[A Methods reader] wrote to me and I assume wrote to the GENMTD list. However since this list is moderated, the moderator may be on holiday and the list message is delayed: [ The moderator is here. Bob, I've waited a bit but have never seen the reader's post. So I've gone ahead, masked their identity, and published your post. - Mod ] > Hi Bob, > > I just did your search on Google with these exact search terms: > > Horein +"Nova Scotia" > > Google tried to tell me that it got 1,010 hits (it's almost always a > lie... um... estimate), but only showed me 35 "of about 977." Every > one of those 35 had "Nova Scotia" in it. Supposedly, the rest of the > 977 are too similar for them to bother showing me on the first pass, > but I can ask for them. When I Selected English only in preferences I got 42 results. If you have all languages selected in preferences you get 1010 results bit when going to the last page 10 It now says there are 971 results. But at the bottom of the last page there is an important note: "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 36 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included <http://www.google.com/search?q=horein+%2B%22nova+scotia%22&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&filter=0>." I took another look at the list of ships on the right hand pane and many of the ships contained did arrive in Halifax. A Windows search for Nova Scotia does not show any of the pages in the list of links but the Google search does. > The '+' requires "Nova Scotia" to be in every result returned. If > the '+' is not present, Google takes it as a suggestion rather than a > requirement. (Did you actually use the '+' in your search?) If the search terms do not have +'s in front of a term Google assumes OR. So Horein "Nova Scotia" is searched as Horein OR "Nova Scotia" and Horein Nova Scotia is searched as Horein OR Nova OR Scotia. > In your multiple-terms searched, you need to put the '+' in front of > each required term. The farther down the list the term is, the lower > priority it carries and may eventually be dropped as a requirement as > Google tries to return as many pages as possible to you. That was my second question, How far does Google go before dropping terms? bob gillis bob gillis <[email protected]>