Has anyone else been annoyed/frustrated by Google asking "Did you mean: " and then, whether you like it or not, searching for what it thinks you meant rather than what you actually typed?
I'm sure it didn't used to do this, it quite reasonably asked the "Did you mean: " but then actually searched for what you entered.
On Wednesday 21 May 2008 15:32:22 Chris G wrote:
Has anyone else been annoyed/frustrated by Google asking "Did you mean: " and then, whether you like it or not, searching for what it thinks you meant rather than what you actually typed?
I'm sure it didn't used to do this, it quite reasonably asked the "Did you mean: " but then actually searched for what you entered.
In my experience of these cases, it searches for both the term that you gave plus any related, derivative, metonymous etc. terms. I think it's quite clever.
You can still try to get it to take you more literally by enclosing your terms in double quote marks.
Cheers, Richard
On Wed, 2008-05-21 at 15:32 +0100, Chris G wrote:
Has anyone else been annoyed/frustrated by Google asking "Did you mean: " and then, whether you like it or not, searching for what it thinks you meant rather than what you actually typed?
I'm sure it didn't used to do this, it quite reasonably asked the "Did you mean: " but then actually searched for what you entered.
I was under the impression that it only did that if your original search returned no results. Otherwise I think it just prompts the "Did you mean" bit but does the original search.
For example search for "nessasary"
On 21-May-08 14:49:10, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wed, 2008-05-21 at 15:32 +0100, Chris G wrote:
Has anyone else been annoyed/frustrated by Google asking "Did you mean: " and then, whether you like it or not, searching for what it thinks you meant rather than what you actually typed?
I'm sure it didn't used to do this, it quite reasonably asked the
"Did you mean: " but then actually searched for what you entered.
I was under the impression that it only did that if your original search returned no results. Otherwise I think it just prompts the "Did you mean" bit but does the original search.
For example search for "nessasary"
Rectal medication overlaps with break, so take a pee.
That being said, my experience seems to tally with Wayne's.
Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 21-May-08 Time: 16:04:21 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 03:49:10PM +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Wed, 2008-05-21 at 15:32 +0100, Chris G wrote:
Has anyone else been annoyed/frustrated by Google asking "Did you mean: " and then, whether you like it or not, searching for what it thinks you meant rather than what you actually typed?
I'm sure it didn't used to do this, it quite reasonably asked the "Did you mean: " but then actually searched for what you entered.
I was under the impression that it only did that if your original search returned no results. Otherwise I think it just prompts the "Did you mean" bit but does the original search.
Ah, maybe that's it, I wish it would tell me that though! How can I tell from the output that it has returned whether it contains my search term or its guess at what I meant? I'd much prefer that it returned no hits if there really are no hits.
The example that provoked me just now was a search for:-
"Brendan O'Reilly" auvergne
Which returned some hits but not what I was looking for. I then looked for:-
"Brendan O'Reilly" auverne
because the original message telling me about this bloke had spelt it that way. At that point I definitely *didn't* want the "auvergne" hits again.
I just tried:-
"Brendan O'Reilly" "auverne"
... and that does what I want, returns no hits. I can't find anywhere on Google that documents this though.
For example search for "nessasary"
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Wayne Stallwood