One of the things that absolutely infuriates me about Google is the arrogance and disdain that it shows to its users. The 'Did you mean' option is a case in point. It used to be quite useful, especially if you had messed up the spelling, as you could then say 'oh yes, silly me, thanks' - click the correction and on you went. However, since they enhanced it about this time last year, they've seriously gone overboard. I pretty much know what I want thanks, and ignore the 'did you mean option'. But oh no... I can't do that now, as Google has decided that it knows best and takes control of MY search. Here's a case in point - a friend asked me for information about a site called listbooks.co.uk so I took a look at the blog option to see what people were saying about it. This is the screen that I got:
OK, so it says 'Did you mean: list books' and doesn't give me a choice. What Google is doing, and if they had any honesty at all would be to say 'No, you mean: list books' because that's what it's doing. Overriding my choice and preference and putting in its own. Ok, there's a work around for this - I just put the + sign in front. This says to Google - I know what I'm doing, get the **** outta my way! But no, Google still can't leave well along, because this is what I now see:
I do get what I want (at last) but Google is still trying the 'did you mean' trick - when it knows... IT KNOWS that's not what I want, because I put the damn '+' in front!
I am by far and away not the only person sick of Google - there's a great article 'On the increasing uselessness of Google' which is worth a read, though that's looking more at the spam that's getting into the serps (Search engine results pages). Go on - make a New Year resolution to cut down your use of Google (presuming you use it in the first place, which to be honest is a pretty good bet) and try something else instead.
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