IB Boost Blog

Let me be start with an apology: I am not an "everyman" browser user, and I am partial to the occasional rant on how global tech goliaths promising they should be trusted with the world's data fail to resolve glaring issues with the fundamentals of their services. So I am well aware this may be more personal experience than common sentiment.

That said, I think this position is hardly fringe: Google is really quite poor at "search".

Yes, the company named with the word synonymous (despite the Google legal team's efforts) with search on the internet with revenues in the hundreds of billions and some of the best software engineers on the planet, with a product based on this fundamental task that dominates the (Western) internet, is just really not that good at it.

It sounds ridiculous because it should be ridiculous and typing that out just feels like the rant of a hyperbolising internet warrior. But it's not just me. Some people believe they can even identify who killed it (for the record this is well worth reading if for nothing else than a reminder that inside these tech behemoths with a continual external surface is a writhing mass of utility-maximising individuals and the associated politicking that comes with it).

However, on the internet no one knows you're a dog, and similarly no one knows if you're not an idiot, so let's get empirical!

A Noturiously Difficult Problem

This topic recently percolated to the top of my tech-rant pile, which is a luxuriously deep, quilted pile of complaints regarding software and the internet, due to a question I asked myself one day: "...is...is that even a word?"

The word, dear readers, was noturious. The context was in reference to some throwaway comment on an accounting forum, I think, regarding some philosophically-argued-but-never-case-tested principle of British accounting treatment (yes, yes, both computer science and accounting, and I am fun at parties, thanks for asking). That's not the important bit: finding out if noturious was even a word is what I was interested in.

I read vociferously, albeit very rarely books as most people would consider them, being a net native, so I felt I should have known if that word existed. Even if it were technical jargon in either UK law or accounting, I'm regularly immersed in both, so it was unusual to see a term I'd not seen. Moreover, I care about using the "right" words, so you can bet your bottom British Pound Sterling I was going to search further.

Could it be a typo? Possibly, but the usage seemed intentional and "notorious" wouldn't really have fit. What intrigued me was that there seemed a reasonable enough etymological basis for the word: in the UK notaries are qualified lawyers in the oldest branch of the legal profession in the UK.

Yes, that's an "a" not a "u", but this is English English we're talking about here.

So I did what most of us would do these days and typed it into my browser search box. Alas, the problem:

Showing results for notorious
Search instead for noturious

Fine. Expected. It's clearly going to go with the numbers there and suggest a corrected spelling. So I'll just click on the Search instead for noturious and... wait... it's just done the same search?!

PowerTools for PowerUsers to PowerSearch

This is where any tech geek cracks their keyboard wielding knuckles and breaks out their search meta-skills. No problem, I'll just add quotes. Same result. Okay then, get a load of this: +"noturious". Same result.

Maybe it was a profiling thing? Private browsing/incognito? Same result. Chrome instead of my trusty Firefox? Same result. Edge, Firefox Developer, Chrome Canary? Mostly the same result - I believe somehow I got an expected result once in Firefox Developer but at this stage I had dozens of search windows open).

There was nothing I could seem to do intentionally to force this behaviour in Google. This is rather unfathomable to me. They have a well-established syntax for providing precise results and whilst I've seen it been more "suggestive" in recent years to guide users away from mistakes, or take them down happy paths (statistically, speaking) I didn't think they'd actually entirely block one from getting results.

I have a healthy disdain for tech companies that don't treat power users with respect: Microsoft layering "new" Windows setting screens with scant detail and hiding the old, detailed (but actually useful!) menus being a perenial geek-problem of the 2020s, for example. However, Google always appeared like they would at least be trusted to maintain these tools in their flagship service, whatever one may think about their commitment to other services. Yet here I was.

The Illusion of Choice

Now, I rotate through search engines regularly in any case. I've had a lot of trouble with copycat clone results of legitimate sites like StackOverflow/ServerFault in Google results and spam Italian (for some reason) domains on technical topics, which has lead me to regularly DuckDuckGo to de-profile my results somewhat, so I have a bunch quickly available to see whether I was going mad or not.

But, Bing took me on the same journey, giving me the same results even after I insisted I did, in fact, mean noturious by telling it as much. Well, this isn't looking good. Google and Bing together make up over 90% of the search market.

Let's take a look at what the others say:

• DuckDuckGo can do it (if you quote it).
• Brave can do it (with quotes)
• Marginalia can do it (even without quotes - I appreciate the default assumption being that users are searching for what they say they're searching for!).
• Mojeek can do it (again, look Ma, no quotes!).
• Ecosia can do it (requiring quotes - this one needs a little more manipulation as the 'Show results only for noturious' link actually adds a + sign so the quotes have to be manually added).

So these seem positive; I could coerce all the rest to give me what I wanted... BUT WJAIT!*... DuckDuckGo *IS* Bing to some extent, isn't it? From their site it's clear they heavily lean on Bing though the general perception of this might be more than it really is.

Ecosia says it uses both Google and Bing, though again in most internet discussions they're claimed to be Bing-based rather than a hybrid (though I don't know if this has changed over time).

So if the capabilities are there, somehow. The results are available, somehow. What was I doing wrong, if anything, in trying to get them? At this point, life got busy and this post got shelved without conclusions...

* (yes, "wjait" is how we write an exclamative "wait" in this company... a long story)

The Replication Crisis

Now there was some delay in getting to finish these searches and when I wrote this up, so, like a good pseudo-academic I tried to replicate my own findings. And I couldn't. The replication crisis, in my very own home!

Google was able to correctly show me only sites featuring the word "noturious" after clicking the Search instead for noturious link. Bing still wasn't able to, but to its credit I was able to further insist by manually modifying my search to add quotes like +"noturious" and this did provide me some results.

However in both of these cases, although again not a scientifically rigorous observation, but I am fairly confident I tried this several times in different browsers both anonymously and with regular sessions and got differing results. This should concern us.

Having the inability to be precise when one needs to, feels like trying to thread a needle with oven gloves on. I don't know whether they just continually A/B test dumbed-down interfaces or this is the new future of continual AI experiments until everyone's drinking Brawndo, but these companies need to be careful about taking agency away from people.

Chat is the new Search

Perhaps you're thinking "Check out this chump, in 2024, using 'search', has he not heard about ChatGPT"?

However even with polite prompting and suggesting I couldn't convince OpenAI's latest ChatGPT-4o model to do the business:

Good evening. Hope you are fine? Would you do me a favour and tell me if the word "noturious" is real, and what it means?

Good evening! I'm doing well, thank you. The word "noturious" does not appear to be a real word in English. It seems like it might be a misspelling or a mistaken combination of two real words: "notorious" and "curious." Notorious means famous or well-known, typically for some bad quality or deed. Curious means eager to know or learn something. If you have a specific context where "noturious" was used, I can help clarify what might have been intended.

Perhaps with respect to "notaries" in the UK?

The word "noturious" still does not appear to be a recognized term in relation to "notaries" in the UK or in any other context. It might be a typographical error or a misheard version of a different word. If you are looking for information on notaries in the UK, a notary (or notary public) is a qualified lawyer who specializes in the authentication and certification of signatures, documents, and transactions, typically for international use. They play an important role in legal matters, ensuring that documents are properly executed and legally binding.

Are you sure it's not a word?

The term "noturious" is not recognized in standard English dictionaries, and it does not appear to be a legitimate word in the context of notaries in the UK or any other specific field. It seems likely that "noturious" might be a typographical error or a misspelling. In the UK, notaries, or notaries public, are qualified lawyers who authenticate and certify documents for international use. They ensure the legitimacy of documents such as powers of attorney, property deeds, and business agreements. Notaries are appointed by the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and are regulated to ensure compliance with legal standards​ (Notable Notaries)​​ (The Notaries Society)​​ (Notary Public London)​​ (MD Pryke Notary Public)​. If you came across "noturious" in a specific context or document, it might be helpful to re-examine the source for possible spelling errors or misinterpretations. If you need further clarification on notarial services or any related legal terms, feel free to ask!

Yes but if you're just searching the word "noturious" on a search engine like Bing then it's going to auto-correct to "notorious" any way isn't it, so that wouldn't tell you. Can you do an exact term search for that word and find references please?

“"noturious" exact term” bing.com Favicon Merriam-Webster — NOTORIOUS Synonyms: 143 Similar and Opposite Words | Merriam-Webster Thesaurus merriam-webster.com Favicon Merriam-Webster — Notorious Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster merriam-webster.com Favicon WordHippo — What is the opposite of notorious? wordhippo.com I conducted a thorough search for the term "noturious" and found that it does not appear to be a recognized word in English. It seems likely that it is a typographical error or a misheard version of another word, such as "notorious."

Use Your Illusion (of Choice) Part II.

If the results above don't read that cleanly, that's because they're the expanded version of the "searched 7 sites" and similar dropdowns that get presented to the user when ChatGPT-4o remembers it can search the internet. Note that it often forgets this and I have even seen the "split response - tell us which is the best" say on the left-hand side "Sorry I can't search the internet" while the right-hand side searches the internet and returns results!

What may not be immediately obvious is that all roads are ending at the same place (or two, more fairly): Google and Bing. If they obfuscate information, either willingly, through commercial motivation, through incompetence or oversight, this cascades into the broader collective knowledge that may increasingly be the only arbiter of "truth".

Okay one doesn't have to use Google or Bing right. Most community sites of any size have a search function, could I have used that? Yes I could have. But no it doesn't find the word. Whether that's because they don't index comments or another problem, I'm not sure, but most people take for granted that if it's words on a page it will be searchable.

Perhaps we haven't always been at war with Eastasia, but the absence of noturious results may be a notorious problem.

Results

So what were the results, once I finally coerced them out of the "machine"?

Top of Google's results were a typo (amusingly, on "the English Bookshop"'s website) for the book about the late US Supreme Court justice: Notorious RBG, followed by the more predictable stream of spelling mistakes relating to The Notorious B.I.G., and many social media profiles in that vein.

Since I've now entered a phase where Google is permitting me to search the terms, though why I cannot answer, using those powers and limiting to the specific site I saw it on I found three references.

Two separate people used the word in the same way, "noturious custom", but the third result was the clincher: one of those people used it in another comment where only a misspelling of "notorious" made sense.

So, we can conclude no, it's almost certainly not a cromulent word, but as the age of AI embiggens all our devices, it will pay to take heed of their noturious limitations...