Thats actually very interesting. Top hits include the download pages for Acrobat, Flash, and Real Player, perhaps some of the most highly linked sites on the planet.

What I want to know is how whitehouse.gov, and the-scientist.com made the short list?

Edited by author 04-16-2002 02:19 PM
if i'm not mistaken you could search for "the" before. just adding a + before the stop word would have allowed it in the search. for example a search for "+the girl from ipanema" would actually allow the "the" to remain a part of your search.

Perhaps this reflects a growing sophistication among users.

Enough people have reached the point where most searchers only include "the" if is essential to the search. If this is the case, then google is just changing to provide better
results on the first pass search.

It's still bloody hard to search for 80s popsters The The.

(luckily they're on http://www.thethe.com if you're interested)