WTF Google?

I noticed google search becoming less and less useful of late: it can be quite hard to track down meaningful results, and I started to suspect I was getting my own private view of the internets ... (which is precisely the thing I do not want from a global internet search!!).

So with in that mind check these two results out, one from my signed in google account - with verbatim enabled, and one from another machine in which I'm not signed explicitly into google's world-encompassing spy network.

Standard results:

Verbatim results:

(I also checked the non-verbatim results on my logged in version, which are at least in this case thankfully the same as the standard result; although i'm sure i've seen differences in the past).

One might note that the verbatim result is the only one that has anything related directly to the search terms , particularly for the most important keyword of high specificity - there is in fact no relevant result AT ALL on the first page of the non-verbatim search (as suggested by the title and/or preview content). I really don't think a generic '[Archive]' header applied to old mailing list views should rank highly.

The new search algorithm is quite good at finding home pages for projects and products; but for specific information it's starting to suck major arse.

At least verbatim taught me this isn't quite the search term i'm after anyway.