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Google has a secret reference desk

23 points by maxutility 5mo ago

Tomte 5mo ago
And again Stuttgart City Library. It has almost become the default image of a library.
joveian 5mo ago
All of that and only as an aside mentioning the best search engine for quality information: Google Scholar. Academics publish stuff about just about everything which is often open access and the search seems to include some blogs these days, not just formal journals.
ardline 5mo ago
This reminds me of a problem we hit at work. Ended up going a different direction but same root issue.
runningmike 5mo ago
Nice article. But the warning can be stronger imho: Instead of: "Don’t assume your results are the same as anyone else’s." "The results search you get from G*gle results are unique." G*gle does not use the easy to use Lucene search syntax but has many 'magic' things, like: Searching for high-quality Open Access content or solid technical answers on software challenges requires a rigorous scientific methodology, combined with creativity and extensive experience. Despite being a crucial competency, it is rarely taught in depth. Even with the rise of LLMs, effectively navigating search results remains an unsolved problem.
Tacite 5mo ago
I don't get the difference between "verbatim" and quotation marks between words
bumbledraven 5mo ago
This article has one neat Google search trick I hadn't known about: `AROUND(#)`. But I am skeptical of much of the rest of it. Searching for `“can anyone recommend”` to get unfiltered recommendations is an interesting hack, but I feel it's not too reliable. At reddit, you could ask this, and an unknown percentage of responses could be shills or bots. I'm also skeptical of how much the suggested `@reddit` differs from just `reddit`. The description says it's for social media handles, but reddit is a platform, not an individual user's handle. I suspect google looks for the user's intent to see results from a particular site or social media platform and uses that signal to influence the ranking, and I doubt '@' has much of an effect on that process. > The results Google omits tend to be less trafficked and less search-optimized, which frequently means they’re more substantive and written for readers rather than algorithms Really? I call BS. Every time I've looked at the omitted results they've been very similar to ones I've already seen. I stopped reading after that.

23 points by maxutility 5mo ago

Tomte 5mo ago

And again Stuttgart City Library. It has almost become the default image of a library.

All of that and only as an aside mentioning the best search engine for quality information: Google Scholar. Academics publish stuff about just about everything which is often open access and the search seems to include some blogs these days, not just formal journals.

ardline 5mo ago

This reminds me of a problem we hit at work. Ended up going a different direction but same root issue.

runningmike 5mo ago

Nice article. But the warning can be stronger imho: Instead of: "Don’t assume your results are the same as anyone else’s." "The results search you get from G*gle results are unique." G*gle does not use the easy to use Lucene search syntax but has many 'magic' things, like: Searching for high-quality Open Access content or solid technical answers on software challenges requires a rigorous scientific methodology, combined with creativity and extensive experience. Despite being a crucial competency, it is rarely taught in depth. Even with the rise of LLMs, effectively navigating search results remains an unsolved problem.

Tacite 5mo ago

I don't get the difference between "verbatim" and quotation marks between words

bumbledraven 5mo ago

This article has one neat Google search trick I hadn't known about: `AROUND(#)`. But I am skeptical of much of the rest of it. Searching for `“can anyone recommend”` to get unfiltered recommendations is an interesting hack, but I feel it's not too reliable. At reddit, you could ask this, and an unknown percentage of responses could be shills or bots. I'm also skeptical of how much the suggested `@reddit` differs from just `reddit`. The description says it's for social media handles, but reddit is a platform, not an individual user's handle. I suspect google looks for the user's intent to see results from a particular site or social media platform and uses that signal to influence the ranking, and I doubt '@' has much of an effect on that process. > The results Google omits tend to be less trafficked and less search-optimized, which frequently means they’re more substantive and written for readers rather than algorithms Really? I call BS. Every time I've looked at the omitted results they've been very similar to ones I've already seen. I stopped reading after that.