google-search on S Anand

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

My ChatGPT engagement is now far higher than with Google.

I started using ChatGPT in June 2023. From Sep 2023 - Feb 2024, my Google usage was 5x ChatGPT. Then, fell to 3x until May 2024. Then about 2x until Apr 2025. Since May 2025, it sits at the 1.5x mark.

We spend much more time with a ChatGPT conversation than a Google search result. So clearly, ChatGPT is my top app, beating Google some months ago.

This is a global trend. ChatGPT gets 2.5B requests/day. Google gets 14B (~5-6x larger). But if we spend 5x more time on a ChatGPT conversation than a Google search, Google would rightly be worried.

This usage isn’t complementary. My negative correlation of -0.74 is a strong substitution signal. I’m using ChatGPT instead of Google, not in addition to Google.

But it’s not just ChatGPT vs Google. It’s chat vs search. What will people search for instead of chat? Will search become just background data for LLMs? Should search engines optimize output for chatbots?

That might be a good thing for information diversity. I’m glad ChatGPT helps me ask fresh questions. Authors might be glad that different kinds of content will find an audience.

My chat will overtake search in 12-18 months. When ChatGPT becomes my primary lens on knowledge, “Who curates the lens? And who audits the curvature?” (to quote ChatGPT)

Full analysis: https://sanand0.github.io/datastories/chatgpt-vs-google/

Google search via e-mail

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:07:52 +0000

I’ve updated Mixamail to access Google search results via e-mail.

For those new here, Mixamail is an e-mail client for Twitter. It lets you read and update Twitter just using your e-mail (you’ll have to register once via Twitter, though).

Now, you can send an e-mail to twitter@mixamail.com with a subject of “Google” and a body containing your query. You’ll get a reply within a few seconds (~20 seconds on my BlackBerry) with the top 8 search results along with the snippets.

It’s the snippets that contain the useful information, as far as I’m concerned. Just yesterday, I managed to find the show timings for Manmadan Ambu at the Ilford Cine World via a search on Mixamail. (Mixamail win, but the movie was a let down, given expectations.)

You don’t need to be registered to use this. So if you’re ever stuck with just e-mail access, just mail twitter@mixamail.com with a subject “Google”.

PS: The code is on Github.

Comments

S Anand 29 Dec 2010 3:48 pm: Sorry about that, Shankar. I’ve fixed that. (Simple bug: was looking for registration even though it wasn’t required)
Shankar V 29 Dec 2010 5:36 am:AnandI tried to send an email to this id with subject Google and emial body text “Retail industry IT trends”. I got the following response. Anything I missed?

Hi Shankar Viswanathan,You just mailed us. But we’re not sure we’ve been introduced, so here goes:We’re Mixamail.Mixamail lets you access Twitter via e-mail. This is useful if you have e-mail but not Internet access (e.g. on your BlackBerry).You haven’t yet logged in, but you can still search for public tweets. Mail twitter@mixamail.com with a subject “Search whatever-you-want”. We’ll reply with tweets mentioning whatever-you-want.But if you log in at http://www.mixamail.com and give Shankar_V05@infosys.com access to your Twitter account, you can read and update tweets too.Enjoy!Mixamailhttp://www.mixamail.com/
Aditya Deo 3 Jan 2011 12:22 pm: Ohh! So it’s developed by you? This service is terrific! :) Thanks!
Yasuro 3 May 2011 11:00 am: Is your service working? It worked beautifully with the sample query in your article, but when I tried “who is Obama,” I got “No search results.”
Yasuro 3 May 2011 9:52 am: Great service, Shankar. I have unlimited email on my Android cell phone, but not Internet in general. So this is precisely the kind of service I was looking for. I am wondering if you could create a separate email address for this, e.g., google@mixamail.com, so we can skip the step of inputting “Google” in the subject field. The email app my cell phone carrier supplies is flawed, so you cannot automatically fill the subject field. Because of the non-standard-conforming behavior of the email server of the carrier, that is the only app that you can use to send and/or receive emails; I cannot use any other email client. :( I’d appreciate it if you could consider it. Thank you. Yasuro

Google search in Tamil

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 12:00:00 +0000

When I wrote my Tamil song lyrics quizzes, I had two problems:

I can't write in Tamil (not on paper, nor on a computer)
I can't spell right in Tamil (ந vs ன, ர vs ற)

I overcame the first using a Tamil transliterator. I write in English, and you see it in Tamil.

The problem of ந vs ன was simple. ந occurs as the first letter of a word, and just before த. Nowhere else. (Is this always true?)

But ர vs ற can't be solved except through experience, and I'm short of that. So, rather than bother my family with every quiz, I used the wisdom of crowds. I googled both spellings of the word. The correct spelling has more Google hits than the incorrect one.

I did this so often, I made a Google gadget out of it.

Just type the word in English, click 'Search', and my gadget will search in tamil. It's amazing how much stuff there is in Tamil on the Web, from song lyrics to texts (thirukkuraL, for example).

You can add this gadget to:

your desktop (in the Search Gadgets box, type "http://www.s-anand.net/a/tamilsearchgadget.xml")
your website or blog (click here for the code)
Google Reader.

Here's the transliteration table:

Tamil	English
அ	a
ஆ	A or aa
இ	i
ஈ	I or ee
உ	u
ஊ	U or oo
எ	e
ஏ	E
ஐ	ai
ஒ	o
ஓ	O
ஔ	au
க	k or g
ங	n
ச	ch or s
ஜ	j
ஞ	n
ட	t or d
ண	N
த	th or dh
ந	n
ப	p or b
ம	m
ய	y
ர	r
ல	l
வ	v
ழ	zh
ள	L
ற	R
ஷ	sh
ஸ	S
ஹ	h

Comments

Madhu 7 Oct 2006 6:27 am: You should be at google:) and google is now considering buying youtube - remember when i posted a comment once, you said why will they buy:)
S Anand 7 Oct 2006 11:01 am: Yeah, I remember the comment. Good call! Guess YOU’re the one who should be at Google :-)
oskar lewis 7 Oct 2006 12:57 pm: I’ ve put some links on my blog that can help you translating… http://www.oskarlewis.com/weblog/archives/1317
Vasant 7 Oct 2006 5:39 pm: Hi, guess something’s wrong with your RSS feeds.. they don’t seem to reflect your latest posts
S Anand 7 Oct 2006 6:20 pm: Vasant, I subscribe to my own RSS feeds. They seem fine. Are you subscribing to http://feeds.feedburner.com/sanand? Which RSS reader are you using? And what’s the latest post you see?
Vasant 8 Oct 2006 4:43 am: I was subscribing to http://www.geocities.com/root_node/sanand.xml. Works fine with the other URL. Will change - Thanks
Madhu 9 Oct 2006 11:40 am: Not able to download the gadget though. not available in google gadgets as well. would you have a link? Hope google scans ur page and reports that youtube was my idea and look at my email and automatically send me an offer;)
S Anand 9 Oct 2006 12:02 pm: That’s funny, the links in the post work for me… This link should add it to your Google home page. Don’t think you can “download” it, though. You can at best add it to Google Desktop.
Madhu 12 Oct 2006 8:18 am: Ok. Am able to download it as a gadget though. It says add to webpage.
Madhu 17 Oct 2006 11:01 am: This is an interesting website - www.blinkx.com, unlike youtube and google video you can search for a variety of video sources here. Might be bought out by one of the GYM companies soon!
Kesavan.M 30 Oct 2006 10:05 am: Thanks.., No more words
Sudar 4 Jan 2007 10:15 am: It is fine that you did this gadget. I liked it very much. Any such project it pipeline. Can you give this transliteration table in table form?
Sanjai Gandhi 14 Feb 2007 1:53 pm: its a genius thing…amazing…
Sathuragiri vEL 26 Feb 2007 4:30 am: You can have a look at www.tise.velirs.com. We use a simialar approach but has made it more simpler.
saravanan 18 Mar 2007 5:10 am: please help me how to conducts seminar about liver enzymes in liver cancer help from introduction to conclution
ரவிசங்கர் 4 May 2007 5:25 pm: நல்ல Gadget. ஆனா, பலம்-பழம், கள - கல் போன்ற வேறுபாடுகளை அறிய இந்த கூகுள் அணுகுமுறை உதவாது :) தமிழ் அகரமுதலிகள் தான் உதவும். பார்க்க - http://blog.ravidreams.net/?p=152
thuvan 30 Oct 2008 12:29 pm: we can’t convert from Tamil word to English word
tamil priyan 21 May 2009 7:09 pm: Check out http://kandupidi.com/editor . It supports both google tranliteration as well as english phonetic typing as well which many people prefer. There is a gadget for this as well.
John Francis 25 Oct 2011 11:34 am: finding very hard to browse in tamil and i wish to have DEMO SCREEN TO download the steps to use them immeaditely

Where you host determines your page rank on Google

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Google’s dirty little secret talks about how Google determines whether your site appears on top for a search depending on whether you and the searcher are in the same geography or not. So if your server is in Kazakhstan, expect fewer hits.

Link to a Google search rather than a site

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 12:00:00 +0000

When you make a link, there’s no guarantee that the link will work 5 years later. Sites change their URL structure. I’m finding that many of my blog entries from 2000 are invalid.

Sometimes you want to link to a concept rather than a site. In such cases, it’s better to link to a Google query.

For example, rather than link to a site that defines SVG, I could link to the Google search define:SVG.

Rather than link to a tutorial on Excel array formulas, I could link to the Google search excel array formulas. I could even link to the first hit on Google for excel array formulas, mimicking the “I’m feeling lucky” button. This may change over time, but 5 years from now, it’ll still point to the most relevant link.

To link to the Google query for “excel array formulas”, just link to the URL http://www.google.com/search?q=excel+array+formulas. To link directly to the first result, add &btnI=I'm+Feeling+Lucky to the URL. (Linking to A9 is simpler: http://a9.com/excel+array+formulas)

PS: An alternative is to link to a permanent copy of the page from the Wayback machine (it has copies of my page all the way from May 2001 to Mar 2005). (You can’t use Google’s cache. When the site changes, the cache will soon change. But it’s a good defence against site downtime. Manually doing this is a lot of effort. Ideally, future browsers will automatically take you to the Wayback machine or the Google cache. (The Firefox plugins ErrorZilla and CacheIt come close.)

55 ways to have fun with Google

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 12:00:00 +0000

55 ways to have fun with Google.

Comments

Dhar 25 Jun 2006 7:59 am: Just finished the book, didn’t find it too interesting. :((
S Anand 25 Jun 2006 8:52 am: Me neither. :-(

Google Reader shared lists are tough to find

Tue, 16 May 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Though Google Reader learns to share, I haven’t found it easy to see what others are reading. Even a Google search for shared lists reveals very few.

Determine a sex by name

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Determine a sex by name. If you don’t know if a name is male or female, just search for the name on Google images. (e.g. “Priti”)

Comments

Umasuthan 18 Apr 2006 5:36 pm: That is not always true. Try ‘Kiran’
S Anand 18 Apr 2006 10:17 pm: You’re right. The article does warn of unisex names!

Improving pagerank

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Good guidelines on improving pagerank. via LazyGeek

Google search history bookmarks

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Now, Google search history lets you tag and bookmark.

Google search for meaning

Sat, 29 Jan 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Google’s search for meaning. Paul Vitanyi and Rudi Cilibrasi use Google to determine the similarity of words. (Pairs of words that get higher hits are more similar to each other.)

Problems with PageRank

Tue, 07 Oct 2003 12:00:00 +0000

Recognising the problems with PageRank. via RobotWisdom

Google goodies

Wed, 13 Aug 2003 12:00:00 +0000

Recent Google goodies: News alerts, Calculator, and the ~ operator. via GoogleBlog

Britney Spears spellings

Thu, 22 May 2003 12:00:00 +0000

The 591 spellings of Britney Spears on Google searches. What’s also interesting is to read the sites that have linked to the mis-spellings.

Google queries that lead to my site

Thu, 14 Nov 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Why am I the second hit on Google for queries like “arabic food’s pictures”, “wedding pictures in chennai in geocities”, and “iim grads future”?

Google search algorithm change

Wed, 02 Oct 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Reactions to Google’s revised search algorithm. People’s rankings on certain keywords appear to have changed. Mine hasn’t. So far.

I deliver movie tickets on the phone at Bandra

Sun, 23 Jun 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Fame has its ironical twists. I was searching in google for someone who could deliver movie tickets on the phone at Bandra. The irony is that my site landed up on top.

P.S: The title is sarcastic. I DO NOT deliver tickets. I’m a consultant, not a ticket distributor. So please don’t try to book your tickets in the comments section below!

Satish links to me

Sun, 23 Jun 2002 12:00:00 +0000

I take my post on 31st May back. Satish’s site links to mine.

Google my name

Mon, 06 May 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Never thought the day would come when the Google query S Anand would throw up my name first. Probably won’t last…

Google and blogs

Fri, 08 Mar 2002 12:00:00 +0000

The strong linkage between Google and blogs can lead to subversions like Googlebombing (more). The Church of Scientology is already using it.

Speaking of which, my weblog archive got a fair number of hits from the Google search for imdbpro password. I wondered why. Turns out that my archive joins IMDBPro and Metafilter as the only page that mentions the words IMDBPro and password!

google-search on S Anand

Google search via e-mail

Comments

Shankar V 29 Dec 2010 5:36 am:AnandI tried to send an email to this id with subject Google and emial body text “Retail industry IT trends”. I got the following response. Anything I missed?

Google search in Tamil

Comments

Where you host determines your page rank on Google

Link to a Google search rather than a site

55 ways to have fun with Google

Comments

Google Reader shared lists are tough to find

Determine a sex by name

Comments

Improving pagerank

Google search history bookmarks

Google search for meaning

Problems with PageRank

Google goodies

Britney Spears spellings

Google queries that lead to my site

Google search algorithm change

I deliver movie tickets on the phone at Bandra

Satish links to me

Google my name

Google and blogs