Talk:Google Search

How Come You Can't Disable the Search Suggestions?

Is this because Google gets paid to direct searchers to certain sites?

Adult Content

On the Bing.com page there is a section about adult content you can watch in the video section. You can do the same thing on google.com. Why no mention? I think either include it here or delete it on the bing page. Thoughts? Below is what the bing page has. --Brian Earl Haines (talk) 02:16, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Adult content [edit] Video content Bing's video search tool has a preview mode that could potentially be used to preview pornographic videos.[42] By simply turning off safe search, users can search for and view pornographic videos by hovering the cursor over a thumbnail, since the videos and audio in some cases is cached on Microsoft's Server[citation needed]

Since the videos are playing within Bing instead of the site where they are hosted, the videos are not necessarily blocked by parental control filters. Monitoring programs designed to tell parents what sites their children have visited are likely to simply report "Bing.com" instead of the site that actually hosts the video. The same situation can be said about corporate filters, many of which have been fooled by this feature.[43] Users do not need to leave Bing's site to view these videos.[44][45]

Microsoft responded in a blog post on June 4, 2009, with a short term work-around.[46] By adding “&adlt=strict” to the end of a query, no matter what the settings are for that session it will return results as if safe search was set to strict. The query would look like this: http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=adulttermgoeshere&adlt=strict (case sensitive).

On June 12, 2009, Microsoft announced two changes regarding Bing's Smart Motion Preview and SafeSearch features. All potentially explicit images and video content will be coming from a separate single domain, explicit.bing.net. Additionally, Bing will also return source URL information in the query string for image and video contents. Both changes allow both home users and corporate users to filter content by domain regardless of what the SafeSearch settings might be.[47]

[edit] Regional censorship Bing censors results for adult search terms like "sex" for some of the regions including India, People's Republic of China, Germany and Arab countries.[48] This censoring is done based on the local laws of those countries.[49] However, Bing allows users to simply change their country/region preference to somewhere without restrictions – such as the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland or Australia – to sidestep this censorship. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianearlhaines (talk • contribs) 02:16, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

New layout

Google changed their layout a couple of days ago and did it again yesterday. The changes seem to be tests of the new design. So I guess the logo image should remain unchanged until these changes are permanent. ~ ς ح д r خ є ~ 01:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

FWSE

Redirects here, but is not explained in the article, could someone please rectify that? Paradoctor (talk) 00:13, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, FWSE stands for famous Web search engine, which is a pathetic redirect query, in my opinion.--ATDC Raigeki (talk) 13:10, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Add a History/Timeline of Search's development

Has anyone read the recent Wired article that goes in-depth into how Google Search's algorithm works and has been improved over the years? I wanted to add some significant events in Search's development but there's no real section for that right now.

Examples of what I'd like to add are at the top of this page. Things like the complete rewriting of the algorithm in 2001, moving to continual updating of the index in 2003, and real-time search in 2009. The last one is already in the article (Caffeine) under the "functionality" section where it doesn't actually belong.

So do I hear any objections to a History section?

--Qwerty0 (talk) 18:46, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I added a link to the article. Very interesting reading! Best, Sam nead (talk) 20:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Add Criticism section

The internal article "Criticism of Google" [1] focuses on the Google corporation, but contains many sections and references to the content and nature of the search engine, which should be listed in this article.

Criticism section should include that needed search tools are buried so that to access the crucial necessary date-sorting options, a click through a "more search tools" link is necessary every. single. time. No option accessible to open with the crucial necessary date sorting tools available. And it isn't like there's no space available for the needed date sorting links. The cryptic, crippled, unhelpful 6-link non-changeable user standard interface appears above a giant column filled with white space where the needed date sorting tools can and should go.

Criticism section should include that new Google logo looks ugly, amateur, and hard to read compared with the one it replaced. The Google corporation is suffering from the lack of someone with an eye who understands fonts and readability. It needs a Steve Jobs.

New search page?

Today 5/5/10 Google seems to have a new format when you do a search. Is there any news about this? (And why do software companies keep changing the interface when no one seems to want a new one?)

Č<ref</ref> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.176.113.164 (talk) 06:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

More details about Google calculator

I added the fact that Google calculator calculates 0^0 as 1, which most people find rather odd. I'll remove the addition if any objections arise. Reuben2011 (talk) 08:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Malware

"if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously." I think this is rather sweeping, not to say risky. However it needs replaceing with a more careful wording rather than removeing. Rich Farmbrough, 03:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC).

DecorMyEyes

I came to Wikipedia to see about any significant information on a website/company called DecorMyEyes that's apparently involved in some fraudulent business practices. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html And was redirected to Google Search. With nothing in the discussion here about why. Anyone care to explain why this is, and why the company does not have its own Wikipedia entry? Cheers. Pär Larsson (talk) 17:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Instant Search Section

This section includes the line:

"In concert with the Google Instant launch, Google disabled the ability of users to choose to see more than 10 search results per page."

This does not appear to be correct to me, or at least, it's not clear. But rather than change the page and find that I'm wrong, I thought it better to put a comment here. When I go to the Settings/Preferences page for Google, I still see a choice to display 10/20/30/50/100 results per page. The key is, you can only change this setting successfully if you disable Google Instant. It's an either/or proposition.

The next sentence states:

"Instant Search can be disabled via Google's "preferences" menu, but autocomplete-style search suggestions now cannot be disabled. "

Again, this appears to be a bit unclear at best, and incorrect to some degree. I agree that it does appear that for users who go to google.com, there is no longer a way (or at least not one that I have discovered yet) to turn off the autocomplete or "suggested search" feature. However, for people who use the Google Toolbar (myself included), it is still possible to turn off "suggested search" by unchecking the appropriate box in Google Toolbar Options (Search tab). I can't find anything on my Google Toolbar to tell me what version I'm using, so I don't know whether I may have an older version, and perhaps newer versions no longer offer this option. It's important to note that when you turn off "suggested search", that impacts only the search window on the Google Toolbar, and once you land on the search results page, if you attempt to change your search terms, you don't appear to have any way to turn off "suggested search". But for folks who do most of their searching from the Google Toolbar, it's nice to be able to turn off this feature.

Baroness of Ballymote (talk) 22:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Google +1

I was just wondering why nothing exists on Google +1. I would have added a section or atleast a couple of sentences if I was familiar with the technology. Is WP:Notability under question? Or is information unavailable? Afaik, it is personalisation of Google Search, so a mention would help. --Kknundy (talk) 03:51, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I second this!--Hontogaichiban (talk) 13:42, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Reference does not seem appropriate

Reference \ Citation 56 is a power point which does not include any validation or proof of the statements made.

56. Google, Web Crawling and Distributed Synchronization p. 11.

The content of slide 11 includes the following:

What needs to happen when you… Click on “purchase” on Amazon?

Suppose you purchased by credit card?

Use online bill-paying services from your bank?

Place a bid in an eBay-like auction system?

Order music from iTunes?

What if your connection drops in the middle of downloading?

Is this more than a case of making a simple Web Service (-like) call?

It is used under the section "Search products" in support of this sentence: "In 2006, Google has indexed over 25 billion web pages,[56] 400 million queries per day,[56"

I would suggest flagging this for removal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.110.11.65 (talk) 05:04, 23 April 2011 (UTC)