I want to do a search on Google that gives me accurate results in
***one expression***. However, it is conceptually easier to understand
if I divide the kind of search I want into two parts.

Since *I* can't get accurate results, either I don't know enough about
searching or Google can't do what I want done. First person who can
come up with the syntax to give me accurate results (please test
before posting your answer) will be paid.

This is what I want done. It has two *conceptual* parts. 

1) a 'normal' search. Ex. "moving companies".
This returns subset one.

2) Search only subset one for "nyc" --- but in the ***url***.

When I do a normal search for 'moving companies' and then *search
within results* by specifying allinurl: nyc - Google returns screwy
results - i.e. the results don't even have nyc in the url.

Please note, I will test any solution on a variety of words. If I can
demonstrate a solution doesn't work, I will not pay. In this example,
not only would 'nyc' have to be in the url, but all results from
subset one that have 'nyc' in the url need to be returned. In other
words - accurate on both levels.

If you can come up with a solution I will tip my hat to you and happily pay you.
<smile>

---

Clarification of Question by lilacwine-ga on 07 Sep 2005 10:34 PDT

I made one mistake in describing the first search. I need that to be a
*multipart search*. Ex. "moving companies" + "piano". This would
presumably only return moving  companies that have the word piano
somewhere on the page - which is what I want.

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 07 Sep 2005 11:59 PDT

lilacwine-ga,

Nothing like a good search challenge to get a GA researcher's attention!


How's this for a first attempt:


://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-04,GGLD:en&q=%22moving+company+OR+companies%22+piano+inurl%3Anyc



Also, I thought you might like to see results with NYC in the TITLE of
the page, rather than the url (there are many more of these):

://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2005-04%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=%22moving+company+OR+companies%22+piano+intitle%3Anyc&btnG=Search



Let me know if these work for you.


pafalafa-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 07 Sep 2005 13:04 PDT

Sorry, Charlie!  But emailing customers directly is a violation of GA
rules.  All conversations need to happen here in this public forum.

Let me know if there's some other way I can assist you.


paf

---

Clarification of Question by lilacwine-ga on 07 Sep 2005 13:49 PDT

I didn't know. As far as I can tell, your answer works. I also now
understand what I was doing wrong. Thanks.

---

Clarification of Question by lilacwine-ga on 07 Sep 2005 13:55 PDT

I am a first time user of Google Answers. Your answer is fine and I
would like to close the question (and pay you). I can't figure out how
to change the status of the question from open to closed? How do you
do this?

Charlie,

Thanks for sticking with the process...even when it can be a bit confusing.

I'm glad to hear that the two links I provided above met your search
needs.  The searches are both designed to zero-in on the specific
sites you asked about.

The first search used these terms:


[ "moving company OR companies" piano inurl:nyc ]


Note several things:

--I used OR (always in caps) to search for either the exact phrase
"moving company" or "moving companies".

--The quote marks instruct Google to search for an exact phrase, as
I'm sure you knew already

--The specific syntax [ inurl:nyc ] looked for any mention of nyc in
the url's returned by the search.  Your original use of [ allinurl ]
may have confused the search results somewhat.

--The second search used the [ intitle ] syntax instead:   [ "moving
company OR companies" piano intitle:nyc ] to find 'nyc' in the page
title, rather than in the url.


Since you're a first time user, let me mention a few procedural things:


--you don't need to do anything at this point...by posting an answer,
the question is closed, your account will be charged, and I will
collect the fee you offered.


--if you want any additional information, just let me know by posting
a Request for Clarification, and I'll be happy to assist you further.


--if you'd care to, you can rate the answer provided (up to 5 stars),
and provide comments about what you liked or didn't about the service.


Hope we'll see you back here one day soon.


paf

---

Request for Answer Clarification by lilacwine-ga on 08 Sep 2005 11:50 PDT

Is there a way to search for a specific text string in a *particular
'part'* of the url?

In the examples we've been working with, any site with 'nyc' -
anywhere in the url would be returned. Not bad but not perfect.

There are two specific but different areas of the url that I would
love to be able to search.

1) the top level of the domain. Ex. nycmovers.com Yes.
NationalMovers.com/nycoperations No.

2) The specific page that is returned. NationalMovers.com/nyc Yes.
NationalMovers.com/nycoperations/manhattan No. To clarify, the later,
would not work - for this specific type of search - because nyc is not
in the last *node* of the url.

I am pretty confident that both of these are impossible to do in
normal search. (I'm sure a custom program could do this).

If anyone can show me how to do this in normal search - or point me to
an existing program that allows me to do this - I will gladly pay them
and certify them as search engine researchers extraordinaire. <smile>

Thank you.




specify what *part* of a url a text

---

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 08 Sep 2005 12:13 PDT

Interesting question.

There's no way I know of to do this with Google, or any other major
search engine.  As far as I know, the inurl search will find nyc
*anywhere* it occurs in the url.  There does not appear to be a way to
pinpoint the search to, eg., only the text prior to the first
backslash.


There are certainly searhces that can identify top-level sites that
contain nyc.  There are searches at a number of whois sites that can
do this.  However, the searches would return *all* sites containing
nyc, rather than just the moving company sites.


Beyond that, I'm stuck.  There may be a simple way to do what you're
asking, but nothing comes to me at the moment.  The brute force way
would be conduct a Google search, use an extraction program to grab
all the links, import them into an Excel file, and then write a macro
to find nyc (or whatever) in the parts of the url of interest to you.

But there isn't a search engine I know of that could accomplish all
that in a single search!

You may want to consider posting another question at Google Answers,
to bring your challenge before the hundreds of other GA researchers --
one of whom may have an answer to your thorny problem.

paf

Hi,

You can go for a Advanced Google Search instead of the Normal Search.
Hyperlink provided along the Normal Search.

Processs : 
1) Click the Advanced Search Hyperlink
2) Key in your Search in FIND RESLUTS -  with ALL of the words as :
"moving companies" "piano", within double quotes (inverted comma's)
3) Click the Google Search Button
4) Find the List of Results
5) Click the Cached Hyperlink mentioned below every result
6) Find your Answers coloured for you to find Answers to your Multi Search Query 

Hope this helps

Thanks for the stars, lilacwine-ga.

Y'all come back now...


paf