DD YOU Sue Baskerville: Google Advanced Search changes for the worse

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Google Advanced Search changes for the worse

Google has messed up their advanced search function, hiding some of the fields that I use in searching  quite frequently.

Why dumb down the advanced search?  Is this a bad attempt at popularizing something not likely to be popular no matter what you do,  like Advanced Linear Algebra For Dummies?

What search engines offer good advanced search capabilities?

Google, maybe you've run out of good ideas if your idea of improving things is rearranging things and making them harder to get to and where you won't know what you are missing because you include stuff in the term "more".

If you want to attract "advanced searchers", give us boolean logic like the old Alta Vista and Hotspot sites had back in the day.


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2 comments:

  1. Every time I use this new version, after carefully entering my terms and clicking on "search" it sends me to a blank ordinary Google search form. No matter what I do it is the same result. It's unlike Google to get it so wrong. They should go back to the old format while they fix the problems. It wasn't broke - so why "fix" it?

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  2. When I expand the advanced search page there is a boxed in area with and Advanced Search button. clicking on the Advanced search button produces a list of search results.

    There is another boxed off area below there for Page Specific Tools. That area has two Search buttons. Clicking on those search buttons with no search terms in that area, since they are up in the area above, takes me to my IGoogle page , no search results, even though I wasn't in iGoogle mode to start with.

    If you are using the fields in the top boxed in area, click the Advanced Search button, not the tow plain Search buttons below there.

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