yes, Google!
You do however, need to take two precautions.
1) Stay logged off at Google.
2) Turn off Java.
I make a search for "widget" and google is displaying results for "wodget" and "wadget" - just in case I made a typo. Not only displaying a "did you mean wodget" but already inlcuding results for "wodget" at the top of the SERPS. How dumb is that?
Yep. 100% annoyed by that.
One of our brands has a fairly unique name (it's not a big brand name), and when we search for it, Google suggests in the first two slots a slightly altered name; only then, on the third slot, our site shows up.
In fact I can hardly do a search without adding a "+" before all search terms
Yep. Recently I started to use "quotes" to force Google to deliver some useful results that are not cluttered by alternative spellings.
I have to go to google.com - am redirected to google.de again and can then confirm that I really want to search on google.com on english by clicking on a link that says "google.com" in english.
And yep again. Very annoying.
I have java turned off, but I accept cookies. I've just cleared them and the results in French from google.co.uk are much better (they are actually in French).
Might be worth denying cookies from Google to restrict their ability to "help". Easy in Firefox, probably other browsers too.
Agreed with the above - local results aren't handy for information searches (unless the good sites are near you), and the spelling thing is a pain if a bigger company has a similar brand name.
And this happens to me more than few times a day. In fact, it doesn't matter if use the + or not, Google keeps returning results I'm not looking for.
This maybe useful for the average user, but come on google guys, if I use the plus symbol IS because I know what I'm doing.
The thing that I find really, really annoying is google trying to suggest what I'm searching for as I'm trying to type it
No reason to be annoyed - you can turn off suggestions by going into "Preferences" and changing the option.
Suggest used to bug me, too, but recently I turned it on in order to research it, and I'm finding it interesting - and sometimes a source for content ideas.
