Google's Naivete

Hi, gang,

It seems lately that I have been experiencing more and more of a problem
with Google. It seems to have a habit of providing false hits for
keywords that are off topic for the web page they list.

I heard that this is because they look at key words from pages that link
to the page they list, as though just because page A is either linked to
page B or refers to something in page B and page A referred to X means
that page B does, also. This notion, if what I have heard is correct, is
naive to the point of being ludicrous.

The classic example of this, I suppose, is how Google thinks that there
are some sites that mention "miserable failure" and also mentions the
President, www.whitehouse.gov must also talk about miserable failures.
After all, miserable failures are virtually never elected dog catcher, let
alone President.

The case I recently had a fit with was far less political, far less
humorous and far more frustrating. I was having problems configuring my
Opera web browser to accept Java under Linux. In typing in java, linux
and opera as my keywords, I got a zillion hits, as you could imagine.
Though most dealt with Java and Opera, at least half of them were about
Windows, not Linux, with many not mentioning Linux at all.

What gives with Google? Can they be that naive? Can they be that stupid?
They have an otherwise excellent service, but this so-called "feature"
(more accurately this bug)is downright annoying. Is there a good
workaround that I have not found somewhere? Even when I go into the
Advanced Search Option and tell Google that the page I want must have Java
AND Linux AND Opera, it blissfully ignores my instructions and sends what
the pages it wants to send, not what I tell it to send.

If I could find a search engine that archaived as many web pages but
without this bug (and, as far as I am concerned, all it is is a bug),
believe me, I would drop www.google.com in a moment, though I might still
stick with groups.google.com, since I know of no other comparable service
of any kind.

--
Andy Rugg -- The Cheerful Pickle
To email me, please remove "POSTHEAP" from my return address. Thanks.

On 16/6/04 11:36 pm, Cheerful Pickle wrote:

I was having problems configuring my
Opera web browser to accept Java under Linux. In typing in java, linux
and opera as my keywords, I got a zillion hits, as you could imagine.
Though most dealt with Java and Opera, at least half of them were about
Windows, not Linux, with many not mentioning Linux at all.

<http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=opera+java+linux+-windows>

--
Philip Ronan
phil.ronanzzz (AT) virgin (DOT) net
(Please remove the "z"s if replying by email)