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There's a qualitative difference somewhere there. I'd still prefer the river crossing to come top, but recognise that's just me.

In both of these cases you can get google to do what you prefer by typing "define" in front.

"define ford" shows a dictionary definition of ford before all results, "define stack overflow" shows a link to wikipedia before all results.

Not really, as all the results are then about the definition. Definitions, then popular sites, then whatever else, IMHO, would be quite useful.

Of course with the imprecise and constantly moving nature of language this is not easy.