[Libs-Or] Summary of responses regarding bug in Google Advanced Search and its origin vis-a-vis Google Instant

[hleman at samhealth.org]

Hi, all. A few days ago I sent out messages to various discussion lists in the library and information science communities asking for help figuring out why, even though I kept specifying in Google Advanced Search mode that I wanted a limit of 100 items, Google kept reverting to only 10 results.

Many people told me that this annoying development was due to the implementation of Google Instant, and various solutions were proposed such as clearing out my browser cache and trying this:

Google with SSL:

https://www.google.com/

But what seems to have solved the problem for me came from a nice man called Michael Ivie who suggested the solution at the end of this note (see below my contact info).

Anyway, I am very grateful for all the help and am happy to report that I can now search up 100 items on a page again. It is surprising that Google implemented this change without any warning and that I had to seek out help from all the many helpful librarians and information scientists out there who took the time (even on the weekend) to theorize, speculate, ruminate and troubleshoot on my behalf. Thank you, all!

Hope Leman, MLIS
Research Information Technologist
Center for Health Research and Quality
Samaritan Health Services
815 NW 9th Street Suite 203A
Corvallis, OR 97330
(541) 768-5712


Here are Michael's suggestions:


I believe the "bug" you are referring to is brought on by the Google Instant Search. Apparently it's intended to limit the search terms in order to retain an orderly response time.

Rebooting/clearing your cache are unlikely to change this. I recommend that you log into your google account and change the number of search terms in the preferences section.
----
1. open Google search, log into account.
2. click on the "settings" link in the upper right hand corner. click on "search settings" in the drop down box that is offered.
3. Scroll down to "number of results" and place your preference. [try 30, 50 for an opener ... unless you have a sufficiently high performance computer, 100 items is likely to hinder you less than help.]
4. Under "Google Instant" click the button "Do Not Use Google Instant" to disable the feature.


Excerpt from Google help section:
Number of results
Unless you change this preference, you'll see 10 search results per page. We set it this way because this produces the fastest response time. But if you want to see more results per page, you can increase the number to 20, 30, 50 or 100, if you have Google Instant disabled.
(This setting doesn't affect results in Google Images. The number of results you see in Images is determined by the size of your screen.)
---
Right-O, Hope this helps.
Michael Ivie  ^~^

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