# Google jumps the shark **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 26, 2011, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882 "2011-10-26T17:51:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/101 "2011-10-31T20:21:42Z")
I just came across blekko.com. Looks very interesting. They do address a lot of the problems with Google results. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/102 "2011-11-07T20:28:12Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > It’s almost certainly so they can repurpose the + for people search in line with the Google Plus usage. [as predicted](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-pages-connect-with-all-things.html) > [@](#): > > Maybe you’re watching a movie trailer, or you just heard that your favorite band is coming to town. In both cases you want to connect with them right now, and Direct Connect makes it easy—even automatic. Just go to Google and search for [+], followed by the page you’re interested in (like +Angry Birds). We’ll take you to their Google+ page, and if you want, we’ll add them to your circles. ---
**Author:** ![straight\_man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/straight_man/32/3027_2.png) [@straight\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straight_man)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/103 "2011-11-16T23:43:11Z")
Update: [Google is offering the verbatim search again](http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/11/google-verbatim-search-back/). You have to specifically select it, but nonetheless, it’s back. The consumer spoke! ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/104 "2011-11-16T23:52:29Z")
> [@straight\_man](#): > > Update: [Google is offering the verbatim search again](http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/11/google-verbatim-search-back/). You have to specifically select it, but nonetheless, it’s back. The consumer spoke! Too bad you can’t set it as the default search mode. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/105 "2011-11-17T00:26:27Z")
[QUOTE=njtt] For anyone deep-diving Google for the dark corners of the Internet, this change was hard to swallow. [/QUOTE] Possibly chilling hypothesis: As Google grew from a merely big company to a media titan, perhaps they began to lose sight of - or even deliberately ignore - the internet user whose interests are too divergent from the wants and needs of big business and big media. In other words, _maybe Google **doesn’t want** you_ to search for obscure bands, out-of-print books, forgotten this or esoteric that. What with their ongoing project to become a provider of content that otherwise would be unavailable, _maybe that will amount to **competing against** Google,_ and they might not care to give you the tools to do so any longer. Yes, I’m paranoid. I love music, and most of the recorded music of the 20th century is unavailable in any legal form and likely to remain so for most of the 21st. As a company like Google gets bigger and bigger, it _has_ to, _inevitably_, find more common cause with the media industry powers that be than with the individual user - let alone any silly platitudes about the right to information that have less and less basis in law as time goes on. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/106 "2011-11-17T01:28:18Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Too bad you can’t set it as the default search mode. And too bad it still ignores punctuation–even in quotes. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/107 "2011-11-17T01:30:52Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > And too bad it still ignores punctuation–even in quotes. AFAIK Google always has ignored non-alphanumeric characters in searches, even in the good old days. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/108 "2011-11-17T01:40:59Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > AFAIK Google always has ignored non-alphanumeric characters in searches, even in the good old days. But all too frequently ignoring non-alphanumerics results in what I’m looking for not appearing in the search results. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/109 "2011-11-17T22:40:43Z")
I have switched to Bing because Google is not what it was. I can’t recall how many months ago I noticed it - for the most part it did what I needed, but I found too many hits that didn’t have _all_ the words I was searching for and I now find Bing to be the better engine. ---
**Author:** ![Parenchyma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Parenchyma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parenchyma)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882/110 "2011-11-17T23:34:57Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Too bad you can’t set it as the default search mode. Somebody has just written a [script](https://www.userscripts.org/scripts/show/118203) that puts a “yes, really” button next to the search box for verbatim searches in one click. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-jumps-the-shark/600882.md?page=5)