Matt Cutts gave some numbers about how often the + operator was used - and even then it was mostly used incorrectly.
> > In the past, we provided users with the + operator to help you search for specific terms. However, we found that users typed the + operator in less than half a percent of all searches, and two thirds of the time, it was used incorrectly.
Check my math, but I think that means that + was used correctly in only 1 out of 600 searches.
People mention "power users". Google does not want power users. Google wants a mass market of people who see, and click, ads.
EDIT: i guess I need to say that I hated when Google changed the plus operator; and I find using Google now to be a frustrating and annoying experience. I'm shown results tha often are not relevant to my queries.
And Barrkel makes a good point about my confusing potentially misleading description of the times + is used correctly.
Less than one out of six hundred trips takes anyone to the hospital, but we wouldn't want a car that breaks down as soon as anyone is injured.
People don't often need a power search. But when you do, you really want it to work.
Google gets ad clicks by building a brand, they want us to associate them with "competent to handle all my search needs." This is why Ford and Dodge make stock cars, not because they want to sell them on a mass market, but because they want to convince people the brand is capable of excelling beyond their needs.
UPDATE: I think you're right about Google's rationale, I just think execs are missing some counterarguments.
>People don't often need a power search. But when you do, you really want it to work.
That was part of the draw of switching to Google way back when. If you had a more challenging search to pull off, you used Google, and eventually it became a habit to just visit Google in the first place.
Now I'm starting to try DDG when Google frustrates me. I also don't need 'Google Power' for a lot of my searches.
It's probably a good thing they're implementing these changes. It makes it easier for an underdog to come in and disrupt their core business, introducing some healthy competition.
> users typed the + operator in less than half a percent of all searches
Matt Cutts obviously isn't stupid, but that's a very stupid thing to say, or think, or act upon.
Many things are done rarely, that are extremely useful or important.
Hey, most search strings probably represent "less than half a percent" of all possible searches; so by that metric they could drop most of their index, and only answer the most frequent searches...
When you say "+ was used correctly in only 1 out of 600 searches", it seems to imply that it was used incorrectly in 599 out of 600 searches. Your phrasing makes too strong a claim as most people understand the language, IMO.
Let's not forget how large an audience any Google feature has, though. + being used correctly, even by 0.33% of users, is still probably a million people.
So, 1 out of every 200 searches contain a "+", possibly for refinement. In 1 out of every three of those searches, the "+" helps the user find what's wanted. No information on a) some users are better at using the "+" correctly than others, b) If removing the "+" means that now three out of three of those searches fail.
And no information if the correctly used pluses were inserted by humans, deliberately, and were useful.
Still, I am surprised that Google has made search so poor for so many people in some situations. Although I understand they've done some work on making programming code easier to search for?
google knows if you found what you're looking for because they observe your behaviour. If you keep going through to page 30, it means your search was unsuccessful. if you search again for a similar term ten seconds later, it means your search was unsuccessful. they don't need to ask.
but in this case, it probably just means that people were using it like "cookies+cream". they aren't using + as an operator, they're using it as a synonym for "and", and they are better served by google parsing their query as native language instead of parsing it as an expression in a rarely used query language.
> > In the past, we provided users with the + operator to help you search for specific terms. However, we found that users typed the + operator in less than half a percent of all searches, and two thirds of the time, it was used incorrectly.
http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/search-using-your...
Check my math, but I think that means that + was used correctly in only 1 out of 600 searches.
People mention "power users". Google does not want power users. Google wants a mass market of people who see, and click, ads.
EDIT: i guess I need to say that I hated when Google changed the plus operator; and I find using Google now to be a frustrating and annoying experience. I'm shown results tha often are not relevant to my queries.
And Barrkel makes a good point about my confusing potentially misleading description of the times + is used correctly.