Well, duh. Using quotes is like n00b 101, OK?

How much more fekkin specific can I get with a PERSON’S NAME? And how does a freakin algorithm work that it gives me JohnSON when I want JohnsTon? How’d you like your MS Word Find facility to work like that? You wouldn’t! My complaint is justified. Dismissed!

@James,

I don’t think I’d go as far as to call any “empire” a good thing… especially one that is on the record as having its sole purpose to “index *everything*” …

That said, I don’t think Google is evil either. They’re a business, and any business will do what it takes to succeed. So far, they generally do a good job as long as privacy isn’t a concern.

@Mike Cane,

If you have an alert for a NAME, then you are going to get a wide range of alerts. Try using quotes around the name to specify exact matches. That or just try being more specific.

You ever sign up for their News Alerts? They’re a frikkin JOKE!

I have “Heather Johnston” set to alert and I get crap with “Heather JohnSON” in my Alerts. What, they think they know what I want better than I do? That I can’t spell?

Their news search has also hit the toilet, with items appearing *days* after actual publication — if at all.

I submit the suspicion that it was a fluke happening. :P

Still, let’s all gripe about any Google problems to James and Kevin, then they can blog about it and Google will fix it! Yay! :)