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Do ANY search engines pay any attention anymore to Boolean operators? You know, the symbols that back in the "good old days" used to reduce the number of hits to those that actually CONTAIN the words we are SEARCHING for?
Google and Bing both stink. If we use a "plus" symbol in front of a word, Google now displays a sentence saying "no results found", despite that the same day I stumbled on many pages that DO contain those words. So, Google is now viewing the "plus" symbol as an actual letter instead of as a "please only include pages that contain the word after the plus symbol". Bing gives you hits that do NOT contain that word, despite the "plus" symbol we have placed in front of that word in our search string.
Yahoo has the same problems Bing does. But Google and Yahoo used to listen when we used Boolean operators. In the past two years they have stopped. Why?
I can't find a single search engine that actually listens when I type in that I want certain words to appear in the results, and do not want other words to appear in the results. Have all of the search engines sold out to ignore what we are really looking for?
I'm disgusted. Would love to go back to the mid-2000's when I could type into a search engine and the results actually followed the Plus and Minus Boolean operators I used in my search string.
The Internet is becoming largely useless to me for finding things. Comments? Doesn't anyone notice this? It's so obvious to me, don't you all get disgusted when you get page after page of "hits" that ignore what you requested to be searched for?
Last edited by berettaway; 09-03-2012 at 09:24 AM..
Reason: typos
Use the advanced search feature on google (linked below) for more control of your search results. The minus operator does work, I use it quite frequently. I think the basic search function includes the plus operator by default. Just search for the word. Put it in quotes if you want that specific word and not synonyms as well.
They're like Google results, not what we're looking for, but a helpful suggestion that we stop whining and keep using Google.
Duckduckgo will show only the results that exist, but really, there's a giant void waiting to be filled because Google removed their prime function. Duckduckgo still gives two or three adaptive results, but sticks them at the top, at least.
My kingdom for a page that solely exists to display search results for things I type, like "Zixley" and "SBTRKT", without forcibly having results for the word "Pixel" and "Subterfuge" crammed in there like they mean anything to me.
So I guess that's a no, Tony. I agree with you re searching. boolean is so simple people would get much more precise results if they took two minutes to learn it.
As far as I know Lexus and Westlaw are the only searches that use Boolean operators. too bad
Do ANY search engines pay any attention anymore to Boolean operators? You know, the symbols that back in the "good old days" used to reduce the number of hits to those that actually CONTAIN the words we are SEARCHING for?
Google and Bing both stink. If we use a "plus" symbol in front of a word, Google now displays a sentence saying "no results found", despite that the same day I stumbled on many pages that DO contain those words. So, Google is now viewing the "plus" symbol as an actual letter instead of as a "please only include pages that contain the word after the plus symbol". Bing gives you hits that do NOT contain that word, despite the "plus" symbol we have placed in front of that word in our search string.
Yahoo has the same problems Bing does. But Google and Yahoo used to listen when we used Boolean operators. In the past two years they have stopped. Why?
I can't find a single search engine that actually listens when I type in that I want certain words to appear in the results, and do not want other words to appear in the results. Have all of the search engines sold out to ignore what we are really looking for?
I'm disgusted. Would love to go back to the mid-2000's when I could type into a search engine and the results actually followed the Plus and Minus Boolean operators I used in my search string.
The Internet is becoming largely useless to me for finding things. Comments? Doesn't anyone notice this? It's so obvious to me, don't you all get disgusted when you get page after page of "hits" that ignore what you requested to be searched for?
Real hard to find answers to a year old question huh tony?...
I am confused by the post. Google/Yahoo/Bing never stopped using Boolean. Just because it doesn't say anymore HOW to use Boolean on the main pages like it did back in the day???
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