O/T: Will Google Groups ever fix its search function?

dlzc wrote:
Dear Robert Clark:

On May 10, 10:08 am, Robert Clark wrote:
The take over by Google of the Usenet archive was
first seen as a godsend. However, its horrendous
search function on past and current Usenet posts
has lead many Usenet readers to wish Google
would just give up the job to someone who actually
wants to do it.

It works fine from their "Advanced Search" dialog screen.
http://groups.google.com/groups/adva...ups.google.com

It is the asymmetric search interfaces, and search performance /
behavior, that is maddening.


Advanced dialogue screen doesn't exactly work fine. If you select search
on a specific author and date range it generates a command line syntax
that is usually invalid if you return to advanced search. eg

author:Martin author:Brown

mutates to

g:authorBrown author:Martin

and Google helpfully offers to "correct" it to

g:arthur Brown author:Martin

And under some circumstances - I think on the first search in a session
where no results are returned the date range is reset to current.

I have not seen it fail on modern posts by keyword at all.
I blame user error.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On May 11, 3:11*am, Martin Brown
wrote:
....

And under some circumstances - I think on the first search in a session
where no results are returned the date range is reset to current.

I have not seen it fail on modern posts by keyword at all.
I blame user error.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Do the search yourself:

http://groups.google.com/groups/sear...ups.google.com


Bob Clark

Robert Clark wrote:
On May 11, 3:11 am, Martin Brown
wrote:
...
And under some circumstances - I think on the first search in a session
where no results are returned the date range is reset to current.

I have not seen it fail on modern posts by keyword at all.
I blame user error.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Do the search yourself:

http://groups.google.com/groups/sear...ups.google.com

I get
http://groups.google.com/groups/sear...=b&sitesearch=

And that works OK - it seems your version generates invalid search
syntax. Shows a couple of recent posts. Looks to me like user error.
That part works OK for me in the UK

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups/se...=Search+Groups
http://groups.google.com/groups/sear...=Search+Groups

Regards,
Martin Brown

On May 11, 9:21*am, Martin Brown
wrote:
Robert Clark wrote:
On May 11, 3:11 am, Martin Brown
wrote:
...
I have not seen it fail on modern posts by keyword at all.
I blame user error.

Regards,
Martin Brown

*Do the search yourself:

http://groups.google.com/groups/sear...=bimese&btnG=S...

I get
http://groups.google.com/groups/sear...=bimese&btnG=S...

And that works OK - it seems your version generates invalid search
syntax. Shows a couple of recent posts. Looks to me like user error.
That part works OK for me in the UK

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups/se...=Search+Groups

Regards,
Martin Brown

No, I was specifically searching for *Usenet* posts. The posts you
pull up with that first link you gave are for separate forums outside
of Usenet groups. They would have been pulled up as well just by
Google's usual web search function. Note as well even on that first
link you gave, if you specify to only search Usenet groups, you get no
results.
In the second and third links you gave for the UK version, note you
left out the date restriction and it pulls up older posts. It still
leaves out the posts from this year. Even with this version, if you
restrict to this year it gets no results.
Another bug is that if you select the sort by date option it always
pulls up fewer results than the sort by relevance option. This is so
bad that in some cases you can get dozens of results on the sort by
relevance option and NO results when you select sort by date.


Bob Clark