November 17, 2010

You Can't Search for Android from an Android Phone

This is a really strange bug. If you use Google to search for [android], [android market] or [android phone] from an Android phone, you won't get any result. Google only shows ads related to your query and a standard message: "Your search did not match any documents".


It's not clear if this is an Android bug or a Google search bug, but it's certainly not an Easter egg. If you don't have an Android phone, try this page to use the Android-optimized interface.

Update: it seems that the same bug affects Google's iPhone interface and there are many other queries that don't return any result. "When signed into the mobile site, I see some search results, but not for all queries. I'm on a Nexus One. In the classic interface, everything works fine," says a Google user. "I'm having the same issue on an iPhone 4. No results for super common terms, but images and location searches are unaffected," confirms another user.

Update 2 (one day later): The issue was fixed.

{ Thanks, Andrew. }

30 comments:

  1. Em, no?

    Searches for Android/Android phone works without trouble on my Android device.

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  2. Google Nexus One user in India. I can confirm it is the same here!

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  3. Works quite fine for me. May be it's something with you :) (Android, AOSP 2.2)

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  4. No problem searching for android in Norway. (Galaxy S w/Froyo)

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  5. The link in the article also show results just fine...

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  6. The cited link also does not work for "augusta" and "augusta chronicle" but does work for "amarillo."

    Earlier today, on an iPhone, I searched for "augusta chronicle" and came up with zero documents.

    Yes, Google has a bug.

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  7. Try looking for "wireframe" in google docs template list does not work either...

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  8. Works just fine for me. HTC Incredible. Froyo.

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  9. Damn if I can't remember what I was searching for, but I ran into this the other day. Entering a term in the Google homepage returned no results, but entering the same term into an Images search showed results as expected...

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  10. At first I thought it was just me. I've been having the same issue for a couple days. I noticed it when I searched for the terms "android programming blog" and Google displayed no results. If I repeat the search on my friend's Vibrant he gets tons of results. I have a Nexus One.

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  11. I did a search for "Google Voice" on an iPhone 4 Safari Mobile Browser and got the same no-results error.

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  12. it is working fine on my android phone

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  13. I've heard that if you search for "Google" on Google you could break the Internet.

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  14. Searching "android" worked on my Samsung Galaxy 5.

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  15. Working fine here.
    HTC G1 with CyanogenMod 6.1 Nightly (Android 2.2.1)

    @Brazil

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  16. All ok from lg gt540 1.6 Italy

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  17. Just searched for 'Android' at HTC Desire Froyo2.2, very healthy results : )

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  18. Search works on localized Google page but doesn't work on English page.

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  19. On my Verizon HTC Incredible, searching for android through either the Google search app or the Google web interface gives 211 million results.

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  20. They must be holding it wrong. Everything works fine here on a Samsung Galaxy S with Froyo

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  21. OMG! It IS true you can break the internet. http://bit.ly/d1k5Or

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  22. Definitely not an Android problem. It seems like the problem appears only if you have the parameter "hl=en" on the url. That's why it works fine for people outside the US.

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  23. Works fine on my Galaxy S

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  24. works on my hero 1.5 even auto suggest works ("an" brings up different android suggestions)

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  25. working fine... G1 on Froyo CM6... this is the page:
    http://www.google.com/m?&client=ms-android-google&source=android-home

    notice the difference..

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  26. Search shows results for me; HTC Desire, stock unrooted Android 2.2.

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  27. You speak lies!

    [MyTouch 3g w/ cyan 2.2 on T-Mobile US]

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