Why can't Google sort searches by date/size/domain etc

aquatic · June 16, 2003 2:41AM

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...ghlight=google

Still wondering. They've added lots of new stuff recently like News, News groups, Directory (looks like Yahoo, when'd they add that?), Translation (when will it come out of beta and when will it support the languages systran does!) but for such a high quality search engine I'm surprised sorting tools weren't there from the start. It wouldn't take too much horsepower?

aquatic · June 17, 2003 1:00AM

*crickets chirping*

No one cares? This would make Google much better. And whatever happened to NorthernLight, there Search Folders were cool.

defiant · June 17, 2003 8:22AM

http://www.google.ch/search?q=bill+gates+site:apple.com

Just ad site:url to your query.

aquatic · June 17, 2003 4:13PM

That link isn't working and I don't see how this would sort results? Thanks anyway for replying Defiant.

I should have known better than to post outside Temporary Insanity before an Apple event!!!

billybobsky · June 17, 2003 5:03PM

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

cant do it by file size but all of the options for their search are there...

Edit: like defiant i misread the topic...

torifile · June 17, 2003 7:13PM

I was thinking the same thing myself the other day. I was looking for a recent story about akamai and I knew it was out there somewhere. Problem is, the majority of the first few pages of links were from 1999 or 2000 when they were big news. I wanted a recent list. Sorting would be cool, but it would be a major server crush, I think.

defiant · June 18, 2003 3:27AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aquatic

That link isn't working and I don't see how this would sort results? Thanks anyway for replying Defiant.

How exactly isn't it working?

http://www.google.com/search?q=steve...site:wired.com

torifile · June 18, 2003 5:46AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Defiant

How exactly isn't it working?

http://www.google.com/search?q=steve...site:wired.com

I think Aquatic means "sort" when he says "sort." He doesn't want the results restricted, but sorted by one or another field.

aquatic · June 18, 2003 11:23AM

Yes. Torifile I don't know if it would really take much overhead since most of the info is in whois and I assume sites tell browsers the other stats?

defiant · June 18, 2003 4:12PM

aha. thanks for he head-up, torifile!

thuh freak · June 18, 2003 4:28PM

i suggest you email them a suggestion.

aquatic · July 13, 2003 11:52PM

I did a week ago. Still waiting.

aquatic · July 19, 2003 4:45AM

Here is the email.

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for your note and your kind words. We always enjoy hearing

positive feedback from Google users.

Thank you for the suggestion for increased sorting options. We really

appreciate thoughtful feedback from our users, and we'll keep yours in

mind as we work to improve Google and add new features and services.

You might be interested in our date search function. To access this

feature, please visit our Advanced Search page at

http://www.google.com/advanced_search . You will have the option of

searching among pages modified in the the last 3, 6, or 12 months. We are

looking into ways we can improve this functionality in the future. We

appreciate your feedback and will keep it in mind as we grow and develop.

You may be interested in receiving our free bimonthly Google-Friends

Newsletter, which keeps you up to date on all the latest happenings at

Google. To sign up, please see

http://www.google.com/contact/newsletter.html. Please note that the

newsletter is written in English.

Regards,

The Google Team

Original Message Follows:

------------------------

From: Kevin MacLeod <[email protected]>

Subject: Suggestion: Sort results by date

created&modified/size/kind/domain

Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 04:38:13 -0400

Hi,

\tGoogle is the best search engine, no question. Lots of new services

recently added are really nice, like USENET and News (I use this

daily!) I'd like to thank you for such an awesome service, and I love

how it's built in to Safari on MacOS X. But I have a question. Why

isn't sorting search results supported? By sorting I mean criteria

such as date created, modified, size of site, kind of site, the domain,

the author, the number links, a ton of criteria. This would also be

cool with Image Search, esp. Size, since I'm on a modem in the summer.

This couldn't take much overhead as most of the data is in the page's

source or header, and you could sort the pages in the browser without

needing to recontact Google and refresh the page, probably. I'm just

guessing on those though, as I'm no programmer, I just took a few

classes in BASIC. I also miss Northern Light's "Search Folders", but I

assume they are patented and you can't copy them. Those were damn cool and if Google didn't work for me (rare) I'd turn to Northern Light and then DogPile which searches all the search engines. I would

appreciate a response and thank you again, keep up the good work!

Fight Micro$oft, I don't want them owning the Internet and overtaking

Google with M$N and their new search engine tech.

Best,

Kevin MacLeod

They dodged the question... I can not see why it would be hard. Maybe I should work for them? Hey I took BASIC programming...

aquatic · August 11, 2003 10:36AM

I can't believe no one is interested in this.

dfiler · August 11, 2003 10:58AM

I can.

Google has definitely thought of this functionality. Here's my theory as to why it isn't implemented.

<theory>To perform quick searches it is important to have excellent index-schema and tree walking algorithms. It is likely that providing sorting on an additional/different attribute would necessitate an additional few hundred processors in their server farm. The entire database would have to be scanned, prior to presenting results, if sorted on a non-indexed attribute. Maintaining indices is a fairly heavy-weight task.</theory>

aquatic · August 19, 2003 8:23PM

Why. I already said, it would be low overhead. Please explain why it would need overhead? I would think it would relatively quick with the vastly powerful net Google has to scan site whois info, headers, etc.

Why can't Google sort searches by date/size/domain etc

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