h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The subject says it all.

For example, when I search for:

bishop sentan

I would like to find an article on the web which is about Bishop Sentan, not the ones about using the word "bishop" in a "sentence". If I had wanted "sentence", I would have typed "sentence". If there are no articles on the web about Bishop Sentan, I'd like to be told that rather than presenting me with 813,000 results of a different search, the search that Google thought I might have intended to type.

If anyone knows of such a search engine, please let me know.

Hi Gnomon,

Are you sure of the spelling of the name?

There is a St Senan born 488 in Clare County, and lots of entries about him in Google and Bing.

lil xx

Google can do the thing you're asking.

Put Bishop Sentan in quotes thus: "Bishop Sentan"

That forces Google to search for the exact term.

However, as I've just found, doing that doesn't return any info on Bishop Sentan, but rather typos where "sent an" is made into one word and follows 'bishop'. So as lil said, are you sure of the spelling?

Yes, I'm sure of the spelling. I'd like to be able to tell Google that I am sure of the spelling too.

I just picked that example because it was something I was searching for. This happens to me a lot, that I search for obscure words and the search engines search instead for common words.

However, I see now that if I search for:

"bishop" "sentan"

then Google returns in sixth place an article about a Celtic bishop called Santan or Sentan who lived in the vicinity of Glenasmole, which is what I was looking for.

Is there any way I can persuade Google to put quotes around everything I type? Or is there another search engine that does the equivalent?

catholic Bishop "Sentan" provided a poor result

Try

http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2343048/escape-google-with-these-12-search-engine-alternatives

I tried a google search using "bishop Sentan" and got zero hits. The closest they came was

"U.S. Ambassador James Bishop sentan urgent cable to Washingtonwarning ..."

However, Google also suggested Bishop Sentamu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sentamu

I was writing an entry about Lord of the Rings character Galadriel and her husband Celeborn. In a previous version of the story, he was called "Teleporno".

Googling "Teleporno" came up with some interesting results.

How likely is it that there would be a Bishop Sentan *and* a Bishop Sentamu?

Bing gave the option of searching for "bishop sentence" as well, or restricting the search to just "bishop sentan".

When I chose to restrict the search, it ignored me and included results such as "bishop seton", although it did exclude "bishop sentance", allowing me to find the result more easily.

It would have been even easier, though, if it had searched for what I asked.

Arthur Philip Denu

The sceptic in me thinks Google are aiming to create a two-tiered search capability, and will make the accurate search premium and chargeable.

There is an "ADVANCED SEARCH" button on the Googly which I have
rarely used. It opens a new page with lots of forms but it seems to
allow you define parameters with exclusions and other refinements
including dates, spellings and types of sources.


~jwf~

Aha, I forgot that. Searching for Bishop Sentan yields 2 results, both looking like typoes for "bishop sent an"

Another possibility is that Sentan was not a bishop yet, or that the first vowel was an "a". There is or was a Father Santan Pinto
http://www.solt.org/fatherhoodIntro.html

If I now type Bishop Sentan into Google and choose verbatim results, this thread is the first result.

Otherwise, how frustrating. It kind of highlights how many typos are out there on the internet just waiting to hamper someone's search. And people think spelling, punctuation & grammar don't matter.*

Deb

* I'm now dreading hitting the Post Message button because I just KNOW there's going to be a typo in here somewhere!

Deb, what do you mean by "choose verbatim results"?

What I'm not understanding is where the spelling for "Sentan" came from. I always thought that if you saw a word on the Internet and googled it, you'd at least be directed to the place you first saw it. This does not seem to have been the case here.

I saw the spelling in real life. But as I pointed out earlier, Google does eventually return a result if you fiddle with it enough. It just hides it in lots of irrelevant stuff

Gnomon, when you have the Google search screen there are some options along the top which include "Search Tools". Click on this to bring up more drop-downs which include "All Results". Click on that and you have "Verbatim" as an option.

Deb