
Google announces 50 search changes implemented in March - byrneseyeview
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/04/search-quality-highlights-50-changes.html
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zoul
Any chances of getting rid of the redirects in search results? It's so
annoying that I can't simply copy the result link URL and paste without
getting some crazy Google tracking URL instead. It's such an obvious fail that
I can't see how it's possible to not have it fixed yesterday, it made me
switch to a different search engine.

~~~
ivanshih
There is an interesting discussion about this on stackexchange.com.

"Turning off Google search results indirection":
[http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/22291/turning-
off...](http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/22291/turning-off-google-
search-results-indirection)

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Turing_Machine
A very brief test indicates that search strings containing "Cocoa Webview" no
longer return a bunch of useless crap* about Android webviews with the word
"Cocoa" nowhere to be seen on the page. If that's the case: it's about time.

*"Useless crap" is context-sensitive, of course -- no disrespect toward Android intended, but I go to the trouble of including "Cocoa" in my search Google shouldn't be giving me pages that don't even contain that word. It might be different if it were smart enough to just give you Objective C or iOS-focused pages that included "Webview", but not Cocoa, since there's at least some probability that those pages would be of interest. However, it wasn't that smart.

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sjmulder
“Less aggressive synonyms”

Fantastic! That’s one of the things that has been bothering me on Google
lately.

~~~
nostromo
The one that's been driving me crazy lately: 4 as a synonym for "for." I
understand some percent of the population "rites lik dis 4 serch" -- but I
certainly don't! When 4 = for, and "for" is on every page on the internet, it
almost had me pulling my hair out.

Here's an example (but not my exact query). "iPhone 4" will match pages with
"iPhone" and "for."

<http://i.imgur.com/vN1oh.png>

~~~
ktsmith
While incredibly annoying putting the 4 in quotes like this: "4" will
eliminate "for" from your results.

~~~
cpeterso
Someone should write a browser extension or Greasemonkey script to
automatically quote your Google search terms.

~~~
spacemanaki
I discovered the "verbatim" option under the "More search tools" link on the
left hand side recently.

[http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&p=g_verb&answer=1734130)

It's not as convenient as an extension or a script, of course.

~~~
sp332
It should be easy enough to write an extension or even a bookmarklet for this.
You just have to add &tbs=li:1 to the end of the URL to enable "verbatim"
mode.

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joshuahedlund
> _Improvements to freshness. [launch codename "Abacus", project codename
> "Freshness"] We launched an improvement to freshness late last year that was
> very helpful, but it cost significant machine resources. At the time we
> decided to roll out the change only for news-related traffic. This month we
> rolled it out for all queries._

> _More precise detection of old pages. [launch codename "oldn23", project
> codename “Freshness"] This change improves detection of stale pages in our
> index by relying on more relevant signals. As a result, fewer stale pages
> are shown to users._

Hopefully this means fewer instances of searching for code help and seeing
prominent results from 2005.

~~~
wickedchicken
left side, 'show search tools' -> 'past year'.

~~~
Drbble
You often still get results dated last week for pages that clearly state a
byline years in the past.

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nsns
>Improvements to handling of symbols for indexing. ...we’ve now started to
index the following heavily used symbols: “%”, “$”, “\”, “.”, “@”, “#”, and
“+”. We’ll continue to index more symbols as usage warrants.

That, and the new "Verbatim' option, are really good news. There are also some
five (10% of the entire list) timely tweaks to synonyms.

All in all, it seems Google listens and tries to improve its service, which
has become rather paternalistic lately ("you wrote X, but actually mean Y", no
I don't!). Well done.

~~~
obtu
I found relevant results for $_, $argv, @memoize, useful completion but no
results for $@ and $#, nothing at all for $!. Python programmers rejoice, Perl
programmers still mourn code search.

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freeman478
With all the bashing around them stagnating in search, it's nice to see that
they are continuously improving even if it's more incremental than
revolutionnary.

I particularily like the indexing of symbols, it will make searching for C#
results easier.

~~~
marshray
Huh, DDG seems to index C# correctly but not C++.

Maybe it has something to do with its search results coming from Microsoft.

------
Drbble
> “dog” may be incorrectly introduced as a synonym for > “cat”. We’ve been
> working for some time to appropriately > ferret out these

brilliant.

Also funny that they launched two Synonym features that appear to be be the
same feature described in different words.

~~~
obtu
This is a really cool part, those siblings and synonyms are making them build
the rudiments of some kind of Watson-like concept net.

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macrael
Click through to the video of their search meeting. It seems really strange to
me that something like that would be made public. I mean, it is pretty content
free, but why spend so much effort to show the world deliberations on how to
change search?

~~~
gojomo
I find it amazing that there are 30-something people in the room & 9+ more by
video.

Some are almost certainly checking their email or doing other things – despite
the small text insert that tries to suggest they're all looking at advanced
analytics about the proposed changes.

Very few speak or seem to be in a physical (or status) position where they
_could_ speak, though maybe as the topic changes, some of the giant peanut
gallery gets engaged.

Altogether, it fits a lot of meeting antipatterns. When I see perplexing
things like this about Google, I have to wonder: is this a counterintuitive
part of the secret sauce, or an indulgence whose cost is covered up by their
gusher of quasi-monopolistic profits?

~~~
moultano
That's a weekly meeting where proposed changes are discussed. Most of the
people not speaking are there because they have a launch to present. Each one
gets a lightning round of deliberation somewhat like the one in the video, a
decision is made, and they move on to the next.

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jskopek
The new additions of UEFA, KHL, and tennis scores would seem to indicate that
each snippet type is manually built and added by Google.

I would have expected something a little bit broader; an algorithm that
attempts to automatically parse score results for all major sports based on
the pages they pull results from, or something to that effect. The former is
way easier, and probably a whole lot more accurate, that the later, but it
removes a little bit of the sex from the whole process. It also highlights how
much work must be involved in building the snippet generators for a site like
google.

~~~
sherwin
Well they do have snippets for certain facts: e.g.
[http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=tom+cruise+age)

which is almost certainly a broader algorithm that tries to semantically parse
out factual information.

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epoxyhockey
News from the boiler room in March:

\- Spinners hit hard \- Text link sellers hit hard

:)

~~~
pgrote
What are spinners?

~~~
tptacek
Tools and systems that take a corpus of root text and create large number of
variations of that content, to avoid duplicate content penalties when trying
to stuff sites to catch Google's attention.

~~~
duskwuff
Or, as a a "spinning" script might reword it:

> Implements and setups that take a corpus of tuber text and create meaty
> number of changes of that tranquil, to avoid duplicate content sanctions
> when trying to stuff localities to catch Google's contemplation.

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smackfu
> More relevant image search results. [launch codename "Lice"]

Really? Who picks these codenames?

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ecesena
Autocomplete math... looking forward ;)

