Google web search on phrase returning loads of erroneous results

Comments on this would be most welcome.

My wife's friends told her it would be fun to google her name, last
name is unusual enough that Google should only return a few results.

So she googled the web for her name as a phrase
[ " characters included ]

"firstname lastname"

and got 295 hits.

Problem is that only the top hit is valid, the rest of the results
have our last name in them, but NOT adjacent to her first name.
Looking at the cached versions is no help.

Anyone know what's up with this or a workaround to only get results
with the requested phrase ? I have used Google for years and think I
know what I am doing, maybe I am falling victim to a new "feature" ?

SafeSearch Filtering in my preferences is set to: Use moderate
filtering (Filter explicit images only - default behavior)

but this shouldn't matter anyway.

TIA, QE in NJ

It gets curiouser and curioser.

I'm in NJ.

Was on the phone with my son in San Francisco.
When he tries it, it works fine, 1 hit.

Does Google have "duplicate" databases ?
If yes, we are apparently accessing different ones and the one near me
is gorked.

QE in NJ
=======================
On Wed, 03 May 2006 16:25:46 GMT, QuienEs
<QuienEsREMOVETHIS (AT) ANDTHISatt (DOT) net> wrote:

Comments on this would be most welcome.

My wife's friends told her it would be fun to google her name, last
name is unusual enough that Google should only return a few results.

So she googled the web for her name as a phrase
[ " characters included ]

"firstname lastname"

and got 295 hits.

Problem is that only the top hit is valid, the rest of the results
have our last name in them, but NOT adjacent to her first name.
Looking at the cached versions is no help.

Anyone know what's up with this or a workaround to only get results
with the requested phrase ? I have used Google for years and think
I
know what I am doing, maybe I am falling victim to a new "feature" ?

SafeSearch Filtering in my preferences is set to: Use moderate
filtering (Filter explicit images only - default behavior)

but this shouldn't matter anyway.

TIA, QE in NJ

Yes, they're called "datacenters". Which one you get for ANY search is
almost random.

If you do a search and assemble the top 100 hits by paging down 10
times, then do the same search asking for 100 hits on the page, the
results will be different.

On Wed, 3 May 2006, QuienEs wrote:

My wife's friends told her it would be fun to google her name, last
name is unusual enough that Google should only return a few results.

So she googled the web for her name as a phrase
[ " characters included ]

"firstname lastname"

and got 295 hits.

Problem is that only the top hit is valid, the rest of the results
have our last name in them, but NOT adjacent to her first name.
Looking at the cached versions is no help.
...

I have noticed this also. I normally use the "Advanced Search"

feature and 100 results/page:
http://www.google.ca/advanced_search

If I either enter a phrase in quotes in "All the Words" box
or "Exact Phrase" (no quotes), I get a lot of spurious results.

eg "long distance ice skating" gets 190000 results!
Actually, if I go to "Next page" it only shows about 220, but still
they are mostly bogus.

The symptoms seem to indicate that Google is ignoring
the quote marks and doing the "At Least One Of The Words" search.

HMM, I just noticed that most of the bogus results are "Supplemental
Results"

This happened last week but went away in a few hours but it came back
again yesterday and is still there (1753 UTC, May 3)
I deleted my google cookies and re-enterd my preferences and it's
still there. Using google.com instead of google.com doesn't
make any difference.

And Google now only has 3 out of my 50 pages indexed!
Several months ago it was up to about 30.

So Google is now returning bogus results as well as NOT finding
valid ones!

--

David Dermott , Wolfville Ridge, Nova Scotia, Canada
email: dermott (AT) ns (DOT) sympatico.ca
WWW pages: http://www.dermott.ca/index.html

On Wed, 3 May 2006, David Dermott wrote:

...
I have noticed this also. I normally use the "Advanced Search"
feature and 100 results/page:
http://www.google.ca/advanced_search
...

... Using google.com instead of google.com doesn't
make any difference.
...
Oops, that should say:

Using google.com instead of google.ca doesn't
make any difference.

--

David Dermott , Wolfville Ridge, Nova Scotia, Canada
email: dermott (AT) ns (DOT) sympatico.ca
WWW pages: http://www.dermott.ca/index.html

"QuienEs" <QuienEsREMOVETHIS (AT) ANDTHISatt (DOT) net> wrote

Comments on this would be most welcome.

My wife's friends told her it would be fun to google her name, last
name is unusual enough that Google should only return a few results.

So she googled the web for her name as a phrase
[ " characters included ]

"firstname lastname"

and got 295 hits.

Problem is that only the top hit is valid, the rest of the results
have our last name in them, but NOT adjacent to her first name.
Looking at the cached versions is no help.

Anyone know what's up with this or a workaround to only get results
with the requested phrase ? I have used Google for years and think I
know what I am doing, maybe I am falling victim to a new "feature" ?

SafeSearch Filtering in my preferences is set to: Use moderate
filtering (Filter explicit images only - default behavior)

but this shouldn't matter anyway.

TIA, QE in NJ

Don't know how long it has been happening, but I noticed
it over the weekend.
It seems to be about a 50 50 split across the data centers
try searching here using "target phrase"
http://www.mcdar.net/dance/index.php
and you will see completely different results.

On Wed, 03 May 2006 17:25:29 GMT, QuienEs
<QuienEsREMOVETHIS (AT) ANDTHISatt (DOT) net> wrote:

It gets curiouser and curioser.

I'm in NJ.

Was on the phone with my son in San Francisco.
When he tries it, it works fine, 1 hit.

Does Google have "duplicate" databases ?

Lots of them. Data Centres. DC's. As you've noticed, they aren't
exactly duplicates.

If yes, we are apparently accessing different ones and the one near me
is gorked.

Maybe that's the good one. You won't know till they settle down, and
that could be some time due to all the recent upgrades Google have
been performing and are visibly having a hard time implementing.

BB
--

http://www.kruse.co.uk/sandbox.htm
http://www.here-be-posters.co.uk/lithographs.htm
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/willow-tree/index.html

On Wed, 03 May 2006 18:32:50 GMT, David Dermott
<dermott (AT) nOsPAM (DOT) sympatico.ca> wrote:

On Wed, 3 May 2006, David Dermott wrote:
...
I have noticed this also. I normally use the "Advanced Search"
feature and 100 results/page:
http://www.google.ca/advanced_search
...

... Using google.com instead of google.com doesn't
make any difference.
...
Oops, that should say:

Using google.com instead of google.ca doesn't
make any difference.

It might another day. Another time of day. Different weather. But you
still won't get a result from the Chinese one, or Google.de.

BB
--

http://www.kruse.co.uk/sandbox.htm
http://www.here-be-posters.co.uk/lithographs.htm
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/willow-tree/index.html

On Wed, 03 May 2006 18:25:20 GMT, David Dermott
<dermott (AT) nOsPAM (DOT) sympatico.ca> wrote:

So Google is now returning bogus results as well as NOT finding
valid ones!

Difficult to call them bogus because what Google decides is top
actually is top. Accurate is something else.

BB
--

http://www.kruse.co.uk/sandbox.htm
http://www.here-be-posters.co.uk/lithographs.htm
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/willow-tree/index.html

On 3 May 2006 10:36:04 -0700, "Phil Payne" <phil (AT) isham-research (DOT) co.uk>
wrote:

Yes, they're called "datacenters". Which one you get for ANY search is
almost random.

Random? How often will you get a Chinese DC from the UK?

If you do a search and assemble the top 100 hits by paging down 10
times, then do the same search asking for 100 hits on the page, the
results will be different.

Ah so.

BB

--

http://www.kruse.co.uk/sandbox.htm
http://www.here-be-posters.co.uk/lithographs.htm
http://www.crystal-liaison.com/willow-tree/index.html