Google Groups Advanced Search no longer works

[dlesandrini]

Has anyone noticed that the Google Groups Advanced Search no longer
works correctly? Is it something I'm doing or have others noticed the
change?

Used to be, if I put *access* in the Groups filter, I got groups with the
word
"access" in the name. No longer. Used to be, if I selected "English" as
the
language, I didn't get non-english posts. No longer. What's up with that?
Anyone else notice this?

Danny Lesandrini
dl*********@hotmail.com

[David W. Fenton]

"dlesandrini" <da******@comcast.netwrote in
news:i-******************************@comcast.com:

Used to be, if I put *access* in the Groups filter, I got groups
with the word
"access" in the name. No longer. Used to be, if I selected
"English" as the
language, I didn't get non-english posts. No longer. What's up
with that? Anyone else notice this?

Bothe are working just fine for me, and I did a couple of searches
yesterday that worked fine, too.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[dlesandrini]

David, thanks for the reply. I'm trying it from a different computer, on a
different
network, and I'm not getting such wild results, but still not quite right.
See the
screen shots below with my advanced search, and the results.

They changed something over there at Google, of that I'm certain.

http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg001.jpg
http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg002.jpg

Danny
"David W. Fenton" <XX*******@dfenton.com.invalidwrote in message
news:Xn**********************************@127.0.0. 1...

"dlesandrini" <da******@comcast.netwrote in
news:i-******************************@comcast.com:

>Used to be, if I put *access* in the Groups filter, I got groups
with the word
"access" in the name. No longer. Used to be, if I selected
"English" as the
language, I didn't get non-english posts. No longer. What's up
with that? Anyone else notice this?

Bothe are working just fine for me, and I did a couple of searches
yesterday that worked fine, too.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[Rick Brandt]

dlesandrini wrote:

David, thanks for the reply. I'm trying it from a different
computer, on a different
network, and I'm not getting such wild results, but still not quite
right. See the
screen shots below with my advanced search, and the results.

They changed something over there at Google, of that I'm certain.

http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg001.jpg
http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg002.jpg

Danny

I saw the same things. They definitely messed something up.

--
Rick Brandt, Microsoft Access MVP
Email (as appropriate) to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

[David W. Fenton]

"Rick Brandt" <ri*********@hotmail.comwrote in
news:7f*******************@newssvr12.news.prodigy. net:

dlesandrini wrote:

>David, thanks for the reply. I'm trying it from a different
computer, on a different
network, and I'm not getting such wild results, but still not
quite right. See the
screen shots below with my advanced search, and the results.

They changed something over there at Google, of that I'm certain.

http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg001.jpg
http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg002.jpg

I saw the same things. They definitely messed something up.

Are you all logging in to do searches? I never do that.

Can someone post the query string that's giving problems?

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[David W. Fenton]

"Rick Brandt" <ri*********@hotmail.comwrote in
news:7f*******************@newssvr12.news.prodigy. net:

dlesandrini wrote:

>David, thanks for the reply. I'm trying it from a different
computer, on a different
network, and I'm not getting such wild results, but still not
quite right. See the
screen shots below with my advanced search, and the results.

They changed something over there at Google, of that I'm certain.

http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg001.jpg
http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg002.jpg

I saw the same things. They definitely messed something up.

Oh, and have you tried a decent browser?

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[Rick Brandt]

David W. Fenton wrote:

"Rick Brandt" <ri*********@hotmail.comwrote in
news:7f*******************@newssvr12.news.prodigy. net:

dlesandrini wrote:

David, thanks for the reply. I'm trying it from a different
computer, on a different
network, and I'm not getting such wild results, but still not
quite right. See the
screen shots below with my advanced search, and the results.
>
They changed something over there at Google, of that I'm certain.
>
http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg001.jpg
http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg002.jpg

I saw the same things. They definitely messed something up.

Oh, and have you tried a decent browser?

I use Firefox, but I fail to see how the browser can cause a search to return
the wrong results. I searched for access groups and the results had more posts
from non-access groups than it did from access groups. And no, I never log in
either. This was from the advanced group search page.

Others have recently reported no results being returned that were more than a
couple years old when doing searches.

--
Rick Brandt, Microsoft Access MVP
Email (as appropriate) to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

[Chris L.]

On Jul 10, 9:04 pm, "dlesandrini" <[e-mail]:

David, thanks for the reply. I'm trying it from a different computer, on a
different
network, and I'm not getting such wild results, but still not quite right.
See the
screen shots below with my advanced search, and the results.

They changed something over there at Google, of that I'm certain.

http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg001.jpg
http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg002.jpg

Danny

I don't think the phonetic similarity between "access" and "alt.sex"
is just a coincidence...

[dlesandrini]

That's fascinating. You may be on to something.

"Chris L." <di******@uol.com.arwrote in message
news:11*********************@d55g2000hsg.googlegro ups.com...

>
I don't think the phonetic similarity between "access" and "alt.sex"
is just a coincidence...

[dlesandrini]

Well, the funny thing is, I first started noticing this after having
installed FireFox.
I wasn't using it at the time, but it crossed my mind. I dismissed it,
since I agree
with Rick that it shouldn't matter what browser you use.

I thought that perhaps they started including the group's description in the
search.
That would broaden the results in an unpredictable way.

Danny

"David W. Fenton" <XX*******@dfenton.com.invalidwrote in message
news:Xn**********************************@127.0.0. 1...

>
Oh, and have you tried a decent browser?

[David W. Fenton]

"Rick Brandt" <ri*********@hotmail.comwrote in
news:xW*****************@newssvr19.news.prodigy.ne t:

David W. Fenton wrote:

>"Rick Brandt" <ri*********@hotmail.comwrote in
news:7f*******************@newssvr12.news.prodigy .net:

dlesandrini wrote:
David, thanks for the reply. I'm trying it from a different
computer, on a different
network, and I'm not getting such wild results, but still not
quite right. See the
screen shots below with my advanced search, and the results.

They changed something over there at Google, of that I'm
certain.

http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg001.jpg
http://amazecreations.com/datafast/NGQuestImg002.jpg

I saw the same things. They definitely messed something up.

Oh, and have you tried a decent browser?

I use Firefox, but I fail to see how the browser can cause a
search to return the wrong results. I searched for access groups
and the results had more posts from non-access groups than it did
from access groups. And no, I never log in either. This was from
the advanced group search page.

Others have recently reported no results being returned that were
more than a couple years old when doing searches.

Who is your ISP? Perhaps they are silently proxying HTTP requests?

Or your PC has been hijacked by something or other that mucks things
up?

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[David W. Fenton]

"dlesandrini" <da******@comcast.netwrote in
news:g9******************************@comcast.com:

I thought that perhaps they started including the group's
description in the search.
That would broaden the results in an unpredictable way.

I do the exact search you illustrated and get correct results -- it
has to be something in your environment that's causing the issue.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[David W. Fenton]

"dlesandrini" <da******@comcast.netwrote in
news:rf******************************@comcast.com:

"Chris L." <di******@uol.com.arwrote in message
news:11*********************@d55g2000hsg.googlegro ups.com...

>>
I don't think the phonetic similarity between "access" and
"alt.sex" is just a coincidence...

That's fascinating. You may be on to something.

Why would it pick Rick and Danny to deliver those to and not all the
rest of us, too?

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[Rick Brandt]

David W. Fenton wrote:

Who is your ISP? Perhaps they are silently proxying HTTP requests?

Or your PC has been hijacked by something or other that mucks things
up?

Interesting idea. Right now I can't even recall if the funny results occured at
home or in the office. I'll have to try them both to see if there's a
difference.
--
Rick Brandt, Microsoft Access MVP
Email (as appropriate) to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

[Rick Brandt]

David W. Fenton wrote:

But I've run your searches every time I've posted and not once come
up with anything but the expected results.

Hmm. Just looking closely at tye cdosys results, it's giving me a
lot of posts that aren't in newsgroups with "access" in the name,
but in each case, the posts are actually relevant because "access"
is in the subject or the body (and the results are actually
relevant). I don't believe that used to happen, but I could be wrong
on that.

Sounds like the primary filter is being applied as an OR instead of an AND
to the group filtering.
(which if intentional is a BAD idea)

--
Rick Brandt, Microsoft Access MVP
Email (as appropriate) to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

[David W. Fenton]

"Rick Brandt" <ri*********@hotmail.comwrote in
news:BF*******************@newssvr29.news.prodigy. net:

David W. Fenton wrote:

>But I've run your searches every time I've posted and not once
come up with anything but the expected results.

Hmm. Just looking closely at tye cdosys results, it's giving me a
lot of posts that aren't in newsgroups with "access" in the name,
but in each case, the posts are actually relevant because
"access" is in the subject or the body (and the results are
actually relevant). I don't believe that used to happen, but I
could be wrong on that.

Sounds like the primary filter is being applied as an OR instead
of an AND to the group filtering.
(which if intentional is a BAD idea)

I dunno. The results were more useful than if they hadn't done it
that way. Google is usually very, very smart.

I ran some tests comparing search engines a week or so ago and
Google always came up with more useful results than everybody else.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/

[Rick Brandt]

"David W. Fenton" <XX*******@dfenton.com.invalidwrote in message
news:Xn**********************************@127.0.0. 1...

I dunno. The results were more useful than if they hadn't done it
that way. Google is usually very, very smart.

I ran some tests comparing search engines a week or so ago and
Google always came up with more useful results than everybody else.

Irrelevant. It is not how the search is supposed to work and it is not how it
used to work. When a user applies a filter for the group it is because they
want to see results from those groups, not other groups where the results might
still be helpful (in the opinion of the developer).

If one of my apps filter results produced those results I would hear about it
and I would be expected to fix it.

--
Rick Brandt, Microsoft Access MVP
Email (as appropriate) to...
RBrandt at Hunter dot com

[google]

On Jul 11, 10:40 pm, "Rick Brandt" <[e-mail]:

Rick Brandt wrote:

David W. Fenton wrote:

Who is your ISP? Perhaps they are silently proxying HTTP requests?

Testing here at home it appears to depend on the search. I first tested for
"tony toews" with group criteria of "*access*" (no quotes in either case) and
everything appeared completely normal. Then I tested for "cdosys" and group
criteria of "*access*" and it wasn't until the fifth link on the second page of
results that I first encountered a post from an Access newsgroup.

That's a rather poor test, since the vast majority of posts containing
"tony toews" would be in access groups. The fact remains that the
search now seems broken. As per the advanced search page, the groups
filter is supposed to ONLY return posts from the requested group(s).
the following search: 'reverse pad number group:*access*' returns 8
posts, not a single one of which is from a group that contains
"access" in the group name.

I can't even seem to find any way to report the problem to Google.

[David W. Fenton]

go****@darincline.com wrote in
news:11**********************@q5g2000prf.googlegro ups.com:

On Jul 11, 10:40 pm, "Rick Brandt" <[e-mail]>
wrote:

>Rick Brandt wrote:

David W. Fenton wrote:
Who is your ISP? Perhaps they are silently proxying HTTP
requests?

Testing here at home it appears to depend on the search. I first
tested for "tony toews" with group criteria of "*access*" (no
quotes in either case) and everything appeared completely normal.
Then I tested for "cdosys" and group criteria of "*access*" and
it wasn't until the fifth link on the second page of results that
I first encountered a post from an Access newsgroup.

That's a rather poor test, since the vast majority of posts
containing "tony toews" would be in access groups. The fact
remains that the search now seems broken. As per the advanced
search page, the groups filter is supposed to ONLY return posts
from the requested group(s). the following search: 'reverse pad
number group:*access*' returns 8 posts, not a single one of which
is from a group that contains "access" in the group name.

Did you check that they weren't crossposts? For some reason, I've
found that most crossposted articles that come up in Google searches
show up as being in the *other* group, the one I wasn't searching in
(this very often happened back when I posted only in
comp-databases-ms-access and would restrict searches to that group).

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/