The Register: "'I found your article on Google’s limited results kind of strange, so I ran the search myself, and was able to browse all of the returned results. The catch? I was using Opera (specifically, its built-in search box). I have since tried the Google search from Google’s home page using various browsers and got the same results you did.'

'It boggles the mind – the only difference with Opera’s search is that it adds a tag telling Google that the search request came from Opera. Why would that turn off Google’s anti-blog filter? I don’t know, but don’t let Google know or they may screw that up as well!' "


Google gossip
Mercury News | 05/04/2003 | Inside Google: "While they dream, Brin and Page also keep their eyes on the details: They use software to tally, to the second, how much money the firm is raking in.
They said the free, healthy meals only came about after calculating the time saved from driving off-site and reduced health care costs. There's even a Webcam trained on the cafeteria lunch line, so employees can avoid a long wait.
While most of the tech world buzzes about an IPO, Google's founders hold firm to their technological ambitions -- building, in Page's words, ``the ultimate search engine.''
``It would understand exactly what you type and would give you the right things back,'' said Page. ``We're pretty good, but we're nowhere close to being perfect. We won't be for a long time.''"

To understand is so very, very different from phrase matching or link popularity...