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The search functionality on this forum
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Posted by washere
Dec 30, 2018 at 03:07 AM
I think the - exclude still works, not sure but think so.
They removed the wildcards * ? ! long ago.
The problem is with their ranking algorithms, getting worse every year, just monetizing plus whatever else major evil they are doing for business, AI, etc etc.
Posted by Chris Murtland
Dec 30, 2018 at 03:53 AM
Yeah, I have noticed it is much harder for me to search using Google in recent years. I used to be able to be very specific in what I was looking for, but it seems like it is now increasingly more geared to what it “thinks” I am looking for, which in many cases is the same thing, but not always. In any case, I now use DuckDuckGo for privacy reasons.
Not suggesting I can beat Google at search, but I can certainly add a phrase search to the forum pretty easily. I’ll add it to the list.
Posted by washere
Dec 30, 2018 at 04:33 AM
They link people / homes / offices/etc by their logins, google sites/apps/android/etc or non-google logins, to the individual file they have on everyone / household / org etc. Then it goes as a parameter into their hits (search results) algorithm targeted at IP locations.
If moving IP/address/country, they will find you again and re-index your new ip/location to your file. No escape. They have many tools: IP based searches, googleupdate.exe on Win etc, Android, apps, logins, cookies, Hey Google, Wear OS Watches, etc.
The mix in the algorithms has elements: IP based personal/home/org files history, recent censoring (pushing down the list) and more parameters. But mainly monetization sub-algorithms. They link each search to their files on presumed searcher(s) / homes / orgs.
Not difficult, China is doing the same indexing by software/hardware, so is Russia and a few other regimes. Amazon denies doing so as Alphabet (Google) does via Alexa, as do Apple etc.
VPN from a truly private company might be the only fix, for now, or is it? Hearing of soft/hard backdoors in everything or secret records by big VPN companies.
The main reason hits are getting worse is because of their monetization elements for the target audience (tailored results) in their algorithms getting bigger.
By the time google has AI singularity, it will tell you only what it wants and also what you want to search for, will be accepted and effective for most people.