Hi, I often try to refer people to search groups.google.com for answers to their scripting problems. Today I wanted to refer the OP associated with the recent question Re: IE8 and vbscript. I was going to have him go to groups.google.com and enter the following line which should lead to help with his problem: ie tab group:*.scripting.vbscript
When I do this search, I get Results 1 - 10 of about 827 for ie tab group:*.scripting.vbscript, and they are sorted by relevance. 827 is a lot of items to look through, and I know that the date of a highly relavant item is Aug 2009. So I click the 'sort by date' item, and I get: Results 1 - 2 of about 2 for ie tab group:*.scripting.vbscript.
Has google lost its capability to sort 827 items by date? Does anyone else see this problem?
> Hi, > I often try to refer people to search groups.google.com for answers to > their scripting problems. Today I wanted to refer the OP associated with > the recent question Re: IE8 and vbscript. I was going to have him go to > groups.google.com and enter the following line which should lead to help > with his problem: > ie tab group:*.scripting.vbscript
> When I do this search, I get Results 1 - 10 of about 827 for ie tab > group:*.scripting.vbscript, and they are sorted by relevance. 827 is a > lot of items to look through, and I know that the date of a highly > relavant item is Aug 2009. So I click the 'sort by date' item, and I get: > Results 1 - 2 of about 2 for ie tab group:*.scripting.vbscript.
> Has google lost its capability to sort 827 items by date? Does anyone > else see this problem?
> -Paul Randall
I have found google advanced group search to be of no use lately. I generally specify date ranges and often get nothing. I also often specify author and again get nothing. A few others have suggested that decades of archived messages seem to be lost. I don't know what changed, but this has happened in the last few months.
Paul Randall wrote: > Has google lost its capability to sort 827 items by date? Does anyone else > see this problem?
Yes, advanced group search doesn't seem to work, at least for me. Perhaps one of us should bring this apparent lapse to google's attention.
The "regular" google search does seem to produce results. In particular, there seem to be other "mirror" sites that have saved the group archives -- and the postings retained in these other archives are showing up in the "regular" google searches (at least for me)...
The short answer is yes, the http://groups.google.com problem has been going on for a few years. However, about one month ago, http://wired.com had an article about it here:
Indeed, there was some change in behaviour (which is not to say that it was fixed), but searching on google groups is pretty well broken at this point. Very embarrassing for a company that prides itself on search, no? Paul, I can only suggest that it is perhaps best to post a specific link to article(s) and even possibly a title and date citation (in case google groups goes offline and there becomes another archive, this would make sense. For example, the links cited to articles in google groups beta no longer work).
Csaba Gabor from Vienna
On Nov 11, 6:16 pm, "Paul Randall" <paulr...@cableone.net> wrote:
> Hi, > I often try to refer people to search groups.google.com for answers to their > scripting problems. Today I wanted to refer the OP associated with the > recent question Re: IE8 and vbscript. I was going to have him go to > groups.google.com and enter the following line which should lead to help > with his problem: > ie tab group:*.scripting.vbscript
> When I do this search, I get Results 1 - 10 of about 827 for ie tab > group:*.scripting.vbscript, and they are sorted by relevance. 827 is a lot > of items to look through, and I know that the date of a highly relavant item > is Aug 2009. So I click the 'sort by date' item, and I get: Results 1 - 2 > of about 2 for ie tab group:*.scripting.vbscript.
> Has google lost its capability to sort 827 items by date? Does anyone else > see this problem?
Thank you for posting those links. I wasn't aware of the news articles. I haven't really even noticed the problem, since I never actually search in groups. But I do find a lot of info. from newsgroup posts via regular search. For anyone having trouble I'd suggest a general Google search. It usually turns up usenet posts that have been put online by parasite websites. The parasites get free "content" by just mirroring usenet and presenting as being their own discussion forum.
There are also paid forums, like experts-exchange.com. I find their answers are rarely very useful, probably because the people who frequent them have to be out-of-touch enough to think that a paid forum is a good way to find info. online. :) But those sites do often turn up in Google searches and sometimes the linked page is useful. With experts-exchange.com in particular, the Google cache version shows the full discussion.
Indeed, there was some change in behaviour (which is not to say that it was fixed), but searching on google groups is pretty well broken at this point. Very embarrassing for a company that prides itself on search, no? Paul, I can only suggest that it is perhaps best to post a specific link to article(s) and even possibly a title and date citation (in case google groups goes offline and there becomes another archive, this would make sense. For example, the links cited to articles in google groups beta no longer work).
Csaba Gabor from Vienna
On Nov 11, 6:16 pm, "Paul Randall" <paulr...@cableone.net> wrote:
> Hi, > I often try to refer people to search groups.google.com for answers to their > scripting problems. Today I wanted to refer the OP associated with the > recent question Re: IE8 and vbscript. I was going to have him go to > groups.google.com and enter the following line which should lead to help > with his problem: > ie tab group:*.scripting.vbscript
> When I do this search, I get Results 1 - 10 of about 827 for ie tab > group:*.scripting.vbscript, and they are sorted by relevance. 827 is a lot > of items to look through, and I know that the date of a highly relavant item > is Aug 2009. So I click the 'sort by date' item, and I get: Results 1 - 2 > of about 2 for ie tab group:*.scripting.vbscript.
> Has google lost its capability to sort 827 items by date? Does anyone else > see this problem?
Indeed, there was some change in behaviour (which is not to say that it was fixed), but searching on google groups is pretty well broken at this point. Very embarrassing for a company that prides itself on search, no? Paul, I can only suggest that it is perhaps best to post a specific link to article(s) and even possibly a title and date citation (in case google groups goes offline and there becomes another archive, this would make sense. For example, the links cited to articles in google groups beta no longer work).
Csaba Gabor from Vienna
Thanks for the info and links. I had seen the 'search by author' thing broken and later fixed, but it may be broken again. This was the first time I noticed a difference in results based on how the results were sorted.
Part of the intent of my posting a string of words to search for in groups.google.com was to show how well focused the results could be when you target the right group. Now it shows how Google throws away most of the results when you sort the results by date.
mayayana wrote: > Thank you for posting those links. I wasn't > aware of the news articles. I haven't really > even noticed the problem, since I never actually > search in groups. But I do find a lot of info. from > newsgroup posts via regular search. For anyone > having trouble I'd suggest a general Google search. > It usually turns up usenet posts that have been > put online by parasite websites. The parasites get > free "content" by just mirroring usenet and presenting > as being their own discussion forum.
> There are also paid forums, like experts-exchange.com. > I find their answers are rarely very useful, probably > because the people who frequent them have to be > out-of-touch enough to think that a paid forum is > a good way to find info. online. :) But those sites do > often turn up in Google searches and sometimes the > linked page is useful. With experts-exchange.com > in particular, the Google cache version shows the full > discussion.
I have never found any search results pointing to experts-exchange of any use. I block experts-exchange in my hosts file in the off chance I come across a link pointing to it.
-- Todd Vargo (Post questions to group only. Remove "z" to email personal messages)
Paul Randall wrote: > Has google lost its capability to sort 827 items by date? Does anyone else > see this problem?
As previously mentioned, there are a number of "mirror" (a.k.a. copies) of the various ng postings, and with the implication that searching the copy-cats may be just as fruitful as googling the original.
Today, I stumbled across a copy of THIS ng, which is hosted by microsoft (gasp!). For a quick look, here is a reference to a posting by me (from three years ago), concerning one of my favorite topics.
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