What's Wacky with Google? 619
There are always going to be oddities with any big online service, but this one seems to be persisting. Join the discussion in trying to figure out a pattern. For maybe a week, Google has been returning zero results or "1-1 of about xxx,000" for common searches. One-word searches seem unaffected, but there are certain two-word combinations of common words like
candle truck
or
speaker bracelet.
Reversing the order can affect searches too:
motorcycle candles
vs.
candles motorcycle.
The strange thing is that usually the 1 or 2 results found are to commerce sites. Read the
Search Basics,
compare your notes to
GoogleWhack's,
have fun looking for patterns, but remember that Google always returns slightly different results for different IP numbers.
(Update: 13:56 GMT by J : When I first posted this story it said the problems have been occurring "for several weeks at least" -- but it seems to be more like one week.)
Question (Score:0, Funny)
Man! (Score:5, Funny)
It's obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Deja vu? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Man! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Man! (Score:2, Funny)
Google Zeitgeist (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Searches no one would try (Score:2, Funny)
"As soon as I shove this hot poker..."
Re:Man! (Score:2, Funny)
definetly something fishy (Score:0, Funny)
Google: Roughly 70 000 000 hits on google.
Goolge is bigger than pr0n? Hmm, something _must_ be wrong.
Re:Google Zeitgeist (Score:5, Funny)
No longer will we
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
"to be or not to be"... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Man! (Score:3, Funny)
I need a new motorcycle candle. The old just keeps blowing out.
KFG
One of the hits (Score:5, Funny)
I prefer not to even click on that one, and just speculate.
Simple. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It still can't do phrase searches (Score:5, Funny)
Um, yeah. Actually, I don't know what you're talking about. Entering the phrase "to be or not to be" -- with quotes, so as to indicate you want the phrase, not just the collection of words -- yielded the first two pages of results all having that phrase. Not all of them were for pages on Shakespeare, but then again, that phrase is now deeply buried in the common memespace. If you make the search phrase
you do indeed get results with the phrase and exclusively referring to Shakespeare. Oh, I get it. You don't like the idea you need to actually construct a reasonable search phrase. You're mad that Google isn't, I don't know, telepathic. Your best bet is the SFWIWNFWIS search engine -- search for what I want, not for what I say.
speakerbracelet.com (Score:3, Funny)
1. Register speakerbracelet.com
2. Be the top 1 of 2 search results on google.
3. ????
4. Profit!
The real time search monitor (Score:5, Funny)
They have to be pretty confused right now, when thousands of searches for speaker bracelets, motorcycle candles and candle trucks show up on the display!
Is it a glitch? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:maybe (Score:5, Funny)
Pending purchase? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's obvious (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Forget patterns! (Score:1, Funny)
SELECT * FROM myTable WHERE searchFor='\exit'; DROP database;
What about /. ? (Score:2, Funny)
I wonder when this slashdot discussion will show up in the search results.
Who cares about searching for that. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's obvious (Score:3, Funny)
GoogleWhack for Eeeevvvillll (Score:2, Funny)
Candle Truck? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My results for "candle truck" (completely genui (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's obvious (Score:2, Funny)
Re:"to be or not to be"... (Score:5, Funny)
ducks
Re:It still can't do phrase searches (Score:3, Funny)
Ironic, considering that it would suck if you could...
Re:"to be or not to be"... (Score:3, Funny)
2*b || !(2*b) is actually a tautology :P
According to Google, "2*b || !(2*b)" is most likely a generalized incomplete beta function
(As seen on Wolfram's functions [wolfram.com]
Re:Google Zeitgeist (Score:1, Funny)
The *REAL* answer (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot masturbation (Score:0, Funny)
Re:What's wrong with this picture? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:speaker bracelet two (Score:5, Funny)
fiat candle truck: Results 1 - 10 of about 5,200
audi candle truck: Results 1 - 10 of about 7,090
chrysler candle truck: Results 1 - 10 of about 18,400
ferrari candle truck: Results 1 - 10 of about 9,810
ford candle truck: Your search - ford candle truck - did not match any documents.
Looks like it's about time ford got on the candle truck bandwagon.
Re:Another thing - what triggers the calculator? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Man! (Score:3, Funny)
Those are two words that, taken as a phrase, boggle my mind. Let's talk about weird mental images...
Re:Candle Truck? Speaker bracelet?!?! (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately, what came back [google.com] was a bunch of pages advertising hotels with golf courses in Lima, Peru. So that technique doesn't work all the time.