Monday, December 6, 2010

Google fails because of its unsolicited oversmartness

When I enter a straightforward query moil share list in Google, why does Google have to act smart and include such irrelevant words as mobile? And that too automatically, without informing me. Doesn't this smack of unwarranted overconfidence? It probably does, since the presence of the word mobile virtually corrupts the SERP.


Update (12-Mar-2012): In the screenshot below, while I'm looking specifically for InterNations, Google also shows results for international, which is not something I'm looking for. I dislike this "feature" of Google. I wish I could tell Google to search for just my exact query.


Another example, below, shows how Google fails because it assumes that when I use the word RT in a query, I mean real time. I do not! I'm looking for the Russian news outlet called RT (formerly Russia Today), but Google's over-smartness results in a failed SERP.


Update (13-Aug-2012): I searched for odf viewer. For heaven's sake, Google! Please don't substitute ODF with PDF! I know what I'm looking for!


Update (25-Oct-2012): This is probably the height. Google's 2075 AD algorithms have still not figured out that ipad is different from ipod. Wow. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit in the Web search space.


Update [13-Apr-16]: When I type rishabh singla reservation, I do not want Google to quietly assume that I meant single instead of singla, and to show me useless results using single. Since Google crawls a large part of the Web, it pretty well knows that in India, Singla is a word in itself.