Strange Google search results

[Fred Forsythe]

Not sure if this is the best forum for this, but none other seemed more appropriate. I've noticed the following many times during a Google search. You enter your terms and get a certain number of hits. Let's say xylophone +"irish setter". 787 hits. Now you want to narrow it by adding the term truck. xylophone +"irish setter" +truck. 5310 hits. Simply not possible. There's no way ADDING a term can do anything but either leave the hits the same, or (most likely) DECREASE them. Anyone know why this obviously erroneous situation exists?

Just wondering

Fred

[Paul Komski]

Does it increase (it doesn't for me) if the first query is:
+xylophone "irish setter"
and the second one is:
+xylophone "irish setter" +truck

An immediately preceding + (for single words) or enclosing in "" (for single or multiple words) requests Google to search literally. I can only suspect that xylophone is the problem because I suppose there may be synonyms for it or close misspellings (if that makes any difference) fairly common.

I am sure you will have read both the basic help and the more elaborate help pages by Google on this whole area.

Google has and I'm sure will continue to evolve. It does nowadays discrimnate between C# and C++ for example but once did not. I also think that it searches beyond literal strings but displays the literal results first.

[C0ldf1re]

The logical +ing is not always taken seriously by Google. Sometimes it works as an "or". Their engineers could have made it work as specified, but didn't. Dunno why. Conspiracy theory?

[Fred Forsythe]

Does it increase (it doesn't for me) if the first query is:
+xylophone "irish setter"
and the second one is:
+xylophone "irish setter" +truck

I get the same result. I'm just trying to use basic Boolean here. The word Xylophone AND the phrase Irish setter AND the word truck. Simple. This is THE world's Internet search engine, and this strikes me as their very raison d'etre. With all the $$$ they have (apparently enough to photograph every inch of road in America, for example) and expertise they have, you'd think they should be able to get something so basic to their existence correct. Interestingly, I found anding a LESS common term (formaldehyde) seemed to yield appropriate results, 72 hits, while anding another common term, LAMP, again yields an error, 3120 hits. I don't know, this strikes me as pretty unimpressive performance.

Thanks for the replies.

Fred

[Paul Komski]

I suspect that it will pretty hard to get completely inside Google's head to understand how all their algorithms work but certainly they are targeted to make the most likely effective results to exist in the top one or two pages - regardless of how many "hits" there are for any given query. Very, very few searchers go beyond page #1 or #2.

I get different results from google.ie but ones very similar to yours from the US branch at google.com/webhp - go figure.

What impresses me about Google's searches is that I can usually find what I am looking for with alarming alacrity and what they do in the background concerns me little in this particular aspect of their corporation.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Sounds like words to a Country music song

My wife left me with the xylophone, the Irish Setter and my truck. For this I thank her.


For leaving me...

[Fred Forsythe]

Sounds like words to a Country music song

My wife left me with the xylophone, the Irish Setter and my truck.

Now she's embalmed in Formaldehyde, and I don't give a ****

Fred

[LouieLouie]

Having worked in Country Music for 45 years.. it goes:

My wife left me with the xylophone, the Irish Setter and my truck.
Damn, I miss that dog.

[Paul Komski]

It would appear that you guys are just as good as Google!