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April 8, 2006

Ten Things I Don't Like About Google Search

1. Results aren't counted. Maybe I look at the first 100 results and I want to see how well a certain site is ranked. Yahoo Search does that.

2. Google hasn't eliminated near-duplicate documents from the index, and you can see a news that appears in many sites with almost identic content and that is shown in the top 10 results duplicated.

3. Google should have an easy-to-access page where you can search without localization and personalization. For example, http://www.google.com/nlp.

4. If I mentioned about NLP (natural language processing), Google should have a way to process the query in order to search using the most relevant keywords. If I search for [Sony Ericsson K750i customization], Google should also query for [Sony Ericsson K750i personalization] or [Sony Ericsson K750i accessories].

5. There is no easy way to view only the pages updated yesterday or last week.

6. You can't restrict the search to pages that have a certain size, let's say over 200KB.

7. Google doesn't show you the total size of a page, including pictures, JavaScript, stylesheets, Java applets.

8. Google doesn't have an option to view a page only as text, without images, scripts, or navigation. They do that for mobile search and it's really useful if you just want to skim through the text.

9. You can't use the site operator multiple times. Maybe you want to search something in three sites. It should something like: [nlp site:slashdot.org site:digg.com site:bbc.co.uk].

10. Google should also show high-quality sites that fit in the same domain as your query, but they aren't extremely relevant for your query. If you search for [Sony Ericsson K750i reviews], Google should show at the bottom of the page two or three sites about mobile phone reviews.

Related:
25 things I hate about Google [Search Engine Watch]

8 comments:

  1. You use Google to search? I thought Google's purpose was for email, maps, news, finance, and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can definitely use the site operator multiple times; I find it extremely useful.

    If you'd just use some logic, you'd realize that you need to use 'OR' between your site operators.

    ReplyDelete
  3. what do you think about google strategy should be in the future

    ReplyDelete
  4. < You can definitely use the site operator multiple times; I find it extremely useful.

    You are absolutely right. I never realized that.


    < what do you think about google strategy should be in the future?

    They should focus on search and make another revolution.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It does #4 to some extent: If you put a ~ in front of a specific keyword, it will use alternative words in the search (although it doesn't seem to have any for personalization).

    E.g. "drink driving ~regulations" also searches for "laws" and "legislation".

    ReplyDelete
  6. There is a text-only option. Click on the cache link and then loko for the "cached text" link at the top.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You can also add "&strip=1" to the end of a cached page query to strip out images/scripts/css, etc.

    That's 2-3 down, at least (other two are site: plus OR and the ~ operator)

    ReplyDelete
  8. For number 8, look use Lynx to do Google Search!

    ReplyDelete

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