Exact phrase search: no bolded terms in the results, yet no message stating "No results found..."
Thread poster: Artem Vakhitov
Artem Vakhitov
Artem Vakhitov  Identity Verified
Kyrgyzstan
English to Russian
+ ...
Dec 13, 2016

Lately, when I search Google for an exact phrase, sometimes I get several pages of results no one of which contains the search terms in bold as opposed to what usually happens. However, the message "No results found for [phrase]" is also missing from the top of the page. What exactly does it mean?

Example:
1. Search Google for "specification on the security of" (with quotes). Observe that there is no message 'No results found for "specification on the security of"' on the top
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Lately, when I search Google for an exact phrase, sometimes I get several pages of results no one of which contains the search terms in bold as opposed to what usually happens. However, the message "No results found for [phrase]" is also missing from the top of the page. What exactly does it mean?

Example:
1. Search Google for "specification on the security of" (with quotes). Observe that there is no message 'No results found for "specification on the security of"' on the top of the page. Observe further that the results do not contain search terms in bold.
2. To compare and observe what should normally happen, search Google for "specification on the * of" (with quotes).

[Edited at 2016-12-13 16:07 GMT]

[Edited at 2016-12-13 16:07 GMT]
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Rolf Keller
Rolf Keller
Germany
Local time: 19:39
English to German
Google is different Dec 13, 2016

Artem Vakhitov wrote:

Lately, when I search Google for an exact phrase, sometimes I get several pages of results no one of which contains the search terms in bold as opposed to what usually happens. However, the message "No results found for [phrase]" is also missing from the top of the page. What exactly does it mean?


It means that Google DOES display results. Probably there are no verbatim hits, so Google displays some "near hits".

Your phrase contains 3 stop words.

Please see the explanation I gave you some weeks ago:
http://www.proz.com/forum/internet_for_translators/308908-is_google_wildcard_search_severely_broken_right_now.html#2605865


 
Miguel Carmona
Miguel Carmona  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 11:39
English to Spanish
... Dec 13, 2016

Artem Vakhitov wrote:

Lately, when I search Google for an exact phrase, sometimes I get several pages of results no one of which contains the search terms in bold as opposed to what usually happens. However, the message "No results found for [phrase]" is also missing from the top of the page. What exactly does it mean?


Many Google users are complaining about this problem.

There is another active thread on ProZ about this issue here.

As is, Google's usefulness is very limited now.

[Edited at 2016-12-13 18:19 GMT]


 
Artem Vakhitov
Artem Vakhitov  Identity Verified
Kyrgyzstan
English to Russian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
No verbatim hits Dec 13, 2016

Rolf Keller wrote:

Probably there are no verbatim hits, so Google displays some "near hits".



OK, no verbatim hits — but what exactly is different here from the situation where 'No results found for [exact phrase]' is returned? This is what I wonder.


 
Rolf Keller
Rolf Keller
Germany
Local time: 19:39
English to German
Google is not a regular expression engine, it's a get-money-from-advertizers machine Dec 14, 2016

Artem Vakhitov wrote:

OK, no verbatim hits — but what exactly is different here from the situation where 'No results found for [exact phrase]' is returned?


Just read "results displayed" instead of "results found". Of course, Google's algorithms are business secrets, and the display algorithms may undergo adaptions in the course of time.

OTOH: The index is a huge database that has been built up during 20+ years, so the first-level indexing algorithm (Google's "web crawler") is more or less invariable. This means that it is difficult to display all results you want.


 
Renaud Poulin
Renaud Poulin  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 14:39
English to French
New tool just added in google "word-for-word" Dec 18, 2016

Hi, I have just found a new feature in google tools: search for all results or "word-for-word". We got it! We can get exact phrases results now. Check it and let me know if it works from for end.

 


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Exact phrase search: no bolded terms in the results, yet no message stating "No results found..."






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