Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I'd rather have "no results for 'hurricane Karina' did you mean 'Hurricane Katrina'?"

If you assume something ("oh they meant X not Y", then when your assumption is wrong you (Google) just look stupid.




You would. I, and most other people using the Internet on a crappy mobile keyboard wouldn't.

Fortunately, for you, there's a link you can click on that will force the query using your precise search terms, on every auto-corrected search page.

You still get what you want, it's just not the default. And it shouldn't be the default.


>I, and most other people using the Internet on a crappy mobile keyboard wouldn't.

Sounds like your problem is crappy UI enforced through attempts to minimize production cost at the expense of enabling the use of the human processing medium to effectively integrate with an electronic device.

My error rate typing on mobile skyrocketed with the loss of haptic feedback.


No, it sounds like the software solves a real-world problem for me, as opposed to adhere to some theoretical ideal.


The real world problem was created by the removal of haptic feedback from the physical keyboard. No problem you had was solved. The only people's problem who was solved was handset manufacturers.

Don't knock ideals. Most of the world has a vested interest in convincing you they aren't possible. They most certainly are.


The current behavior shows results for hurricane katrina, with a reasonably prominent link to search hurricane karina. Given (I’m assuming) is empirical evidence that the former was the intent a huge majority of the time, what’s unreasonable about this?


It's also a fair perspective to have "If Google knew what I meant, why didn't they just show me those results and save me the click?"


That's what the "did you mean" links were for.

Though Google PR is brings up "relevant ads" every time they're criticized for cyberstalking, they seem to care less about relevant search results. They insist on showing me pages upon pages of links that completely disregards my search queries.


Because Google doesn't know that I think, it's an an unfair perspective to pretend/assume it does.

When it acts as if I'm wrong, it's wrong.


Are you open to the idea that most people disagree with you and prefer a system that does do these things?


In that case, have the fuzzy search be the default, and have an option to opt out of fuzzy search. The current state of Google search is always use fuzzy search - it cannot be disabled anymore. Even clicking the "No results found for X, did you mean Y" link submits a new fuzzy search query with Y.


The name of the option is "verbatim" and you can turn it on in advanced settings.


Or in bad faith.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: