#%&@@! Google search...

RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Geek on the Hill
Is there any way to make Google return results for what I actually typed into the search box, rather than "improving" my query? I'm seriously sick of Google "correcting," "suggesting," "improving," and otherwise modifying my searches.

Verbatim Search doesn't cut it. It still does some stemming and seems to ignore punctuation. I want results for exactly what I typed into the search box -- misspellings, punctuation, and so forth included.

For example, I was just searching for a specific file named "brooklyn.php" for an old client. The "why" is a long story, but long story short, "brooklyn.php" is the name of a publicly-available Web page, but we don't know the current domain.

No problem, right? Wrong.

Even using Google's "Verbatim Search," and further enclosing the search term in quotes, Google still returns pages and pages of results (screenshot below) that are pure garbage because they are not the results for my query, but the results for what Google decided I must have really meant.

I am sick and tired of Google's "helping" me, damn it. I just want it to return the results for the exact query that I type in the box -- even if it makes no sense and has Google's servers scratching their virtual beards in bewilderment. I'd rather have no results than 164,000 wrong ones.

Is there some trick to doing this that I don't know? Or is unreasonable to expect a search engine to simply return the results for exactly what a human searches on?

Unreasonable or not, it's really getting mighty annoying.
 

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I am tired of the "Google autocorrect" as well, however this is not it. Google doesn't recognize punctuation, except for their special search operators.
 
So they completely ignore punctuation, even if it's a character in a double-quoted query string?

That's sheer idiocy, in my opinion.
 
RJM62 said:
So they completely ignore punctuation, even if it's a character in a double-quoted query string?

That's sheer idiocy, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Yep. I agree it's a PITA, though I'm sure they have their reasons for doing so.
 
alaskaflyer said:
http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&p=adv_operators&answer=136861

Didn't know if you had seen this.
Click to expand...

Actually, I feel like an idiot because I looked at that before I posted, but also because I just looked at the screenshot and realized that it did return many results for "brooklyn.php".

But that wasn't the case when I first searched for it, which was why I got annoyed in the first place. It was the end of an unusually long day, so I probably just typed something wrong (like maybe not closing the quotes).

Then when I decided to ask here, I re-typed the search (but correctly the second time) so as to get a screenshot to "prove" my position, snapped the screenshot without even looking at it, and then started running off at the mouth (or fingertips, as it were).

Sorry about that. Disregard.

-Rich
 
Now that G is fusing all the data they can possibly get on you, the problem of G thinking it's smarter than you will be even worse.
 
Try using double-double quotes.

Like this: ""search for this exact darn string""
 
But until G allows the unwashed masses....er...users to be able to specify using Regular Expressions and define the context, it's just matching strings.

Example-

"brooklyn\.php" +(php file)

Ok, so it isn't pure RE but you get the idea.
 
murphey said:
But until G allows the unwashed masses....er...users to be able to specify using Regular Expressions and define the context, it's just matching strings.

Example-

"brooklyn\.php" +(php file)

Ok, so it isn't pure RE but you get the idea.
Click to expand...

Well, Google isn't the only engine around :)

I wonder if DuckDuckGo would do a better job of it (without trying it myself.)
 
Datapoint: Google dropped the + for exact match when they launched Google+

You are required by law to have to go 4 pages in to your results to see something that isn't a link farm.
 
Go to the tools page and disable and delete all your past searches. That'll do it.
 
I miss ftpsearch....I think it used to be ftpsearch.ntnu.no or something. Was perfect for searching for a specific file. I don't know that anything like that exists anymore.
 
I don't think php is a proper domain. But a code designation like html.
So Google is returning hits with both "Brooklyn" and "php" in them.
 
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