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Does anyone here think we need a search engine which lets us maintain large blacklists of websites. For example, if I am searching for information about airbnb,

by rgovind 11y ago

Does anyone here think we need a search engine which lets us maintain large blacklists of websites. For example, if I am searching for information about airbnb, I do not want news websites like NY Times, WSJ, Forbes, Business standard etc to show up in the results at all. Any business related question on India is invariable dominated by Times of India and other newspapers. With google, its becoming increasingly difficult to filter out websites. Edit: Changed "on airbnb" to "about airbnb"

legitster 11y ago
Check out chrome extension "Personal Blocklist"
- rgovind 11y ago
  Personal blocklist does not filter results at Google's algo level. It works at javascript level. So, its not really useful.
  - legitster 11y ago
    If I understand correctly, it takes the domains and includes them in an exclusion query on every search. So it does work on an algorithm level. For the use case you described it would work. You could also simply use the search operator site:airbnb.com
- alxndr 11y ago
  I had used that extension for ages to prevent w3schools from appearing in my search results, but removed it when I eventually got tired of seeing search results jump around. (Because the extension works on a JS level, it needs to wait for the results page to load before it can strip out what you want to hide. Too often I'd see the results page begin drawing quickly, with a couple w3schools results at the top of the results, and my eyes would scan down to find the first non-w3schools result; then a second later, in the middle of finding the first such result, the w3schools results would be removed, and the non-w3schools result which I'd finally found and was about to click on has moved.)
  - yxlx 11y ago
    I used that extension for the same reason you did and like you I removed it because it was annoying. What I started doing instead when on a new computer is I'll include mdn in the query when it's web related so i'd search js history mdn and such and after a while Google learns that I value results from mdn highly so when I search even without saying mdn, those results come up high in the results. For example when I now search for just js history, the first result for me is "Manipulating the browser history - Web APIs | MDN". The Google search bubble is powerful and can be harmful in some ways but once you learn of its existence and are careful about what results you click, it will work for you in a great way. I am still uncomfortable with the amount of stuff Google knows about me. I sometimes try ddg or even yahoo or bing but they're not as good.
    - alxndr 11y ago
      To achieve the same result, I've now got a browser shortcut (aka omnibox search engine) for an "I Feel Lucky" Google search restricted to the MDN site for whatever keywords I'm looking for. This means I type "mdn js history" and Chrome picks up the "mdn" prefix to use my shortcut, expands it into https://www.google.com/search?q=site:developer.mozilla.org+js+history&btnI https://www.google.com/search?q=site:developer.mozilla.org+j... and I end up on the same page you mention. (The "feeling lucky" search isn't perfect, but it's usually good enough for me...)

by rgovind 11y ago

legitster 11y ago

Check out chrome extension "Personal Blocklist"

rgovind 11y ago
Personal blocklist does not filter results at Google's algo level. It works at javascript level. So, its not really useful.
- legitster 11y ago
  If I understand correctly, it takes the domains and includes them in an exclusion query on every search. So it does work on an algorithm level. For the use case you described it would work. You could also simply use the search operator site:airbnb.com
alxndr 11y ago
I had used that extension for ages to prevent w3schools from appearing in my search results, but removed it when I eventually got tired of seeing search results jump around. (Because the extension works on a JS level, it needs to wait for the results page to load before it can strip out what you want to hide. Too often I'd see the results page begin drawing quickly, with a couple w3schools results at the top of the results, and my eyes would scan down to find the first non-w3schools result; then a second later, in the middle of finding the first such result, the w3schools results would be removed, and the non-w3schools result which I'd finally found and was about to click on has moved.)
- yxlx 11y ago
  I used that extension for the same reason you did and like you I removed it because it was annoying. What I started doing instead when on a new computer is I'll include mdn in the query when it's web related so i'd search js history mdn and such and after a while Google learns that I value results from mdn highly so when I search even without saying mdn, those results come up high in the results. For example when I now search for just js history, the first result for me is "Manipulating the browser history - Web APIs | MDN". The Google search bubble is powerful and can be harmful in some ways but once you learn of its existence and are careful about what results you click, it will work for you in a great way. I am still uncomfortable with the amount of stuff Google knows about me. I sometimes try ddg or even yahoo or bing but they're not as good.
  - alxndr 11y ago
    To achieve the same result, I've now got a browser shortcut (aka omnibox search engine) for an "I Feel Lucky" Google search restricted to the MDN site for whatever keywords I'm looking for. This means I type "mdn js history" and Chrome picks up the "mdn" prefix to use my shortcut, expands it into https://www.google.com/search?q=site:developer.mozilla.org+js+history&btnI https://www.google.com/search?q=site:developer.mozilla.org+j... and I end up on the same page you mention. (The "feeling lucky" search isn't perfect, but it's usually good enough for me...)