Came across an interesting glitch in Google this week. I often use the
asterisk in a search strategy in Google to stand in for one or more
words in a phrase. Originally an asterisk between two words in a phrase
stood in for one term, two asterisks represented two terms etc. So for
example "climate * change" would look for the words climate and change
separate by one word and "climate * * change" would find the two terms
separated by two words. If the quote marks are removed then a single
asterisk can represent one or more words. But it now looks as though it
does not matter whether there are quote marks around the phrase or not.
But that is not the problem I am currently having.
One of my regular series of searches that I use in demonstrations and on
training courses (phenol extraction) is coming up with some really weird
results.
The standard types of searches are OK, for example:
phenol extraction – about 9,700,000
“phenol extraction” - about 141,000
Both of those are as expected and I can browse through several pages of
results if I want to.
However:
“phenol * extraction” gives - 1-2 of about 440,000
and
“phenol * * extraction” gives 1-5 of about 511,000
The results only display 1-2 and 1-5 documents with no option to look at
additional results.
Removing the quote marks gives roughly the same results:
phenol * extraction - 1 - 2 of about 441,000
phenol * * extraction - 1 - 5 of about 513,000
I mentioned this in the AIIP discussion list and another member came up
with yet more variations using Polish notation:
phenol extraction * 1-49 of about 207,000
phenol extraction * * 1-44 of about 207,000
(Note: I have my preferences set to display 100 results a page).
Where did the remaining 200,000 - 500,000 results go? Anyone got any
idea as to what is going on here and why my results have gone AWOL? I
have submitted a report to Google but have not yet received a response.
Karen
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Karen Blakeman, RBA Information Services
88 Star Road, Caversham, Berks RG4 5BE, UK
Tel: 0118 947 2256 Int. +44 118 947 2256
Mobile: 07764 936733 Int. +44 7764 936733
Fax: 020 8020 0253 Int. +44 20 8020 0253
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http://www.rba.co.uk/
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