Google News and the missing Mayor from Henley

Most people building search services of any type hold Google up as their benchmark, so it always nice to be reminded that the search giant can be fallible as well. I was recently having a look at the advanced search features they offer on Google News UK.

These include some options to limit results by date, which are not sadly available on the general web index, otherwise I'd introduce date-sorting and date restrictions to Chipwrapper in a flash.

Google News Advanced Search also lets you restrict results to sources from a geographic region, or to stories about a geographic region. I picked a topical example, and searched for 'boris johnson', restricting results to stories about Henley, where London's Mayor is/was/will-no-longer-be MP [delete as applicable].

Google's answer?

Your search - boris johnson - did not match any documents about Henley, New Zealand

Posted by Martin Belam, May 27, 2008
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