I blathered:
>Most computer search algorithms ignore hyphens and other punctuation.
Lou Deeter replied:
>Sheldon, thanks for the corrections to my post, particularly the
>dash vs hyphen and the delta vs parapull or whatever it was that you
>called it. But, the search algorthm thingy mentioned above kind of
>caught me by surprise, so, I went to the one database most relevant
>to our discussion, the CR archives. Here are the results.
>
>Dura-Ace: 8613 hits
>DuraAce: 827 hits
>Dura Ace: 7964 hits
>
>So, while most computer search algorithms may ignore punctuation,
>the one that we use on this list doesn't appear to be one of those.
>I haven't tried this on Ebay, but may tonight.
I'm most used to Google and other Web search engines...I had always understood that they disregarded punctuation, but I just tried Googling dura-ace and dura ace, and whaddaya know, 1,840,000 vs, 2,300,000 hits with more hits for the incorrect, un-hyphenated version.
However it warmed the cockles of my heart to see that _my_ Dura-Ace page came out number 1 in both searches!
Sheldon "Google Been Berry, Berry Good To Me" Brown
http://sheldonbrown.com/
Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041
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