The top Google search quirks and how to circumvent them
By George Gardner
While Google tries its best to anticipate what its users want, when searching the Internet, it doesn’t always return desirable links. In fact, sometimes it’s just plain “quirky,” and requires a little extra work on our part to return those sought-after links.
Google returns RSS feeds
Some may not see Google returning links to RSS feeds to be a quirk, but we certainly do. Replication and simulation by means of syndication (RSS) feeds are like the mimes of the Internet; they mimic reality, offer no expression,
are annoying, serve only one purpose, and are all masked behind a plain white face. Aside from that, they offer a means for website thieves to conveniently steal our original content.
While there may be a need to duplicate the Internet, the fact remains that the RSS’s original content is out there. A search engine’s goal should be to direct its users to that content, without the means of going through an RSS feed to get there.
Fortunately, there are a couple steps we can take to evade these in our search results. First, we can add a -filetype:xml to our query; however, this will not shield us from dynamic RSS generators such as those found on Wordpress blogs and other Content Management Systems (CMS).
Luckily, RSS feeds do not contain <body> tags. Using Google command intext or allintext will restrict search results to your query located within the body of a document, falling short of displaying any RSS feeds.
Example Google Search: allintext: no rss feeds
Patent results are flooding my searches
You may not run into this very often, but ask anyone who is into science and technology and they’ll tell you that this has been a growing problem over the past year.
Despite having its own Patent Search, Google still feels the need to throw patents at you when you least expect them. While there’s no full-proof way to dodge this bullet, there are a couple things you can add to your queries to help.
You’ll have to take certain patent keywords such as “method for” and “abstract” and tell Google you don’t want ‘em!
This can be achieved by using Google’s “-” search.
Example Google Search: no patents -”method for” -abstract
Troubleshooting error messages with Google
So you work with websites? Maybe you’re a developer, designer, owner, or simply run a website through a CMS. Chances are, you’ve woken up one morning to find half your site has vanished, leaving noting but a convenient error message that you know nothing about.
Sure, you could troubleshoot your code manually; but chances are, someone, somewhere, at sometime, has encountered that exact same problem and has either documented it or sought help from others on the Internet.
Don’t worry; it happens to the best of us. So we’ll seek help from Google. First thing’s first, we’ll copy the text into clipboard and paste it into a Google search query.
Hooray! Google has found 900,913 search results, all of which must contain the answer to our dilemma. Yes, we all know better than that. Instead, you’ll find 80% of your search results are, in fact, coming from websites that are either currently having the same problem as you, or had that problem when it was indexed by Google.
If your problem lies outside the body of your page (e.g. the website won’t load at all), you may be able to get away with Google’s allintext operator; however, this usually won’t work.
We’ll have to rely on 2 things to solve this one: keywords and other users (yes, the same users who post “Nevermind, I found a fix.” on forum threads without describing how they fixed the problem!)
Most error messages that people receive are conveyed in titles when they are asking for help or providing a solution. We’ll start out by using Google’s allintitle operator.
Example Google Search: allintitle: Parse error syntax error unexpected end
If you still haven’t found a solution to your problem, you may add kewords to your query such as “help” and “support”
Example Google Search: Parse error syntax error unexpected end help support
The dreaded ‘E-mail Indexes’
Search engines are such a powerful tool; not just for the Internet and its related material, but for the things we do in everyday life. Google give us the ability to find some of the greatest minds, allowing us to learn from their writings.
Modern genius requires that we know no information, other than where and how to find it.
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