Has google removed the advanced search option or am I just confused?

[ritaxis]

Google changed the way the page is laid out and I can't find an advanced search button. Also, they changed my settings without asking me. Also, the whole thing seems wonky. When I changed my search terms, the page kept doing a thing where it bliked the new results page at me and then reset to the one before that. Four or five times before I could get what I wanted.

Okay, you people who try new things all the time. What search engines are you using? Something that allows me to exclude terms as well as add them is what I want. Also, I would like the "search within results" back, please, though that's been gone for a while.

Also, I hate this way that it tries to predict what I'm looking for and keeps ghosting results at me before I've even clicked the button or hit enter. Also, I hate the thing where it shows you a bunch of results and tells you there's a lot more of them and you have to beg it to show you the rest of them and I really hate the ghosting thing with the stupid grey placeholders: I want the old pages back. They were faster and easier to navigate.

Comments

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I use Google for my searches.

It looks like for me, the Advanced Search shows up at the bottom of the page after I do a search.

Sometimes I find the predictive search annoying, too. There probably is a way to turn it off.

Google I think has always allowed you to exclude terms using NOT or "-". And search within results is easy, except for a limit on the total number of search terms: Search is AND by default.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Nope, just "-" for exclusion; "NOT" is not supported. (And "+" is no longer used; just use quotes for exact matches.)

On a page of search results, you should see the standard notched-wheel-thingy for settings. Clicking on it will give you a whole bunch of things you can fiddle with, including disabling Googling Instant.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

+ wasn't for exact match, it was for required match. Have they taken that away? Damn, I use that regularly. I guess that explains why it seems not to be working.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I've heard that they have indeed taken that away. They needed the "+" operator to send people to Google-Plus "brand" pages.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I use www.duckduckgo.com, which is a smallish independent search engine, and I like it tremendously.

The instant search is a bit of an undead feature - it needs to be switched of repeatedly - and I'm totally with you on hating the redesign and the 'improvements'. The worst thing is that google - EVEN when you use quotes - refuses to give you the term you searched for - sometimes, as in the case of a typo, that's a feature, but 99% of the time I meant what I typed, and I don't want unrelated things turning up in my search.

Churches in Autun. Town in France. Not 'autumn.' Etc etc.

[carbonel]

It may not show up on the page, but the link still works: http://www.google.com/advanced_search.

I don't know if this is the deal with the grey placeholders, but every so often Google turns on Google Instant, which I hate with a burning passion. (It might be great on a super-fast computer with a super-fast connect; I have neither.) The fix is to click on the icon in the upper-right corner that looks like a gear. That brings up the Google setup page. If you scroll down on that, you'll see an option to turn off Google Instant. As green_knight says, it keeps rising from the dead, but I just keep slaying it. You can tell if Google Instant is on because you'll see a grey "X" in the right side of the search box.