Google more borked by the day

This isn't Linux related per se, but I'm looking for support from a 
group of like-minded people who are used to computers doing exactly what 
they're told.

Are you finding that Google is getting more and more stupid? It seems 
that we're getting lowered to the lowest common denominator, and I 
suspect it's because dumb people generate more revenue because they are 
more gullible to ads.

This morning was the last straw. I want to know if I should tender my 
shares in Breakwater to the offer of $7 plus 50c dividend. I searched 
for "breakwater 'what should I do' tender". The results were centred 
around the concept of "sore", with a sprinkling of "tending sheep". None 
of the hits on the first page were anything to do with Breakwater 
shares, or even included the word "tender". Loads of them included the 
word "sore" however.

I think the workaround is to put a '+' before any word I want it to take 
literally, but I don't really want to have to do this every time I google.

It seems like if I'm smart and I can create a string which will bring me 
the 100 or so pages on the web that will answer my question, google will 
fuzz-out all my smarts and bring me 2,000,000 hits, most of which are 
wrong, because they think more hits is 'better'.

(Incidentally I'm also finding that the first three hits will sometimes 
result in that doubleclick crap taking me to a totally different ad 
site, and not the page it tells me it's going to, but that could be a 
side-issue caused by my popup-blocker.)

Is anyone else having the same issues, or found a better solution that 
putting '+' all the time?

-- 
Andy
-- 
OCLUG general discussion list
[email protected]
http://oclug.on.ca/mailman/listinfo/oclug