Search Features Category Archive
Major Expansion at Google Translate
Earlier this month Google expanded the number of languages available in Google Translate. While the press release and most other coverage talked about ten new languages, the number of language pairs (from language X to language Y) increased far more substantially. Previously, Yahoo! Babel Fish had the most with 38 pairs. Google not only upped the number of possible languages, but every language listed can translate to the other. So depending on how you count, Google Translate now has over 500 language pairs available! That's a major increase. As Google Operating System notes, the counting varies depending on how you...
Search Switching
For some time now I have been speaking and writing about ways of speed searching and search switching. Somehow, I've neglected to add the links to my site. So I'm fixing that tonight, before my presentation on Wed. at CIL 2008. The new Search Switching page includes sections for Search Switching Between Web Search Engines, Geographic Search Switching, Book Search Switching, and other options including another link to my Bookmarklets page (with its search transfer bookmarklets). See also my article, "Speed Searching," in the March 2008 issue of Online (available for fee at ITI's InfoCentral or free from many library...
Language Limit Showdown
In recent months I have been speaking and writing about some of the language search and translation features of the search engines. Which search engine has the most language limits? Which online translator has the most language pairs? And which ones offers translated search? (Exalead, Yahoo!, and Google, respectively). So I've added a new Language Search Tools page, with links to pages about Language Limits, Online Translation, and Translated Search. I have also finally made a major update to my Search Engines by Search Features page and linked the language page from there.For many searchers, especially those of us in...
Updated Bookmarklets
I've updated my search bookmarklets page due to changes from some of the search engines including Gigablast's new interface, finally changing msn.com to live.com in the code, and the addition of several new links: An animated .gif of the search transfer bookmarkletsMoving the search transfer bookmarklets to the topA new bookmarklet for numbering Yahoo! resultsUpdating the bookmarklet for numbering Google resultsGigablast and Exalead search box links The search transfer bookmarklets are the ones that I use the most to quickly switch from one search engine to another with the same search query. It has been interesting seeing how the bookmarklet...
Updated Cache Sources
A recent posting at ResourceShelf introduced two new sources of cached Web pages and reminded me to update my list of sources for archived/cached pages. I've added several other sources that I'd run across and not added to that page over the last few months, including Alexa, Healia, and WebCite, along with the ones mentioned by ResourceShelf: DiplomacyMonitor and ZoomInfo. I've moved IncyWincy to the former sources at the bottom, since I can no longer find cached links there. That makes at least 14 sources for finding copies of old pages....
Google to Fix filetype: Search?
At Search Engine Land, Danny has a long report about Google indexing and ranking issues. While other sections of the post talk about an update to the visible PageRank, issues with supplemental results, and duplicate content, I found the short section on the filetype: command most interesting. Like some of Google's other field search prefix commands, filetype: results in zero records unless it is combined with another search term. So filetype:xls finds nothing, but this is supposed to change sometime in the future and will finally let us run a filetype:search without requiring an additional term. Does this mean that...
Site Searching Fixed at Exalead
Whatever was causing the problem with the site search for Canada that Gwen noted, I am happy to report that it has been fixed. I received an email from Sébastien Richard at Exalead reporting that all the top level domains should work with the site: prefix now. At least on my tests of site:ca and site:in and a few others, it does seem to be working correctly. Kudos to Exalead for making the fix! I've updated my Exalead review....
A9 Redesign and Feature Loss
Yesterday, A9 had a major redesign of its site along with a major accompanying loss of features. The A9 announcement notes that they have "redesigned the A9.com website to make it easier and quicker to discover information from more sources." It has more of a Web 2.0 look and feel, and I think they have achieved a more usable site. The databases are grouped together in the left column and are customizable. Searchers can build their own groups from the more than 400 source databases. Each column (one per database) now features continuous scrolling (like the beta of Live search...
Searching with Diacritics and Accents on Google
From the Official Google Webmaster Central blog come this post on How search results may differ based on accented characters and interface languages. This highlights a change in the way Google handles diacritics and gives a good overview of how it still varies depending on the search interface language chosen....
Date Default at Google Reader
Google Reader has changed its default sort to date (in reverse chronological order) according to the Official Google Reader Blog in its Your Wish is Our Command. Google always seems to drag its feet with date sorts. With Web results, date sorting is quite problematic since most Web pages do not have a reliable date. So date sorting of Web results rarely is useful. But with news and other published sources, date sorting is easy and helpful. While Google gives the option for a date sort in Google News, it is not the default. Meanwhile, neither Google Books nor Google...
Link Search Analysis
SEOmoz Blog, in its All the Different Ways to Calculate Link Numbers (and the Best One) article, gives an excellent overview of the issues with link searching, especially when looking for a total number of results. It primarily compares Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Of Google: "With the crappiest numbers around, it's a wonder that anyone pays attention to them at all." MSN also gets hammered: "MSN's numbers, while relatively more accurate than Google, are still largely useless." Yahoo! gets the nod here. While the focus of this link search comparison is the reported number of results, the issues also apply...
Exalead Review Added
A preliminary review of the search features of Exalead has been posted. I also updated the Search Engine Features Chart with the new MSN Search and Exalead included....
Problems with Google's Wildcard Word in a Phrase Operator
There are problems reported with Google's Wildcard Word in a Phrase. The problem is that the asterisk seems to represent either zero or one word. It used to represent exactly one word. For example, "a little * * * mischief" used to find only "a little neglect may breed mischief" or a similar phrase of six words. Now it also finds pages with just "a little mischief." The cache copy on those pages says that the search terms only appear in pages pointing to the resulting page, but that does not seem accurate. I think that what now happens is...
Number Searching at Google
With all the cosmetic changes and bad news this week, I am pleased to see some new and potentially very useful syntax from Google. The number range search lets you search for a range of numbers, say for any number between 5 and 11. It even searches for numbers with and without commas and includes decimals such as 7.23. The number range command consists of a smaller number, two periods, and larger number which can be used in conjunction with another search word, as in score 5..11. Adding a dollar sign invokes the price range search which actually searches for...
Yahoo! Search Review Added
Although I've had a review of Yahoo! as a directory for several years, now that Yahoo! has launched its own search engine, I've made a first attempt at a review of its search features. Since it is fairly new, I expect to see the features change over the next few months, but at least I have something up that seems accurate as of today. A few notes about the current version of Yahoo! Search and items highlighted in the review: The Yahoo! databases appears to primarily be an Inktomi-like database, but there are significant differences from other Inktomi-based search engines...
Gigablast Drops Date Sort
Sometime between June and October, Gigablast took away the option to sort by date on the advanced search form. As the only search engine to offer that option, it is a shame to see it disappear. At least Gigablast still reports the date indexed and the last modified date stamp as of the last crawl. Also, the Add URL page is "temporarily disabled." Gigablast review, features chart, and by features page all updated to reflect this and also the meta tag indexing and display at Gigablast....
Update on Gigablast Boolean
The full Boolean capabilities of Gigablast announced on Monday don't always seem to work right. The - is working more accurately than either NOR or AND NOT today. I am hoping it is a momentary glitch since I just updated the Gigablast review, the search feature chart, and the search engines by search feature page....
Google's intitle: and inurl: Working Again
Back in May, Google's intitle: and inurl: were not working properly, as I posted earlier. Well, they now seem to be working again. A search that combines a general query term with these field searches, like "market research" intitle:tourism, now work. I've updated my Google Inconsistencies page to note that problem has been fixed, but I added another report of a strange result for the simple query of 'cameras.'...
Differences in Diacritics Handling
Beware of diacritics in search terms. The various search engines handle them in different ways. Take a diacritic like e with an acute accent 'é.' Will an 'e' match on both the 'e' as well as the e acute? At Google, searches will only be an exact match. At AltaVista and other search engines, the plain 'e' will match on both (and other 'e' diacritics). For example, a Google search for "epistolaires de mari" found only one hit while "épistolaires de mari" found more than a dozen. At AltaVista and other search engines, "epistolaires de mari" finds all the diacritic...
AlltheWeb Advanced Features Announcement
Today, AlltheWeb announced their new advanced search features primarily available on their advanced search page. Most of the announcement is for features that have been available since Sept. 12. Their new KWIC display that has been available since Sept. 24 and that they call "visual relevancy" is also mentioned. Even though these features have been available for a few weeks, it is a refreshing change to see a search engine actually announcing and publicizing advanced search features. Too often in the past there has been no publicity or even acknowledgment of new features. More quietly, AlltheWeb has a new privacy...
No more front truncation
Front or beginning truncation that was available at HotBot, NBCi, Anzwers, and iWon no longer works. As far as I can tell, none of the major search engine support beginning truncation any longer (and it was never a publicly announced feature). The search engines by feature page and the reviews for HotBot and NBCi were updated....
Unclustering is in Vogue
At last, two more major search engines that cluster results by site now offer functional ways to uncluster the results. HotBot's filter, announced below on July 6 now seems to work. Google has been showing only the first two pages per site with no option for unclustering all of the results. Now, for searches that find less than 1,000 hits there is a brief message at the bottom of the last page of hits: "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the ones already displayed. If you would like, you...
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