someone should invent a search engine where if you put in two keywords it finds pages that have both the keywords

[dodo_sipping@cupoftea.social]

@xssfox you mean sth like that? https://hachyderm.io/@eliasulrich/117234902637900790

[david@setouchi.social]

@xssfox Wow... You're asking something a bit insane... You should have more realistic expectations, in my opinion...

[xssfox@cloudisland.nz]

@messieass used to? Something so sophisticated could not have existed in the past

[miiko@social.darxxide.eu]

@xssfox That would be unheard of.

[lyokanthrope@app.wafrn.net]

@xssfox@cloudisland.nz

I'd be happy with a search engine that actually gives me results for the keyword I'm searching instead of things tangentially related to it. I'm fine if there's no results for it but please don't give me random bullshit or try to thesaurize my search…

[coreysnipes@hachyderm.io]

@xssfox why is this so accurate

[funkula@goblin.camp]

@xssfox what if there are extremely popular results similar to one of the words? Obviously you should be shown only those, in case you messed up and meant to type the incredibly easy to find thing. Those might even be something for sale and you'd hate to miss an opportunity to buy something!

Obviously we can safely ignore the second word that would have narrowed down the search results greatly, because it doesn't result in *any* products for you to buy.

[ralf@mountains.social]

@xssfox Why not ask for world peace while you're at it?

[jay0@alico.nexus]

@Dodo_sipping@cupoftea.social @xssfox@cloudisland.nz marginalia is useful every now and then, but indexes too few sites ​​

[shadowlab@furry.engineer]

@xssfox

"You were searching for red. Did you actually mean green? I'll show you the results for green."

[jmcrookston@mastodon.social]

@xssfox Best I can do is a large language model that will hallucinate pages with the two keywords.

[stuartyeates@cloudisland.nz]

@shadowlab @xssfox

"You were searching for red. My advertisers want to show you ads for green. I'll show you the results for green."

[nuintari@mastodon.bsd.cafe]

@xssfox I miss the days when you could search for "pyro necro homo nymphomaniacs" on Lycos, and get 65,000 results.

We used to hold competitions. How fucked up a term you could invent, and still get a shitload of results.

Modern search is indeed terrible, the golden age of search is long over.

But holy shit, it used to be sooooo much worse.

[bruce@darkmoon.social]

@ralf @xssfox

"Did you mean global thermonuclear war? I'll show you results for global thermonuclear war."

[rycaut@mastodon.social]

@xssfox and could even say search for "this work" and "that word" but not "this other thing"

Or could tell is to find pages with those works on a particular domain

or could put a phrase in some formatting - like say "something like this" and get results for exactly that phrase but not say "some like this thing"

all really radical stuff. not sure it is possible (other than the decades we did have all this and more... sigh I'm old)

[tiggy@mastodonapp.uk]

@xssfox

That used to be Google. But not now.

[lazyb0y@mastodon.social]

@DJGummikuh

no investor pays for a product that makes its users happy…

source: observation of reality

@xssfox

[lazyb0y@mastodon.social]

@bruce

was it YOU who made sure we’re really much much closer to the former than the latter?!

@ralf @xssfox

[dans@mastodon.me.uk]

@xssfox Ah, the halcyon days of search and also Gmail.

[krono@toot.berlin]

@xssfox