Somehow, I seem to have ignored this stubbornly and instead bookmarked pages, downloaded videos and copied strings (!) out of the web for years.
Not that it did me much good, I now have thousands of inconsistently sorted bookmarks and a bunch of directories filled with assorted data.
What this article tells me (again), is that because you can't trust search engines to behave in a predictable manner, you can't even be sure you'll be able to find the stuff that you know is online.
For remote copies, https://archive.org/ can be instructed to keep a copy of a page, e.g.
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://news.ycombinator.com/ to check for copies
https://web.archive.org/save/https://news.ycombinator.com/ to record a copy
These bookmarklets can be used to go from your current page to /web/ or /save/:
javascript:(function(){window.open('https://web.archive.org/web/*/'+(''+window.location));})();
javascript:(function(){window.open('https://web.archive.org/save/'+(''+window.location));})();
http://archive.is/ is another useful site that executes all of the JavaScript and captures the post-JS-execution DOM.
It is a crying shame that the instapaper search is nearly useless, but it means I can usually cut down my search set to my own 500 saved pages vs the entire web.
That's exactly why you need something like discussions: refinement. There's no specific 'right result' for every possible user and query. Google might give precedence to blog posts or articles from big sites for some queries but what I really want is to search forum posts. They might as well just remove the search options for images with that premise, since they supposedly know what you really want and you don't need to filter.
It was back to the AltaVista age, when the web is simple and clean. Just like you, I could never think we can keep using keyword combinations to filter the search results to fit our needs forever.
We need a self-organized storage of information, we need more efficient ways than keyword combination, and we need the search results to be consistent in a period of time.
Can we achieve this goal and meet the users needs in the near future? Maybe: http://bit.ly/L6RKdN
Later on I found that the map printing has big problem to keep it as 100% like before after they did some weird change and changed back.
I guess Google should listen to their customers more than what they think and want to do. Is the information on this topic will be ignored by Google? Most probably. Then they tends to lose customers sooner than later.
it's a damn shame that the new phones ship with the new version stock & you have to root to permanently uninstall it.
It's baffling.
DejaNews was the absolute best source of technical information from the USENET archives, with posts back to the 1980s. By 2001 Google had everything under control:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/USENET$20archives
Then Google lost it.
The addition of "Google Groups" resulted in tons of SPAM and almost nothing of use. Now, because their own baby is so ugly, Google decided to kill all their adopted children. So much for "Don't be evil".
This is what I'm always thinking about since 1997. Now I got the chance to put together something for people's daily life, but not perfect. It's in early beta now. http://kck.st/JNqv8z
Applications : tbm=app
Blogs* : tbm=blg
Books : tbm=bks
Discussions* : tbm=dsc
Images : tbm=isch
News : tbm=nws
Patents : tbm=pts
Places* : tbm=plcs
Recipes* : tbm=rcp
Shopping* : tbm=shop
Video : tbm=vid
[1] http://stenevang.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/google-search-url-...
Google is driven by data and sorry but advanced users are a mere blip in that data. I can bet there was a gazilion user studies that showed that your grandma was super confused when 10 options would pop up when she pressed 'More'. The same studies showed that she was much less so confused when 4 options were presented, increasing engine usability for her.
My point here is that some folks attribute sinister motives (more search dollars), while the actual motive is just to make the interface usable for more people.
(Disclaimer: I work at Google, not in search though.)
Personally I like it when users complain loudly about decisions that impact them. The idea of negative publicity might deter such actions in the future (in theory anyway).
People should absolutely complain when a change impacts them negatively. People should also keep in mind that with a user base the size of Google's, every change is going to upset someone.
But I guess things will have to get much worse before they get better.
Open source, distributed social networks are a dime a dozen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_software_and_prot...
Jus' sayin'
Edit: "Link results are API driven, though top links may come from other sources. Link sources include: Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Blekko, WolframAlpha, and many others."[1]
"DuckDuckGo gets its results from over one hundred sources, including DuckDuckBot (our own crawler), crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, which are stored in our own index), Yahoo! (through BOSS), Yandex, WolframAlpha, and Bing. For any given search, there is usually a vertical search engine out there that does a better job at answering it than a general search engine. Our long-term goal is to get you information from that best source, ideally in instant answer form."[2]
1. http://highscalability.com/blog/2013/1/28/duckduckgo-archite...
You know, someday Google+ will no longer be the "strategory" priority. There will be a new CEO. All the hands on the corporate ouija board will shift in yet another direction.
At which point, all these moves to deprecate parts of the web, in an effort to shore up G+? They will look even more unfortunate. So much discarded, for so little gain.
To test this seach for "images" or "videos" on google. It will change the list order.
This is extremely irritating as it tries to guess whether you're trying to search for a certain type of of thing (text/images/vid/news/shopping/etc), as it frequently guesses wrong, and then sends us searching for the right list option because they've been shuffled round.
Designers, do not change your menu item order unless you're damned sure you're gonna get it right. Confusing your users is never helpful.
** edit **
Google tried to be more intelligent on search, but it's not the right way. Let people keep their useful information of their own should be the right direction. See the video here: http://bit.ly/1hJKNux
Also, I know that "?tbm=dsc" works but I expect the quality of the results to start falling (it already has for a while) since Google probably isn't going to work to improve the filter.
Also this search list of Q&A sites might be useful: http://nuggety.com/u/nuggety/questions-and-answers
Connecting every google service to a single one might be the best thing for Google, BUT, not for me!
Google, you are almost merged with whole Internet thing, so stop forcing people into using a single system!!
I like and use gmail often but don't want to be logged in while checking youtube!
Makes sense to Google, that is. Shopping and apps make sense. A discussion that might take an hour to read or prompt one to read further discussions instead of shopping, liking or checking in doesn't.
It's a future where I decide to go out to eat because I can't find a recipe I like. I climb in my self driving car and it takes me to Taco Bell. And only Taco Bell.
http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
You couldn't search discussions AND verbatim.
Verbatim got broken a while ago too.
Now they explicitly state that they skipped some of your search terms (presumably for better paid keywords).
Oh, and don't forget paying link-scheming SEO clients.