Researching Through Google.

I am finding Google searching is losing
its accuracy of pertinence.
I am wondering if this is just me, losing
my touch at using it, or are others noticing it at all?

I just clicked on "Perth weather today"
and it took me to an Adelaide weather report.
and I thought right!
I'll ask the SCF intelligentsia....

Thanks guys/gals.

I'm not sure myself. Google image search brings up the weirdest things that are hardly related to the searched topic. I still use Yahoo for most of my searching.

I had no problem Rod, it brought me right to this:

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/wa/perth/perth

First item on my search is this...
http://www.weatherchannel.com.au/We.../temperature

Steve

I find it brings up "sponsored" links first, even if they aren't as relevant as others further down the list
It also really annoys me when it brings up results that look promising, but when you click on you find you are taken to some other search site with even more sponsored links which are even less relevant.

Why haven't you bookmarked this site?

http://www.bom.gov.au/

Rod:

I use a Weather Rock. Here's a picture in case you want to make your own:




Your Friend in Folly
Kirk

Try a bit of boolean eg. +perth +weather +today

Hmm, Thanks,
Naturally I am going to relate to stampgal and battlestamps,
because that is what I am experiencing.
I do not have BOM in fav's because 1. I lost all my favs out of the blue
some time ago, and 2, I otherwise have my town weather prominent.
It was 40 degrees yesterday and I thought I would see if the big
smoke was hot too, I didn't need Adelaide though grr

I also find "image searching" as battlestamps, it was
once very helpful for stamps, but now one gets all weird stuff.

I can deal with it, but interesting to find only 2 people
that recognise lack of pertinence.

I have sold my weather rock, I now stick my finger out the window :)

On your Google searching page try the old CTRL-F% (hold down CTRL while pressing F5) to refresh your browser for that page. It keeps the last loaded page from that site in it's memory and loads that usually instead of going to he site and loading it again from afar.

Also a good idea to once in a while wipe (erase) your cache and browsing history. Freshens things up. All kinds of gobblidigook gets messed up in your saved history and pages visited and it sometimes messes up seeing what is there to be seen.

<i>I am finding Google searching is losing its accuracy of pertinence.</i>

There's an arms race ongoing between Google algorithms to properly prioritize search results and "SEO" (search engine optimization) researchers to defeat these algorithms and push their sites to the top. It's a huge and highly-paid field.

The search team at Google has many brilliant people, but many SEO optimizers are also clever, and there are far more of them.

Chances are Google results will become less and less accurate over time, until the next search upheaval: either a new system from Google, or a new system from another entrepreneur.

Maybe if you want a really good forecast you could try 'perth +weather+++ today please'

On a more serious note,

There are plenty of sites out there to help update your information about Google searching. Some possibilities are:

http://www.googleguide.com/

http://www.google.com/landing/searchtips/

As an ICT teacher (among other things) I find there is a constant need to update my search skills because the Google software is regularly being updated and the internet is constantly changing.




Perhaps it is time for a refresher course Rod. If you try to use your Office 2003 techniques in Office 2007, they wont work that well because the software has changed. Perhaps it is similar with Google. The tricky part is that with Office 2007 the whole interface is different and you had to install the new version yourself. With Google, the interface is almost the same and the software runs on Google's computers so they do the (almost constant) updating.

Puzzler suggested clearing your browser history. Be aware that if you do, you are probably going to lose your saved passwords and other info. Maybe I did not do it right, but the last time I cleared the history, I had to start from scratch on a lot of things that were automatic. Also, the drop down menu from the url address area disappeared. It was very inconvenient to restore all my conveniences.

Maybe I did not do it right

@rohumpy: Perhaps not. :^) What browser?

One usually has the choice to clear specific sorts of information. Clearing one's cache would have none of the effects you saw. Clearing browsing history would erase the addresses in the dropdown of the address bar (not to put too fine a point on it, that's what clearing your browser history is for.) But you don't have to clear saved passwords, cookies, and so forth.

I recommend a couple of services: http://lastpass.com and http://xmarks.com (the former just purchased the latter, as it happens.) The former does all one's password management and syncs it across sites, the latter does the same for bookmarks and (if you like) browsing history and open tabs. Then you can clear your browser to your heart's content.

Thanks everyone for mucking in,
I am working through it all,
and looking at results.

I don't think clearing your browser cache will help.
It is easier to hold down shift when refreshing a page anyway to ignore what is in the cache.
When asking questions of Google you just need to know how to ask the right questions.
If you had queried Google exactly as you had shown Rod with all words in quotes, in Google speak this means include all words e.g. Perth AND weather AND today.
If you put in Perth Weather Today it will search for Perth or Weather or Today.
BTW - Do you really need 'today' in the search?