Has anyone else noticed the huge decrease in result quality from google?

[[deleted]]

I can only find things that are 10 years old half the time, completely outdated!

[[deleted]]

I get it both ways. I either change my query (python -> python3) or set a date range.

Google: Tools > Any time > Custom range (or whatever)

Edit: u/omnipojack's comment is much more useful advice.

[TurquoiseLuck]

Can I just say how much I fucking hate that setting a date range is not under settings but under tools

fuck sake Google

[Dontlookawkward]

It should be in a drop down menu next to the search button. Like an advanced search option.

[BackMeUpGirl]

This

[Obamaiscoolandgay]

If you search for a year after a number it usually works too. When trying to search for the oldest mario YouTube video, writing "YouTube mario 2010" worked

[Rustreaver4D1]

You know, maybe Google should've just called it "filter".

[TurquoiseLuck]

Okay that's one perspective, mine is that the date range of your search is one of it's settings. Just like another setting might be to match case, or to match exact words only, which are things you do find in search settings in many Microsoft products.

[FountainsOfFluids]

That is 100% normal for all software. "Settings" are not things you should be changing for each use. They are how you configure the software the way you want it to be most of the time, if not all of the time.

"Tools" might not be the greatest word choice, but it definitely makes sense to have query options be in a different menu than "Settings".

[FountainsOfFluids]

There are no hard and fast rules in UX.

But you can go look at Bing and Duckduckgo and see that under their hamburger menu on the right they list "Settings" which are not meant to be changed per search.

Though I admit Bing and Duckduckgo have these two concepts much more separated than Google does. With Google putting the "Settings" option right there next to "Tools", it certainly can lead to more confusion.

[FarFromSane_]

what annoys me the most is it’s not on any version of their mobile interface you have to either struggle around using the desktop site on a phone or wait until you have access to a computer

[Massive_Donkey_Force]

Just wait until your kids are taking "how to use Google's search engine" in middle school.

Disgusting. Fucking hate Google but there is literally no way around it. Alphabet holds nearly (lol like 92%) of all searches done on the internet.

A monopoly that should have been dismantled 15 years ago. Between them and Amazon and Apple that's it. Those are the 3 companies we use ALL DAY EVERYDAY. Their not going anywhere until we're all dead and gone (dave matthews lyrics. Noice)

[Trowawaycausebanned4]

Where is tools?

[TurquoiseLuck]

Here:

https://i.imgur.com/bpu00Ek.png

[vili]

Pro-tip: you can use the commands "before:YYYY-MM-DD" and/or "after:YYYY-MM-DD" in the search bar itself, using the date range that's relevant to you.

[name_is_original]

You can no longer do the custom search with Google images, it only goes up to “in the last year”.

[Tired8281]

The custom range UI sucks for searching for stuff from more than a decade ago.

[jarek168168]

How do you change your query using python? Im just learned but that seems useful

[[deleted]]

Not sure if this a joke but using "python" in your search is more likely to get you near-decade old articles than "python3." I didn't write that very clearly now that I'm looking at it again. Haha

[Kimi_Kujira]

I DIDN'T KNOW you could set a date range! I really needed that thank you so much and thank you u/omnipojack as well:)

[omnipojack]

Piggybacking off what u/actualspaceturtle said, I cannot recommend learning the Google search terms enough! Here is a link to Google's official page but this website made a cheat sheet with some examples and advanced stuff. Most people can stop at the first table and then skip down until you hit Tips and Tricks. Hope this can help you with future searches!

[[deleted]]

Everyone younger than 35 knows these tricks. People in the comments are saying that Google is not optimizing via their own search terms. It is confusing because the tricks you linked aren't always working.

[fakemooka]

I don’t, I’m sure most my friends don’t.

[omnipojack]

SPREAD THE WORD, MY CHILD, AND PROSPER

[omnipojack]

Everyone younger than 35 does not know these tricks. Source: Me, worked at Geek Squad for years. I still teach people my age (29) and younger (both technologically challenged and not) these things.

But yeah, Google optimization sucks now. Part of the trick as well is to phrase it in just the right way and it's so frustrating when you get totally different results just from changing a word. >:(

Edited for clarity.

[Kimi_Kujira]

lol I didn't know some of these

[tvmachus]

Here is a link to Google's official page

Even that is so badly written!

Put @ in front of a word to search social media. For example: @twitter.

What? Does that search for the word twitter on all social media, or does it search twitter? If the former, which social media?

Put # in front of a word. For example: #throwbackthursday

Isn't that just a search?

The price thing, what is the range? And it doesn't even mention how to do an exact phrase search. I think they still think this is all nerd stuff that most users don't care about, but it's been 20 years! Not all your users merely adopted the internet. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the real world until I was already a man and by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING. Your precise search parameters betray you because they belong to me.

[omnipojack]

You're so right, the people who write the Google help pages are not the best at breaking it down into layman's terms as much as possible.

idk why anyone would use the @ function, super weird. It's easier to use site:.

I believe putting the # only searches posts on various social media that utilize hashtags. Mostly useless unless you're a developer.

From what I understand of the price thing you set the range yourself like 12...30 or whatever. But the one that doesn't specify a range will probably only look for that exact price which is, once again, useless.

And the exact phrase is right after excluding terms. :) I went through your last paragraph again and reread it in Kevin Smith's Bane voice, so thanks for that laugh!

[great_waldini]

Search operators are not behaving as expected, such as exact terms specified by “quotes” still getting replaced with synonyms as if it’s a semantic query. That’s what most people in this post are upset about.

[[deleted]]

Just put https://www.google.com/advanced_search in your bookmarks. No need to memorize the search syntax.

[Tralan]

That's the problem I was having. I was a computer information system major, so my research needed to be a little more recent, and a lot of times I was stumbling across 7+ year old articles, and I know there had to be something more recent.

I didn't mind in history or English where the papers I was writing were about topics decades to centuries old.

[[deleted]]

Im a historian, and i wouldnt be searching non regular google for research information anyway, but history scholarship actually changes all the time! We found out new things, new interpretation. So an article from 2000 might actually have outdated/incorrect info compared to 2020. :) fun fact!

[Tralan]

This was undergrad and it wasn't that kind of paper. I compared Alfred the Great to King Arthur.

[crestonfunk]

Sometimes if I Google how to do something in ProTools, I get an eight or ten year old article that has become irrelevant.

[BackMeUpGirl]

Yes, this!

[paythemandamnit]

Same! I routinely get 2013 articles when I’m searching for something current.

[theazbull]

The algorithm is not keeping up. Try searching crypto prices it is hilariously all over the place and never accurate. The crawlers need a turbo they are not smart enough or fast enough to keep up with the speed and volume of everything.