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<TITLE>[Corpora-List] Re: problems with Google</TITLE>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=127223715-17032005>Has
anybody checked whether the behavior with Google's Web API and its standard
search is different?</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN
class=127223715-17032005></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2><SPAN class=127223715-17032005>I have
code using the Java Web API which makes use of the asterisk to blank out a
single word (not an unrestricted wildcard.) As of yesterday, when I tested the
code, it still appeared to be working as designed.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> Andrew Kehoe
[mailto:Andrew.Kehoe@uce.ac.uk]<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, March 17, 2005 9:27
AM<BR><B>To:</B> CORPORA@uib.no<BR><B>Subject:</B> RE: [Corpora-List] Re:
problems with Google<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>
<DIV>John</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Even if you put double quotes around the wildcard character Google will
ignore it. When you search for:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"what does "*" mean"</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Google is actually searching for 2 'phrases': "what does " and " mean".
You cannot nest double quotes in Google so the double quotes around the * are
actually closing your initial quote and beginning a new quote, with the
wildcard ignored completely.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>It may be the case that SOME of the pages Google returns will contain
"what does", followed by one other word, followed by "mean" but your query
does not ask for this specifically. Google could (and does) also return pages
containing "mean" and "what does" in the opposite order, or with multiple
words in between.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Similarly, "what does "*" "*" mean" is actually searching for 3
'phrases': 1) "what does ", 2) " " (a space), and 3)" mean".</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So, Google hasn't retained support for wildcards at all I'm afraid, and
this is why we are developing our own search engine in WebCorp, as
Antoinette Renouf mentioned yesterday.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Andrew Kehoe</DIV>
<DIV>Research and Development Unit for English Studies</DIV>
<DIV>Univerity of Central England in Birmingham</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://www.webcorp.org.uk/"
target=_BLANK>http://www.webcorp.org.uk/</A></DIV></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2>-----Original Message----- <BR><B>From:</B>
owner-corpora@lists.uib.no on behalf of John Milton
<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thu 17/03/2005 13:39 <BR><B>To:</B> CORPORA@uib.no
<BR><B>Cc:</B> <BR><B>Subject:</B> [Corpora-List] Re: problems with
Google<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>
<P><FONT size=2>I just discovered that Google seems to have retained some
use of the<BR>wildcard for words if you use double quotes with the asterisk.
A search<BR>for "what does "*" mean" and "what does "*" "*" mean" results
MAINLY in<BR>any one and two words respectively. If anyone else is using web
searches<BR>as language learning/teaching resources, this also looks
promising:<BR><A
href="http://www.findforward.com/">http://www.findforward.com/</A><BR><BR>John
Milton<BR>Hong Kong University of Science &
Technology<BR><BR><BR><BR></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>
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