Google is a douche

pbean

So I use a setup where I run jetty through maven and I want to try out New Relic. I kinda know how to tackle this, but I decide to Google any way. First attempt:

"newrelic jetty maven" (no quotes): only results with newrelc and jetty, none of the results have "maven"

"+newrelic +jetty +maven": it tells me I'm doing it wrong, showing "results without punctuation"

"newrelic jetty maven (with quotes): nothing, to be expected

"newrelic AND jetty AND maven": ok so there are results with newrelic and jetty, and with jetty and maven, and with maven and newrelic, but still not all three

How fucking difficult can it be to just fucking display what I'm fucking searching for, or fucking telling me no such results fucking exist (note it doesn't even fucking do that with the fucking first query).

Sigh. I'm probably a retard, using the wrong keywords, and not really sure what I'm looking for. Google probably knows better what I'm looking for than I do myself. Cunts.

Speakerphone_Dude

@pbean said:

How fucking difficult can it be to just fucking display what I'm fucking searching for

Easy

pbean

@Speakerphone Dude said:

@pbean said:
How fucking difficult can it be to just fucking display what I'm fucking searching for

Easy

"Was that so hard": no it wasn't, but it didn't give the correct fucking results either, dude. In fact, the first result doesn't even fucking include the "maven" keyword, which was specifically specified (what about this "implicit AND" I keep reading about?).

FYI, the solution is adding it to your MAVEN_OPTS, rather than your JAVA_OPTIONS.

random999

@Speakerphone Dude said:

@pbean said:
How fucking difficult can it be to just fucking display what I'm fucking searching for

Easy

Except that doesn't work. For me, the first results are:

Number 1 doesn't mention "maven"

Number 2 doesn't mention "maven"

Number 3 doesn't mention "maven"

Number 4 doesn't mention "jetty"

At that point I gave up checking.

Edit: pbean posted at the same time as me.

dtfinch

"newrelic" "jetty" "maven"

Probably 9/10 of my google searches look like that.

Speakerphone_Dude

@pbean said:

@Speakerphone Dude said:
@pbean said:
How fucking difficult can it be to just fucking display what I'm fucking searching for

Easy

"Was that so hard": no it wasn't, but it didn't give the correct fucking results either, dude. In fact, the first result doesn't even fucking include the "maven" keyword, which was specifically specified (what about this "implicit AND" I keep reading about?).
FYI, the solution is adding it to your MAVEN_OPTS, rather than your JAVA_OPTIONS.

Read your initial request again. You never asked for relevant results, you asked to "just fucking display what I'm fucking searching for". My link does that.

CodeSimian

@pbean said:

"+newrelic +jetty +maven"

@dtfinch said:

"newrelic" "jetty" "maven"

Yeah, unfortunately Google deprecated the + syntax so you have to do it the way dtfinch wrote.

[url]http://www.wired.com/business/2011/10/google-kills-its-other-plus-and-how-to-bring-it-back/[/url]

@dtfinch said:

"newrelic" "jetty" "maven"
Probably 9/10 of my google searches look like that.

And it's just horrendously stupid that you have to do that. You should be able to just simply type newrelic jetty maven without the quotes, and get the results you want. Seriously, how fucking stupid is this. If someone types newrelic jetty maven it means that they're looking for all three words. Google really can't figure that out?@CodeSimian said:

unfortunately Google deprecated the + syntax so you have to do it the way dtfinch wrote.

Andy Baio / Oct 25, 2011 / tags

Google Kills Its Other Plus, and How to Bring It Back

Call it the tragedy of the alpha users: Google has killed a popular search feature using the + symbol, annoying power users while clearing up a small obstacle to its fast-growing Goolge+ social network. A short history of Google search, and some tips for people who want to carry on as usual despite...

That link confirms something that I've suspected for a while:

[quote user=""]In January 2009, however, Google began experimenting with silently ignoring search terms completely.

"It’s incredibly annoying,” wrote
Peter Rojas, gdgt founder and co-founder of Engadget and Gizmodo. “I
hate how they don’t want you to do searches for exactly the words you’ve
entered"[/quote] Over the past couple of years I've been noticing that Google's search results really suck, and now I know why.

Mcoder

Well, I have great news for you. If you repeat that first search you'll get a page with the 3 keywords around the second result.

I also have some bad news. That page is this one.

Speakerphone_Dude

@Mcoder said:

Well, I have great news for you. If you repeat that first search you'll get a page with the 3 keywords around the second result.
I also have some bad news. That page is this one.

this is history in the making. gotta love internet!

atipico

@El_Heffe said:

If someone types newrelic jetty maven it means that they're looking for all three words. Google really can't figure that out?

Not quite. From the article: "As Google grew in popularity, this didn’t scale. Non-technical users don’t know what search terms to use or how to use search modifiers, and they shouldn’t have to. Instead, Google needed to read minds to find what their mainstream audience was looking for, even if it meant ignoring what they actually wrote."

Actually, it's the majority of users who cant figure out ~~what they want~~ how to performe a search, and Google has to take this into consideration in order to stand out.

@atipico said:

@El_Heffe said:
If someone types newrelic jetty maven it means that they're looking for all three words. Google really can't figure that out?

Not quite. From the article: "As Google grew in popularity, this didn’t scale. Non-technical users don’t know what search terms to use or how to use search modifiers, and they shouldn’t have to. Instead, Google needed to read minds to find what their mainstream audience was looking for, even if it meant ignoring what they actually wrote."

Actually, it's the majority of users who cant figure out ~~what they want~~ how to performe a search, and Google has to take this into consideration in order to stand out.

That's complete bullshit. If I type newrelic jetty maven don't give me results that only contain two of those words. That's not what I asked for. Remember "Clippy" the really super helpful Microsoft Office animated paperclip? "Hey, it looks like you're typing a letter. Let me go ahead and fuck everything up for you because I don't care that you're not actually trying to write a letter". What Google is doing is eseentially the same thing.

Google doesn't need to read my mind. Google doesn't need to guess what
I'm searching for. Google needs to sit down, shut the fuck up and give me search results that
contain the words I typed.

pbean

@Speakerphone Dude said:

Read your initial request again. You never asked for relevant results, you asked to "just fucking display what I'm fucking searching for". My link does that.

Oh right next time I'll just add "+relevant" to my fucking query. Sorry to forget that.

@Mcoder said:

Well, I have great news for you. If you repeat that first search you'll get a page with the 3 keywords around the second result.
I also have some bad news. That page is this one.

Hah, that's nice! It's not only bad news, it's nice that someone who searches for this in the future actually finds a result quickly (unlike me), and might get a laugh out of it as well.

@El_Heffe said:

Google doesn't need to read my mind. Google doesn't need to guess what I'm searching for. Google needs to sit down, shut the fuck up and give me search results that contain the words I typed.

^ This

Speakerphone_Dude

@pbean said:

@Speakerphone Dude said:
Read your initial request again. You never asked for relevant results, you asked to "just fucking display what I'm fucking searching for". My link does that.

Oh right next time I'll just add "+relevant" to my fucking query. Sorry to forget that.

Downshift a few gears on the "fucking" language and read this thread instead, someone already posted a link that explains why the + sign does not work anymore. It would therefore be useless to add "+relevant" on the query.

grkvlt1

Yes, but in general people have no idea how search works. Watch the average user searching for someting, it generally goes like this: Enter keywords A, B, C and find no relevant results. Now add keyword D to the end of the list, expecting that more information implies better results. When serach engines implicitly ANDed the keywords this simply continued to fail to return anything. So the better mechnism for the average user is to implicitly OR and return pages relevant to some subset of the search terms.

Speakerphone_Dude

@grkvlt said:

Yes, but in general people have no idea how search works. Watch the average user searching for someting, it generally goes like this: Enter keywords A, B, C and find no relevant results. Now add keyword D to the end of the list, expecting that more information implies better results. When serach engines implicitly ANDed the keywords this simply continued to fail to return anything. So the better mechnism for the average user is to implicitly OR and return pages relevant to some subset of the search terms.

I agree and would like to add that, in my experience, non-IT users tend to see no difference between AND and OR, especially in the context of a search engine. They will say that they searched for "A and B" while they were actually requesting "A or B". I believe that the difference between AND and OR will slowly disappear from the collective mind, just like the difference between click and right-click.

We live in a world where most people see options as a waste of mental cycles. For IT people this can be a shame or as a formidable opportunity (ask Apple).

ekolis

@pbean said:

"newrelic AND jetty AND maven": ok so there are results with newrelic and jetty, and with jetty and maven, and with maven and newrelic, but still not all three

"newrelic AND jetty AND maven AND newrelic", perhaps?

@ekolis said:

@pbean said:
"newrelic AND jetty AND maven": ok so there are results with newrelic and jetty, and with jetty and maven, and with maven and newrelic, but still not all three

"newrelic AND jetty AND maven AND newrelic", perhaps?

Why is it, that in every thread that's beginning with a question like the OP's, someone has to pop in and post an "answer" that clearly shows that he hasn't read the thread at all?

I mean, sometimes they even state that they didn't read the thread. I'm honestly baffled.

this_code_sucks

Wow, I am so glad it's not just me that thinks google search sucks.

One of my main concerns is the whole concept of using link quanity to determine relevence/quality. This pretty much assures that you have to jump through a bunch of hoop and hire seo to get your page on a respectable ranking.

Anyone have any good google alternatives?

boomzilla

We must search for very different things. My google results are typically pretty good (assuming I pick reasonable terms, of course). The OP definitely found a WTF, though.

I know that I often use the auto-complete, which often helps me use better alternate terms.

Rhamphoryncus

(Ye gods, I still have an account here?)

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html?name=google+verbatim

You want a a verbatim search, which turns off the stupid. Go there, add one, select it in your search bar, be happy. Unfortunately, only half my searches need verbatim, so I'm still wasting a lot of time turning it off and comparing.

I know full well why google dumbs down their search, but that doesn't mean it's not useless for me. My approach: every time I get a stupid result I the feedback link at the bottom and report it. If they get enough complaints they may try to find a better solution.

esoterik

Back in the day all search engines had an "Adavanced Search" button/link nearby that would show you multi-input form for your search. Google seems to have removed the link/button, but it does still have it at www.google.ca/advanced_search i hope this is helpful to the OP.

RaceProUK

@El_Heffe said:

Google doesn't need to read my mind. Google doesn't need to guess what I'm searching for. Google needs to sit down, shut the fuck up and give me search results that contain the words I typed.

That's because you know exactly what keywords you need. Remember that Google needs to cater for the 99% of people who think Google is 'the Internet', and that they get to it by clicking a big blue 'e'. I mean people that type a URL into Google instead of the address bar.

mott555

@ekolis said:

"newrelic AND jetty AND maven AND newrelic; DROP TABLE gmail_users; --", perhaps?

FTFY

serguey123

@esoterik said:

Google seems to have removed the link/button,

At least for me if you click the option button (the one with the cog) one of the options is Advanced Search
@esoterik said:

i hope this is helpful to the OP.

Unlikely and contrary to this fora guidelines

sprained

You can also quote all your terms to have Google require them all -- it's their replacement for the deprecated "+" syntax (ignoring the fact that quotes and plus signs *should* mean different things.

Anyway, googling for "New Relic" "jetty" "maven" returns at least some results that contain all three terms. And naturally, this thread is the #2 result.

bundat

I think this sums up pretty nicely why Google is doing this, and the average IQ of their targeted audience

How my mom googles something

35,130 points • 6 comments

In this case, they expect most users to be like the "mom".

I can understand their perspective (it works marketing-wise, just like how the newest games in the market targeted to the new generation no longer require any brain power, unlike classics like tetris). But I DO wish they keep around something targeted for the power users, like http://google.com/expert

blakeyrat

@bundat said:

I can understand their perspective (it works marketing-wise, just like how the newest games in the market targeted to the new generation no longer require any brain power, unlike classics like tetris).

There are so many things wrong with that sentence.

dhromed

@bundat said:

the newest games in the market targeted to the new generation no longer require any brain power, unlike classics like tetris

AHAHAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHidiot.

Here, op: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22new+relic%22+jetty+maven. All results contain all keywords. Nothing that answers your problem, though.

Cbuttius

Don't forget that companies pay google to put their pages at the top of the search result.

Never mind if it was what you were actually looking for, if it's close, put it on the top anyway...

RaceProUK

@Cbuttius said:

Don't forget that companies pay google to put their pages at the top of the search result.

Never mind if it was what you were actually looking for, if it's close, put it on the top anyway...

You mean the Sponsored Ads, which are displayed in addition to a normal search?

powerlord

I noticed a while back they changed this (after 10 years or it using implicit and).

I hate it. Maybe because I know how to use a search engine, which isn't the demographic Google is catering to any more.

antiquarian

I'll have to remember this discussion for the next time someone advocates making things easy for ~~novices~~ the clueless.

atipico

@El_Heffe said:

That's complete bullshit. If I type newrelic jetty maven don't give me results that only contain two of those words. That's not what I asked for. (...) Google doesn't need to read my mind. Google doesn't need to guess what
I'm searching for.

You, sir, are the minority. We all here are the minority. And google knows that.
Here is what the majority looks like: (someone else posted the link but I think the entire image needs to be posted).

So, indeed, google HAS to perform some mind-reading and term-ignoring on the majority of its input.

Have you ever got near a normal, non tech-savvy user and see what they type into google? It's somewhat between funny and scary.

C_Octothorpe

@PedanticCurmudgeon said:

I'll have to remember this discussion for the next time someone advocates making things easy for ~~novices~~ ~~the clueless~~ the willfully ignorant.

FTFY

Mcoder

@Mo6eB said:

Here, op: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22new+relic%22+jetty+maven. All results contain all keywords. Nothing that answers your problem, though.

That's it. I'm finaly giving duckduckgo a try. I've already switched the search provider in firefox. If it is as good as everybody says it is, I simply won't change it back.

@Mcoder said:

@Mo6eB said:
Here, op: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22new+relic%22+jetty+maven. All results contain all keywords. Nothing that answers your problem, though.

That's it. I'm finaly giving duckduckgo a try. I've already switched the search provider in firefox. If it is as good as everybody says it is, I simply won't change it back.

It's not strictly better, but if you don't find what you searched for, you can always try searching in google by typing "!g <original search query>". Check out the rest of their spanish-exclamation-mark syntax: https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html

TGV

@Mo6eB said:

It's not strictly better, but if you don't find what you searched for, you can always try searching in google by typing "!g <original search query>". Check out the rest of their spanish-exclamation-mark syntax: https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html

Ni signo de exclamción español, ¡ni polla!

zzo38

Google makes everything difficult.

Ben L.

@zzo38 said:

Google makes everything difficult.

Okay, I want you to re-read your own post. Slowly.

Without Google, the only good search engine™®, you'd still be using AltaVista. Or maybe you wouldn't even have internet access because nobody thought the internet was worth it and it was just thrown out.

TGV

@Ben L. said:

Without Google, the only good search engine™®, you'd still be using AltaVista. Or maybe you wouldn't even have internet access because nobody thought the internet was worth it and it was just thrown out.

No internet would be absurd, as it existed well before google, but a less widely used internet, with less vitriolic trolling and without unwashed masses spewing their filth, as it was 10 years ago? Perfect. So that proves it: Google is evil.

RaceProUK

@TGV said:

@Ben L. said:
Without Google, the only good search engine™®, you'd still be using AltaVista. Or maybe you wouldn't even have internet access because nobody thought the internet was worth it and it was just thrown out.
No internet would be absurd, as it existed well before google, but a less widely used internet, with less vitriolic trolling and without unwashed masses spewing their filth, as it was 10 years ago? Perfect. So that proves it: Google is evil.

Try 20 years ago - Eternal September was in 1993.

SilentRunner

@pbean said:

So I use a setup where I run jetty through maven and I want to try out New Relic. I kinda know how to tackle this, but I decide to Google any way. First attempt:
"newrelic jetty maven" (no quotes): only results with newrelc and jetty, none of the results have "maven"
"+newrelic +jetty +maven": it tells me I'm doing it wrong, showing "results without punctuation"
"newrelic jetty maven (with quotes): nothing, to be expected
"newrelic AND jetty AND maven": ok so there are results with newrelic and jetty, and with jetty and maven, and with maven and newrelic, but still not all three
How fucking difficult can it be to just fucking display what I'm fucking searching for, or fucking telling me no such results fucking exist (note it doesn't even fucking do that with the fucking first query).
Sigh. I'm probably a retard, using the wrong keywords, and not really sure what I'm looking for. Google probably knows better what I'm looking for than I do myself. Cunts.

Yes, sir, your use of the f-word and c-word certainly indicates you are a retard. But since you seem to recognize your mental and social condition, there may be hope for you. See your local Christian minister. He can help you.

dhromed

@SilentRunner said:

See your local Christian minister. He can help you.

What if he doesn't have one?

boomzilla

@SilentRunner said:

Yes, sir, your use of the f-word and c-word certainly indicates you are a retard. But since you seem to recognize your mental and social condition, there may be hope for you. See your local Christian minister. He can help you.

You're not supposed to say "retard" any more you fucking cunt.

Xyro

SilentRunner, knock it off. You're not doing the Church any favors by acting like a dick.

RaceProUK

LIONS!

SilentRunner

@Xyro said:

SilentRunner, knock it off. You're not doing the Church any favors by acting like a dick.

I'm pointing out that his use of certain words detract from his message and are not to be heard in polite company. A minister of any faith could probably show him how he has erred and how he can correct his future behavior.

By the way, I'm not acting like a dick. I'm acting like someone who is offended by reading gutter language in a technical forum. It's bad enough I have to read over all that junk about SQL. Why should I also have to read offensive words?

RaceProUK

TIGERS!