Google search “by date”, why so difficult?

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Posted in » Google - by Ades on October 18th, 2008

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Otherwise user friendly Google made it so difficult and hidden to search by date. Why? I don’t really know. In this information age where fresh data, latest news and updates are sought upon…. i personally think it’s really time to put that “date drop down” menu on the main page.

search-by-date.png

Currently if you want to search Google by date, you need to go to “Advansed Search” page. And even on advanced search page, you won’t find “search by date” option easily, it is in fact hidden under some plus icon (+) which you need to expand to see the contents. It is in this place that the valuable search by date option is located. It is as if it was purposely made difficult to find it.

search-by-date-adv.png

And if you think that is a usability issue, Google’s senior software engineer Matt Cutts teaches you how you can do the same thing (i.e search by date) the easy way - using codes! he writes:

The nice thing is that you can change the value of as_qdr to custom intervals. Here are all the possible values of the as_qdr parameter:

d[number] - past number of days (e.g.: d10)
w[number] - past number of weeks
y[number] - past number of years

… For example, there’s been a lot of fast progress on iphone stuff recently. A query such as http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+source+code&as_qdr=d1 would show all the new urls for the query [iphone source code] within the last day, because d1 stands for 1 day.

Seems like Google should stop using its programmers as usability professionals. Let them do the coding! And leave the usability stuff to usability experts… I am sure Google has such professionals?

Only then, perhaps the “search by date” option will be put on main page, or at least taken out from its current hidden place.

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18 Responses to “Google search “by date”, why so difficult?”

  1. By appleblogger on Oct 18, 2008

    i already know this way. Its good and thanks for remind us about this one.

  2. By Jaseem Umer on Oct 18, 2008

    i don’t think a typical user needs date based search. May be Google too is thinking my way.

  3. By rummuser on Oct 18, 2008

    I agree entirely with your observations. For me as a not very tech savvy user, it is very frustrating and I would not know how to code!

  4. By CornMy on Oct 18, 2008

    i may agree with you.. what for, if google put it to the more visible spot, it’ll be more useful

  5. By Ajith Edassery on Oct 18, 2008

    A few features that Google is bringing are meant only for techies or tech-savvy user. They need to really work on this aspect. Also, they should refrain from using technical terminology on user interfaces…

    Cheers,
    Ajith

  6. By Kevin on Oct 18, 2008

    I guess 70% users don’t know or not use this feature…

  7. By kouji on Oct 19, 2008

    dang. i didn’t even know i could do this.

  8. By Andrew. Lawyer. on Oct 19, 2008

    I really consider myself to be a Google fanatic, and I had no idea this option even existed. Sadly, I’ve even looked for something like this before. I must be blind.

  9. By Ades on Oct 19, 2008

    Jaseem, typical users wouldn’t do anything since the default option for “search by date” drop down menu would be “anytime”. In other words, they would still search Google as it is, the only thing it would be more accessible for others (like me) who would want to find latest developments for particular topic.

    Perhaps politics would be a good topic for Obama and McCain followers… for example, if you want to find what people said about Obama in the past 24 hours, this feature would be the thing you want to use.

  10. By Internet SEO on Oct 20, 2008

    So how do I get it to show up in my search or was that just a graphic “wish list”.

  11. By gout on Oct 20, 2008

    I have some problems with google new search a month ago, so I don’t use it till this time…. more simple and easy the last google search….. I don’t know why?

  12. By Ades on Oct 20, 2008

    You can use the feature by clicking advanced search link on google.com, then expand the options as shown to in the screenshot.

    please note that it won’t show up on the main page, it will only appear temporarily on the results page near to the search field (as shown on top of the post).

  13. By SEO Services on Oct 20, 2008

    Ades, I appreciate your post, i was really not aware of this technique. And this could be helpful for those who knows how to surf web very well, this feature used to filter out specific data, and thus it could be very helpful. Great Job my friend.

  14. By PS3 on Oct 21, 2008

    I didn’t know about this feature till i read this blog. Looks like a good feature but probably won’t be used much by people.

  15. By Busby SEO Test on Oct 21, 2008

    I always use this when I’m in a challenge for a keyword. Usually I put the icon on my Firefox toolbar to create a shortcut.

  16. By Angelina Maben on Oct 22, 2008

    Google always try to introduce something new.

  17. By YourDownline.co.uk on Oct 23, 2008

    Thanks a lot for this, this will definately make my searching easier

  18. By Burt Danelski on Nov 12, 2008

    whenever I ask for information, I am flooded with so much information(most of what is irrelevant) and I get very frustrated.The information you post on each heading is hard to understand(incomplete sentences,etc)and when I call it up, It’s not at all what I requested.I’ve got to the point that I try all other methods before I use Google.


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