Even the basic - operator so rarely works as intended in any search bar anymore. I used to be able to ferret out anything from mountains of results that way. Now it just ignores the operator.
Quote marks to search for a specific phrase in order doesn’t work either. I remember in high school in the very early aughts being taught these operators. Fucking shameful.
“they had spent all day waiting outside the double doors”
Google, Yandex, and Bing all pull it off. DuckDuckGo fails.
Ah, maybe you’re referring to this: on mobile, you have to ignore Google results below the DMCA removal notice. On desktop - none of those spammy “tiles” with video content and the like. On mobile - yes, after the 100% exact results, you get their attempts at hooking you into staying on the site.
My guess is that it’s trying to be helpful – that if you (for example) type in a search for lucy and wardrobe and cordial it doesn’t limit it to all of those things, but shows you everything.
Which is fine if you are new to the web, but if you do know what you want and are looking for the exact thing, then ten thousand results…
I can see what they were doing ignoring the operators, but yeah – it blows.
Even the basic - operator so rarely works as intended in any search bar anymore. I used to be able to ferret out anything from mountains of results that way. Now it just ignores the operator.
Something something you are the product.
They sell clicks, so uh yes
Quote marks to search for a specific phrase in order doesn’t work either. I remember in high school in the very early aughts being taught these operators. Fucking shameful.
It ain’t the innovation capitalists promised us, is it? Handicap the search engine so that people spend more time seeing ads, why not.
Quotation marks work well for me, still, after all these years, as their 2022 blog post claims.
They’ll find “him. But” when you search “him but”.
They’ll find “is not” when you search “isn’t”.
Saw them work in a singular and unscientific test a week ago.
One search to try on your favorite engine:
Google, Yandex, and Bing all pull it off. DuckDuckGo fails.
Ah, maybe you’re referring to this: on mobile, you have to ignore Google results below the DMCA removal notice. On desktop - none of those spammy “tiles” with video content and the like. On mobile - yes, after the 100% exact results, you get their attempts at hooking you into staying on the site.
I wonder why it works on bing and not ddg. I’ve also noticed using operators on ddg is not effective
My guess is that it’s trying to be helpful – that if you (for example) type in a search for lucy and wardrobe and cordial it doesn’t limit it to all of those things, but shows you everything.
Which is fine if you are new to the web, but if you do know what you want and are looking for the exact thing, then ten thousand results…
I can see what they were doing ignoring the operators, but yeah – it blows.
That’s a very generous interpretation.
EXTREMELY generous. In fact, almost SUSPICIOUSLY so 🤔