From: blockedofcourse@foo.invalid   
      
   On 1/27/2026 6:36 AM, Martin Brown wrote:   
   > On 26/01/2026 22:48, Don Y wrote:   
   >> I am increasingly amused -- to the point of dismay! -- about how   
   >> little common sense is noted in "answers" provided by tools.   
   >>   
   >> Search engines, of course, are notoriously bad at allowing for   
   >> criteria refinement -- the more terms you add (increasing specificity),   
   >> the more results you get!   
   >   
   > I don't see that at all.   
      
   Go to "your favorite retailer's website".  The interface is far   
   less "sophisticated" than a search engine like google.   
      
   Some make a good effort at trying to "understand" what is being sought.   
   E.g., if I go to the USPS website and type a very long identifier   
   into their search box, it "knows" that I am likely specifying a tracking   
   number for a parcel and produces those results.  If I type "forever stamp"   
   I don't expect to see any tracking information.   
      
   If I go to my local library's site and type "Hours", I get hits for   
   a film called "Hours", a book called "Hours", a film called "The Hours",   
   books called "His Hour", "By the Hour", etc.  Nothing about "Minutes",   
   "Days", etc.  Chances are, the earliest results are most likely the   
   desired results.   
      
   If I go to Target.com (a department store, here), I get 432 results, with   
   "The Hours" as the 15th result -- behind:   
   Magic Hour   
   The Blue Hour   
   Every Hour Until Then   
   Twenty Four Hours a Day   
   The 24th Hour   
   The After Hours   
   The Witching Hour   
   Blue Hour (not the same as The Blue Hour, above)   
   The Hour I first Believed   
   Our Hours Are Married to Shadow   
   Hour of the Pumpkin Queen   
   Happier Hour   
   One Hour for My Priest   
   The Secret Hours   
   The Hours !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   
      
   Is there some reason "Magic Hour" is a better result, in their mind?   
   DESPITE MY SEARCH CRITERIA APPEARING EXACTLY AS SPECIFIED IN THEIR RESULTS?   
      
   Other sites just throw results at you and leave it to you to sort   
   through THEIR mess.   
      
   If Target wanted to sell me that book, I would likely have given up   
   before scrolling through several rows of pictorial results (4 per row).   
      
   Is there any guarantee that it will be in the fourth row?  Tenth?   
      
   Other results:   
      
   The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo   
   The First Time I Saw Him   
   The Good Girl Effect   
   Tourist Season   
   Reckless   
   etc.   
      
   (and some 15 more pages)  "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" *almost*   
   matches... there's "The", an 'H' in "Husbands", an 'o' in "of",   
   a 'u' in "Hugo"...  just missing the final 'r'!   
      
      
      
   > If I narrow down the search with -bad_keyword then all the bogus hits are   
   > usually eliminated from that unwanted source.   
   >   
   > Where I do see a problem is +wanted_keyword doesn't always work :(   
   > (sites I know to contain the last keyword added don't always show up)   
   >   
   > Try adding successive terms to this Google search:   
   >   
   > Yorkshire +castle +BEST +Howard -lake   
   >   
   > By default search terms are logically or together of the keywords if you   
   don't   
   > add the prefix or surround a phrase with quotes.   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)