[ih] Google's Usenet Archives...Broken?

[Guillaume Latzko-Toth]

I faced the same problem in my research: Google Groups search feature 
is disappointing. To the point I suspect it is on purpose... 
Whatever, here is a turn-around, that worked well for me. If an 
archive exists for the group, for a specific period, you can browse 
the posts by month, by using this URL format :

<http://groups.google.com/group/rec.antiques/browse_frm/month/1995-01>http://groups.google.com/group/<groupname>/browse_frm/month/YYYY-MM 


where <groupname> is the name of the group (ex: rec.antique), YYYY is 
the year, and MM the month (for instance: 1995-01). So, with my 
example, the URL would be: 
<http://groups.google.com/group/rec.antiques/browse_frm/month/1995-01>http://groups.google.com/group/rec.antiques/browse_frm/month/1995-01 


You can then browse back (or forth) month by month or year by year by 
manually changing the date in the URL. I tested the method with 
comp.protocols.dns.std, and found that it was created in September 1996 (see:
<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.protocols.dns.std/browse_frm/month/1996-09>http://groups.google.com/group/comp.protocols.dns.std/browse_frm/month/1996-09).

I would be very interested in reading other experiences with (and 
tips for) Usenet archives exploration...

Regards,
Guillaume Latzko-Toth


>All:
>Has anyone been able to successfully search Google's Usenet 
>archives?  I am able to get basic results through browsing, but 
>anytime I try to put in a specific search it returns no results 
>(even when there are *definitely* results).  Trying to sort or 
>search by date is the biggest problem.  I can get access to a group 
>(such as comp.protocols.dns.std), but it lists from the most recent 
>posts first.  The "list by oldest" filter doesn't work, and I cannot 
>possibly click "Older" enough times to go through 30k posts.
>
>The last time I was able to perform good searches was back in 
>September.  I found a Wired article that addresses this at the end 
>of the past year, and commented that Google had fixed or was fixing 
>the problem, but I still can't make any productive use of this system.
>
>This Usenet archive should be a vital component of my research, if I 
>can get to it.  Are there any other Usenet archives that go back to 
>the early 80s other than Google?  I was under the impression that 
>Google was the only one.
>
>--
>Eric Gade