Re: New Google search operator finds synonyms

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From: Michael Sholinbeck (msholinb@library.berkeley.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 08 2003 - 14:27:48 PDT

Yes, this looks nice, but:

Start fooling around with it and you will soon wonder just how on earth it
works. Who made the dictionary of synonyms?
Why does a search for passover and easter get 141,000 hits, but a search for
~passover and easter get 139,000 hits? Shouldn't a synonym search get more?
also, passover and ~easter gets 246,000; ~passover and ~easter gets 247,000.
...Once a jillion of us start fooling with this, I'm sure more intersting
things will come up.

Michael Sholinbeck
Document Delivery/Reference Librarian
Public Health Library
University of California, Berkeley
1-510/642-2511; 1-510/642-7623 (fax)
msholinb@library.berkeley.edu
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/PUBL/

Aron Roberts wrote:

> Several days ago, the popular Google search engine added a very
> useful new search operator. When you preface a search term with the
> tilde (~) symbol, Google will search on both your term and its
> synonyms. For example, searching on:
>
> webdav ~tutorial
>
> will find Web pages which contain or refer to primers, help
> documentation, reference guides, and other 'tutorial-like' materials
> for the WebDAV protocol, not just pages which contain the word
> "tutorial" itself.
>
> In addition, as one Weblog author notes, this new search operator
> has another useful function:
>
> >... the new tilde operator is the next best thing to wildcard
> >searches (Google's Achilles' heel). Now, instead of typing
> >
> >library OR libraries OR librarian OR librarians
> >
> >you can type
> >
> >~library
> >
> >and your results will include all the above words [as well as
> >"archive", "archives", and similar terms - Aron].
>
> The following page provides more information on this and other
> advanced search operators in Google:
>
> Google: Advanced Search Made Easy
> http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html
>
> FYI.
>
> Aron Roberts
> Workstation Software Support Group
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