Google searches not finding results?

[Moglet]

Bit of a weird one this but lately I've noticed that Google, for me, has been giving me really really bad results. It seems that the results it gives are sorted by popularity as opposed to relevance and sometimes they have nothing to do with what I'm searching for.

I've tried to pair words or search for phrases but the search results for (as an example) 'birds+eye+advertisement+2009' come up the same as 'Birds eye advertisement 2009'. Am I doing something wrong? Doing that search gives me plenty of results from websites about aerial photography but that has nothing to do with frozen foods!

Anyone got any tips on how to get better results? It's beginning to annoy me that most of my searches become fruitless lately.

 

[hamstrings]

Try adding in "frozen" to focus the search further.

 

[wfooshee]

"Bird's eye" is slang for overhead view, thus the aerial photography.

Try it as: frozen foods Birds eye advertisement 2009

 

[Jordan]

Your results are the same with or without the + because it's going to be stripped from your query (and converted into a space) regardless. You might want to read over Google's advanced search tips to learn about Google's operators. In situations like this, where the company name is also a certain kind of photography, "double quotes" and a bit of thinking can be especially effective.

For example, how many pages about aerial photography will also discuss advertising? Not many, so there's a good chance that if the page contains the exact phrase "birds eye" and 'advertising' together, it is probably associated with the product brand. Simply adding 2009 to that query gives me "birds eye" advertising 2009, and what appear to be lots of highly relevant results.

 

[Moglet]

Your results are the same with or without the + because it's going to be stripped from your query (and converted into a space) regardless. You might want to read over Google's advanced search tips to learn about Google's operators. In situations like this, where the company name is also a certain kind of photography, "double quotes" and a bit of thinking can be especially effective.

For example, how many pages about aerial photography will also discuss advertising? Not many, so there's a good chance that if the page contains the exact phrase "birds eye" and 'advertising' together, it is probably associated with the product brand. Simply adding 2009 to that query gives me "birds eye" advertising 2009, and what appear to be lots of highly relevant results.

Thanks for the help, Jordan! I've never quite been sure of the way Google works when searching so that link has helped a lot 👍

 

[Aldo]

when i type in exactly those words my first result is about the frozen foods