> Don't use Google search. This is easier said than done, as the other search engines are still not as good as Google, even though Google's results have been g

> Don't use Google search. This is easier said than done, as the other search engines are still not as good as Google, even though Google's results have been getting worse. This may be a controversial opinion, but it's not what my comment is about. I'm going to make a more scandalous suggestion. Don't use search engines at all. The idea that a centralized one-size-fits-all search engine is necessary is preposterous. The Web makes available all kinds of information, and unifying it all under a single data model is difficult, and doesn't even make sense. (Does anyone remember the semantic web?) Unifying the world's information behind a single search facade is likewise a Very Difficult Task (TM), one that's likely to fall into the trap of big business, as search has done, because the required resources are so huge. But what if it's solving the wrong problem? Information of a particular type tends to gravitate to local centers of storage, so to speak, which are specific to the type of information being stored. For example: - Encyclopedic knowledge is in Wikipedia. - You can find places by searching Foursquare, Yelp, Apple Maps, OSM, ... - Q&A about programming (and lots of other topics) is on StackExchange. - News aggregators have been beaten to death, and multiple are available. - You can search Twitter using Twitter, and Facebook using Facebook. I can go on, but the point is clear: every single Web-connected system offers a search function of its own, one that's likely specialized to the type of information stored in that system. It'll most certainly do a better job at searching that local store, and will do so more quickly and cheaply than a centralized, generic search engine. This also avoids the moral hazard of search centralization. This leaves the little guy: the random small website or blog, where the majority of true gems are found. Google locates these by sheer brute force: they literally index the entire web. They've taken a relative eternity to do so, but it's a problem that could have been solved by something better than mere force. Does anyone remember webrings? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring What if "the little guys" organized in webrings and directories? This doesn't seem like a technical problem, as a webring or directory is trivial to build. Could this be a UX problem that hasn't been solved to the satisfaction of a modern Web user? Is anyone or anything taking another stab at this? In closing, I'll throw out one last vague notion: that of an openly federated search. How cool would that be? We don't need Google for that at all.