google question

Chris W · 09-08-2004, 23:31

i have been playing around with google searches and i cannot fathom the difference between these two searches...

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

and http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

i was under the impression that "and" was excluded from the search anyway... the page states that it is being excluded as an operator and the details link talks about common words being excluded from the search.

I don't know much about search engines, but could it be something to do with and being in there pushing "ann's" to the third word and then searched for with less importance... just a guess!

I have now worked out that replacing "and" with "the" gives exactly the same results... http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...G=Search&meta=

any suggestions anyone...?

nffc · 10-08-2004, 00:01

Bizarre- it's still returned the same number so I would assume it's a display error.

How strange.

Chris W · 10-08-2004, 00:03

hmm... and strangely, with all the searches if you have page 1 of the results there are 2430, but if you have page 2 onwards open there are 2420 results...

now i'm even more confused!

nffc · 10-08-2004, 00:11

now that IS strange.

bopdude · 10-08-2004, 00:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

hmm... and strangely, with all the searches if you have page 1 of the results there are 2430, but if you have page 2 onwards open there are 2420 results...

now i'm even more confused!

could that be that page 1 contains the first 10 results and therefor are deducted off the remainder

Just a thought

keithwalton · 10-08-2004, 00:33

google does strange things, often when it says such and such word is common and was not included in your search, remove that word and the search results are different !
I'll post an example later

K

Edit an easy one, search for the game, 'live for speed'
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...=Google+Search
notice it says for was not included in the search

So i then search for 'live speed' expecting the same results, on the contuary there completly different.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...ed&btnG=Search

how bizzare

Chris W · 10-08-2004, 01:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by keithwalton

<snip>

you could have looked in my first post for an example...

So anyone have any idea why it does this...?

*wonders if Richard M is going to visit this thread*

Richard M · 10-08-2004, 07:20

Google does search for "for" by itself (http://www.google.com/search?q=for) but if it's included with other words then it will only search for it if you put a "+" in front of it like this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=live+%2Bfor+speed

Apart from that, it's a mystery to me too - I haven't kept up to date on detailed syntax lately so it could be a feature that I don't know about.