Archive search

Until late last year, I found the google groups advanced search an excellent way to find past posts in rmcr. But for some months now
it has been a persistent disaster area. Not only is the format in
which it delivers the results far less useful (it appears to deliver
entire threads rather than highlighting the messages with the strings
searched for), but the search itself appears badly screwed up. A
couple of recent examples:

- Searching for an artist by full name, e.g., Fazil Say, even if both
names are entered in the "all these words" box (much less the "exact
wording" box" turns up nothing over the past three years. But searchin
for Fazil turns up perhaps 20 hits; in essentially all of them, Fazil
appears in the form "Fazil Say", yet the first search couldn't find any.

- I've done searches with a start date of, for example, Jan. 2007, which
resulted in hits. Expanding the range by pushing back the start date
(but leaving the end date the same) turns up no hits, i.e., the
previous hits disappear.

From just the above comments, I expect only a combination of sympathy
and tirades against google groups. Please, I want neither. What I
would like is some method to contact them to summarize the problems.
I've found no hint on their search pages (or links therefrom) on how to do this. Am I missing something?

Is there any alternative to google groups for an archive search?

Thanks.
--

Al Eisner

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Archive search
    ... excellent way to find past posts in rmcr. ... for Fazil turns up perhaps 20 hits; in essentially all of them, ... Is there any alternative to google groups for an archive search? ...
    (rec.music.classical.recordings)
  • Re: Totally OT; Bluetooth; Desperation
    ... >>> the phone and the Bluetooth adapter agreeing on a PIN number. ... >> Google groups - gets 457 hits. ... In Google web, it gets you over a million hits. ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: At what point do the amateur astronomers here give up?
    ... Although the number of hits per day on my web site continues to climb ... the percentage of hits that come via Google groups has declined quite ... With a proper news server and client you can set up appropriate kill-files so you don't see the spam - I only see 1 or 2 spam postings per day on this newsgroup at the most, more often only on-topic postings are received. ... e-mail news dot will at lancre dot net ...
    (uk.sci.astronomy)
  • Re: At what point do the amateur astronomers here give up?
    ... Although the number of hits per day on my web site continues to climb ... the percentage of hits that come via Google groups has declined quite ... And yet newsgroups are still around... ... I don't see half the stuff I see people complaining about - in fact, ...
    (uk.sci.astronomy)
  • Re: FREE CRUISES
    ... Initially you get 591 hits, but if you change the criteria to include ... You have been had by a professional newsgroup spammer, ... What a hypocrite that Dickhead Goldhaber is! ...
    (rec.travel.cruises)
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