Posted by Charles_Ca on 9/5/06 12:38pm
Msg #143572

Search Engines revisited.

This morning I had an opportunity to see how Google compares to Alta Vista. I was looking for a tool called a Stript-Ease. When I entered the words exactly as I spelled them Google came up with thousands of hits almost all pornographic (strip tease). The tool's brand name is Stript-Ease and Alta Vista returned 3 hits and each specifically addressed the tool. Alta Vista has not altered its Boolean searches over the years but it is obvious that Google has and I think it has made Google less user friendly to me. Perhaps Google's marketing people decided that Google knows better than the person entering the search string but even with Boolean operators Google still changes the search criteria evidently determining that the person entering the search is not smart enough to know what they are seeking.

Reply by Teddog/CO on 9/5/06 12:46pm
Msg #143576

Good Morning Charles! I ask you "where would we be without computers"

Reply by Charles_Ca on 9/5/06 1:28pm
Msg #143583

Re: Search Engines revisited. Mornin' Teddy!

Like the Genie in the lamp one needs to knwo what to ask for! Now it appearss that one needs to know who to ask. Brenda was asking about search engines the other day but this one search was really graphic (pun intended) in pointing out the differences. I believed that Google was starting to skew its searches, but this instance the differences were day and night. Have a great day, nice to hear from you.

Reply by Lee/AR on 9/5/06 1:46pm
Msg #143586

Of course, we're all going to have to try this. LOL n/m

Reply by Charles_Ca on 9/5/06 4:44pm
Msg #143645

Whatever floats your boat Lee ;-)...

I just thought it was quite difinitive. Since I was looking for the tool and typed in the name using the lower and upper case letters as well as the hyphen I was surprised that Google just tripped off the case and the hyphen and then proceeded to load me up with useless returns. Alta vista didn't do that and respected the case that I entered as well as being ahyphenated word. The situation is true and the tool exists and is not an exercise in anything other than to respond to an earlier request brom Brenda Tx for information on search engines. This was the first really egregious problem I encountered after Brenda posted her question. Regards!

Reply by Gary_CA on 9/6/06 1:11am
Msg #143781

put it in quotes... no problem...

that is interesting though... I would have Google to find "sights containing stript but not ease".

Ya learn something new every day (not sure how I'll use it, but I learned it.

Of course it's a good thing that it's not case sensitive.