UNLIMITED SHITTING ON GOOGLE THREAD :-D

[LMNO]

Eh, it wasn't that funny a joke in the first place, so I'll just explain it:

Taking into account Google now give it what it thinks you want, instead of what you asked for, I show my distain for American Consumerism™ by rejecting the topmost searches and exploring other options.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

what an effort intensive way to research! If you know what you're looking for, and you use the right bow (search engine) and the right arrow (search string), the info you need will always be right on top.

Not sure what you mean?

My point was, Google doesn't seem to work like that any more, hence me stepping out for different engines.

That was responding to LMNO, who said that if his target isn't on top, he looks at the next 50 results


I'm just sayin -- if you find yourself on page 10, you probably didn't use a good search string.

I very often look deeper in the results pages to find less "popular" results.

Of course, I also frequently use search strings like "shaved baby goats wearing sweaters".

[Elder Iptuous]

shaved baby goats wearing sweaters were visible on the first result though... 

[Cramulus]

sure, there's tons of great stuff to find if you want to wander around the net

What I'm saying is - if you're looking for a specific piece of info, there's usually no reason to dig through 10 pages of results

for example
I was helping my little brother find some info on his college's website. He was on page 20-something. But if he had restricted his search to the college's website, it would have been in the top 2.


LMNO, sorry it went over my head the first time. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

shaved baby goats wearing sweaters were visible on the first result though... 

That's why you have to go to page ten, for the less popular results.

[Elder Iptuous]

 
i'm lost....
if you wanted to see exactly what you searched for, and the No. 1 result gives that to you, why do you have to go to page 10?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

i'm lost....
if you wanted to see exactly what you searched for, and the No. 1 result gives that to you, why do you have to go to page 10?

I think we must be very, very different people, because what you're saying doesn't even make sense to me.

If you stop at page one then you get the same pictures of shaved baby goats wearing sweaters that everyone else gets. You get the same articles. I don't understand why you wouldn't go a little deeper, just to see what's there. The most popular results aren't necessarily the most useful or interesting results. Plus, page ten has a really nice blog entry about a trip to Lopez Island, which made me look up land for sale on Lopez. Now I know a ballpark of real estate prices on Lopez, just in case.

It took me a couple of searches to refine it to shaved baby goats wearing sweaters... I started out looking for sheared baby goats, and then when I went into some of the deeper pages I found goats wearing sweaters. If I hadn't clicked into the less popular results to see what there might be, I wouldn't have even known that people put sweaters on their shaved baby goats.

By the way, don't search "hairless goat".

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I also usually look through a few pages looking for contradictory information or different perspectives. Doesn't everybody do that? How do you have any idea that the information you found is valid if you just accept the first results you see?

[Freeky]

I usually use searching to find pictures for WOMPing, or to quickly look up a term I don't know.

[Cramulus]

I also usually look through a few pages looking for contradictory information or different perspectives. Doesn't everybody do that? How do you have any idea that the information you found is valid if you just accept the first results you see?

if you're doing a sort of open ended search, or you're not sure what you're looking for, yeah, definitely browse around for other opinions. Some of the most interesting stuff I've found on the net has been from linksurfing and meandering around the data. (that's how I originally found the PD despite researching fractals)

My comment about using good search techniques to get your data in the top 5 hits pertains to finding specific pieces of information. I think the majority of my searches are for literal strings from the specific page I'm trying to find.

Right now I'm looking for a specific piece of info: the text of the Occupied Wall Street Journal. I don't want to look through ten pages of results. By searching using a literal string from the article, the result I was looking for was the #1 hit. Presto!

[Triple Zero]

I also usually look through a few pages looking for contradictory information or different perspectives. Doesn't everybody do that? How do you have any idea that the information you found is valid if you just accept the first results you see?

Depends on what you're looking for.

When I'm looking for documentation on a computer thing, one man-page is as good as the next. Or error messages.

I just checked my recent history of google searches and 9 out of 10 times I knew exactly what I was looking for. Time in Arizona, PyLab documentation, wikisource nyarlathotep, the name of that students association in Delft, Matt Cutts (to see if I got his name spelled right), 7.5L in gal, etc etc.

Most of those aren't really things up for discussion. If it looks like an answer, it's probably the right one. Unless someone decides to lie about the time in Arizona and happens to get to the front page. Except I knew the site I was clicking on because I had been there before (I always forget the timezones), plus I got common sense and remembered "ah yeah it was -9 hours" when I saw it.

And then, sometimes I want to find a recipe, or something like that and then I do check multiple sites.

But when I look for something that's controversial, well I kinda scan for opposing viewpoints, but I look for other thinsg when evaluating the validity of  result than just whether other pages agree with it or not. All viewpoints were not created equal, after all

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

If I'm looking for the hours an office is open or the name of a song or an actor's middle name, I don't waste time looking at alternatives. Those things have very definitive answers. If I'm looking for pictures or more general information, which is pretty typical for me, I look at several pages and I dig into the less popular results to see what's there.

[Cain]

[Triple Zero]

17:49 <@Pixie> http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22death+coffee%22
17:50 <@Pixie> peedee is the second link for searching "death coffee"
17:51  * tripozooO000M goes to see what first link is
17:51 <+tripozooO000M> "Stieg Larsson's Death: Coffee or Conspiracy?"
17:52 <+tripozooO000M> WTF
17:52 <@Pixie> lol
17:52 <+tripozooO000M> this is exactly what I mean when I say Google
                       has gotten incredibly shitty over the past few
                       months
17:54 <@Pixie> yes

[Telarus]