Re: google secrets (from what's up with all the attitude)
* Andrew Ritchie (aritchie@unimelb.edu.au) wrote:
> Nate Duehr wrote:
> >
> >(The "+" is a modifier for Google that allows you to give Google TWO
> >terms to search for together, usually a better result than just a few
> >words and a single topic. topic 1 + topic 2 type of thing. "rsync" +
> >"Debian Sarge", you know... that sort of thing. Try it out, you'll get
> >addicted to it quickly.)
>
> Does the "+" really do anything?
> Put the example search into google with or without the "+" finds exactly
> the same results.
>
> Maybe it works differently but rysnc and "debian sarge" just happens to
> find the same results with either method?
I have wondered this very thing. Out of curiosity I did the same
thing you did here, and searched for "debian sarge" + "rsync" and then
"debian sarge" "rsync" (I am sure that the second quotes are useless,
but I left them in anyway just to be careful) and both seemed to retun
identically. Each had the same items in the same order on the first
page, and each had "about 67000" hits.
The only observable difference seemed to be that the latter listed a
time of .19 seconds whereas the former had .31 seconds. This may mean
that the + just takes a tiny bit more time to process, assuming that
these numbers mean that. I repeated this with etch and sid each
plugged into the place of sarge and the results were .24/.21, and
.38/.28, always with a lower number for the search without the +. In
none of the cases did I notice any variance in the results however.
Patrick
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