At least half a dozen times in the last while I’ve not been able to find the thing I’m searching for. Usually google amazes me with finding exactly what i want in the first few results. I can’t figure out whether I’m just crap at remembering things thus searching for them wrong, or whether google is usually a bit crappy the odd time, or that they’ve changed something so the results aren’t as useful as hitherto. Anyone else notice, or have an explanation other than I’m an idiot?
As a former researcher, Google results change by the hour.
You may be trying for SE results that are in transition.
Use fewer keywords initially (and more relevant your search terms are) enhances your success.
Sometimes you just have to wade through a dozen search results to get where you want to go. It depends on the webmaster sometimes, who is often clueless.
Email them with your frustrations. They do listen.
On the other hand, try BING, or others out there.
I’ve noticed that the cached pages often don’t work any more.
Often (if I know a page has obnoxious ads or is slow to load, say, or if I want Google to highlight the search terms) I’ll choose the cached version rather than the actual page. Now, though, half the time clicking “Cached” takes me to a Google search page as if I had entered the URL of Google’s cache ([noparse]webcache.googleusercontent.com[/noparse] etc…) into the Google searchbar, telling me there are no results for that URL. It started doing that three or four months ago, and it’s very annoying.
Lately Bing has been doing better for me.
For me, it seems to be finding too much. So I narrow the search or change the parameters–then it finds too little. It used to seem easier. I thought my expectations had just got too high.
I’m just gonna throw this out there- has anyone noticed a difference in the way Google Images seems to return less nude content, even with Safe Search off? I used to be able to put any actress I came across into GI, and be guaranteed naked hits all over the first page. But in the past few months, you actually have to include “nude” or “topless” or whatever.
Yes I’ve noticed the lack of skin hits, but surely that’s a good thing. Now I can safely do searches for Earnest Borgnine.
I have some friends staying visiting me for a week…last night, we were chatting about Canada, because I work for a Canadian company, and one of my friends is Canadian. I mentioned that I had to go up to the home office on October 10th for something…and he pointed out that Thanksgiving should be right around then, and I should check.
I plugged “Canadian Thanksgiving” into Bing.
Bing has some things it answers directly, apparently…much like in Google (and others, I assume), you can ask for measurement conversions and calculations, and get an answer without needing to follow a link. What did Bing give me for this? A Body Mass Index calculator!
The first link was about giving turkeys away for Thanksgiving. But the next two were about Canadian interactions with the country Turkey.
The rest of the links made sense, though.
Oh…and he was right. Thanksgiving is October 10th this year. I strongly suspect my US based management doesn’t know this, and didn’t check with the home office for my trip. Something to deal with at the office tomorrow, I guess…
-D/a
Uh, perhaps these “accurate” (ahem) search results are because Google is really a grandpa? 
Possibly relevant thread: Google jumps the shark.