15 ms·

In my experience, Wikipedia has been relegated lower and lower in search results. So much so that I now specifically use their search tool rather than go throu

by pyrale 7y ago

In my experience, Wikipedia has been relegated lower and lower in search results. So much so that I now specifically use their search tool rather than go through google just in case some interesting thing pops up.

CalChris 7y ago
I would love to be able to overrule Google and always sort Wikipedia as the first result. Maybe this can be done with a browser extension.
jethro_tell 7y ago
I use duckduckgo, and for the most part, you know what you are searching for so the !tags are really good. !w search term, just takes you right to wikipedea. When I really have no ideal what or where I'm looking for something, I still find myself looking on google a bit, but for the most part, !youtube, !arch, !git, !stack, get me exactly what I want about 99 percent of the time. Check it out, because it sounds like it might start to match your workflow: https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q= https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=
- takeda 7y ago
  For YouTube you can use !yt, much shorter.
- wolco 7y ago
  Is there a shorter domain name for ddg?
  - dole 7y ago
    Duck.com?
  - runarberg 7y ago
    https://duck.com https://duck.com Should redirect you.
  - qilo 7y ago
    There is a https://ddg.gg https://ddg.gg which redirects to the main domain, so I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for.
BigJono 7y ago
Which is complete fucking bullshit. It's driving me mental that when I search for something, Wikipedia usually isn't on the front page. It's almost always the best result for most things, it should be on top.
- rawoke083600 7y ago
  Shouldn't you then just go to wikipedia and search there ? You know to stop the "F* bullshit" and "save your mental state" ?
  - ehnto 7y ago
    You are perhaps joking but that has been my tack for a while now. Having specific sites I use to search through. I used to web search the pick from the offerings presented, not caring what site it was so long as it had the information I needed. But now I really value a good website that respects UX and good, honest content with low commercial influence.
  - dlkf 7y ago
    Wikipedia's search is totally inferior to google. It requires correct spelling within one or two edit distances and the SERP is far less informative. This is a common enough action that those seconds add up. If ddg wants to be competitive they need to fix this.
  - lostgame 7y ago
    Wait, what? Google used to put the Wiki article right at the top of the results list. It virtually never does that anymore. This is what's bullshit. The point of a good search engine is that it is supposed to conglomerate good results, relevant results - let's say I'm looking up 'Phillip J. Fry' from 'Futurama', but I still want wiki information. Wikipedia won't even spellcheck for you if you don't know how to spell something correctly, like a city name. If I use a search engine, I'll get this Wikipedia result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Fry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Fry But I will also get the far more informative Futurama-wiki result: https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_J._Fry https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_J._Fry Wikipedia is not a search engine. Although, at this point, Google is barely one, so plastered with sponsored results it can be hard to find the result you're looking for, and with this change, I've finally made the long-needed jump to DuckDuckGo. Yes, it's time to 'stop the fucking bullshit', and save all our mental states - searching Wiki isn't going to solve that - but not using Google can help. ;) Comparing a search engine to wikipedia search is like comparing a search engine to a local file search. If you're looking for a specific driver on your computer that you know the exact spelling and version number of, a local file search will help you find that. A search engine will return many results with download links as well as potentially other drivers, or other versions of drivers for your product - and will generally forgive you if you misspell something.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
Having to search for “xxxxxxx wiki” more and more now. No I don’t want Healthline and Medicinenet links above the Wikipedia entry, thank you Google. I wish by each search result there was a button that said “banish this domain to oblivion, I never want to see it again.” You could improve search really fast that way if you still cared about things like that.
- randycupertino 7y ago
  I do the same thing when looking for product reviews or useful discussion- generally put "xxxx forum" or "xxxx reddit" etc.
- adelpozo 7y ago
  There used to be such feature in the results page. I just went looking for it and I got 'Cached' and 'Similar' when I click in the little drop-down arrow. Nice feature that appears to be removed. How does removing that feature benefited the users?
  - marcan_42 7y ago
    It used to be an extension (an official one from Google, Personal Blocklist). It was never part of the vanilla search results page itself.
    - ComputerGuru 7y ago
      No, it used to be part of the official results before the personal blocklist extension ever existed. Then some features were removed from the search results and then partially reimplemented in that extension.
      - goodmachine 7y ago
        Personal Blocklist by Google has been forked and reimplemented by a number of people: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklistnot-by/cbbbhelcpfjhdcncigdlkabmjbgokmpg?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...
svcraig 7y ago
Wikipedia seeming to lose relevance is like my old high school teachers finally getting their way over a decade later... Do you find their search tool more effective than appending "wikipedia" to your Google search?
- takeda 7y ago
  I think it's Google's work to deprioritize them on other search engines it is still showing up at first DDG gives it special treatment, by highlighting its summary, which is often what I'm looking for.
- pyrale 7y ago
  At this point I have moved to another search tool as my baseline. I also use hoogle a lot for work so I'm used to switching search tool.
wolco 7y ago
I remember a thread where everyone complained over too many wikipedia results popping up. Now we complain the other way.
mlang23 7y ago
I noticed that as well over the years. Also, one thing that really drives me crazy is that Google is trying to steer me into using the german wikipedia, even though I am already explicitly searching for the english article name. I really prefer reading the english version for techie topics, no matter if there might be an article in my native language. This is the sort of "smart" behaviour that really feels dumb.

by pyrale 7y ago

CalChris 7y ago

I would love to be able to overrule Google and always sort Wikipedia as the first result. Maybe this can be done with a browser extension.

jethro_tell 7y ago

I use duckduckgo, and for the most part, you know what you are searching for so the !tags are really good. !w search term, just takes you right to wikipedea. When I really have no ideal what or where I'm looking for something, I still find myself looking on google a bit, but for the most part, !youtube, !arch, !git, !stack, get me exactly what I want about 99 percent of the time. Check it out, because it sounds like it might start to match your workflow: https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q= https://duckduckgo.com/bang?q=

takeda 7y ago
For YouTube you can use !yt, much shorter.
wolco 7y ago
Is there a shorter domain name for ddg?
- dole 7y ago
  Duck.com?
- runarberg 7y ago
  https://duck.com https://duck.com Should redirect you.
- qilo 7y ago
  There is a https://ddg.gg https://ddg.gg which redirects to the main domain, so I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for.

BigJono 7y ago

Which is complete fucking bullshit. It's driving me mental that when I search for something, Wikipedia usually isn't on the front page. It's almost always the best result for most things, it should be on top.

rawoke083600 7y ago
Shouldn't you then just go to wikipedia and search there ? You know to stop the "F* bullshit" and "save your mental state" ?
- ehnto 7y ago
  You are perhaps joking but that has been my tack for a while now. Having specific sites I use to search through. I used to web search the pick from the offerings presented, not caring what site it was so long as it had the information I needed. But now I really value a good website that respects UX and good, honest content with low commercial influence.
- dlkf 7y ago
  Wikipedia's search is totally inferior to google. It requires correct spelling within one or two edit distances and the SERP is far less informative. This is a common enough action that those seconds add up. If ddg wants to be competitive they need to fix this.
- lostgame 7y ago
  Wait, what? Google used to put the Wiki article right at the top of the results list. It virtually never does that anymore. This is what's bullshit. The point of a good search engine is that it is supposed to conglomerate good results, relevant results - let's say I'm looking up 'Phillip J. Fry' from 'Futurama', but I still want wiki information. Wikipedia won't even spellcheck for you if you don't know how to spell something correctly, like a city name. If I use a search engine, I'll get this Wikipedia result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Fry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_J._Fry But I will also get the far more informative Futurama-wiki result: https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_J._Fry https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Philip_J._Fry Wikipedia is not a search engine. Although, at this point, Google is barely one, so plastered with sponsored results it can be hard to find the result you're looking for, and with this change, I've finally made the long-needed jump to DuckDuckGo. Yes, it's time to 'stop the fucking bullshit', and save all our mental states - searching Wiki isn't going to solve that - but not using Google can help. ;) Comparing a search engine to wikipedia search is like comparing a search engine to a local file search. If you're looking for a specific driver on your computer that you know the exact spelling and version number of, a local file search will help you find that. A search engine will return many results with download links as well as potentially other drivers, or other versions of drivers for your product - and will generally forgive you if you misspell something.

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

Having to search for “xxxxxxx wiki” more and more now. No I don’t want Healthline and Medicinenet links above the Wikipedia entry, thank you Google. I wish by each search result there was a button that said “banish this domain to oblivion, I never want to see it again.” You could improve search really fast that way if you still cared about things like that.

randycupertino 7y ago
I do the same thing when looking for product reviews or useful discussion- generally put "xxxx forum" or "xxxx reddit" etc.
adelpozo 7y ago
There used to be such feature in the results page. I just went looking for it and I got 'Cached' and 'Similar' when I click in the little drop-down arrow. Nice feature that appears to be removed. How does removing that feature benefited the users?
- marcan_42 7y ago
  It used to be an extension (an official one from Google, Personal Blocklist). It was never part of the vanilla search results page itself.
  - ComputerGuru 7y ago
    No, it used to be part of the official results before the personal blocklist extension ever existed. Then some features were removed from the search results and then partially reimplemented in that extension.
    - goodmachine 7y ago
      Personal Blocklist by Google has been forked and reimplemented by a number of people: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklistnot-by/cbbbhelcpfjhdcncigdlkabmjbgokmpg?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personal-blocklist...

svcraig 7y ago

Wikipedia seeming to lose relevance is like my old high school teachers finally getting their way over a decade later... Do you find their search tool more effective than appending "wikipedia" to your Google search?

takeda 7y ago
I think it's Google's work to deprioritize them on other search engines it is still showing up at first DDG gives it special treatment, by highlighting its summary, which is often what I'm looking for.
pyrale 7y ago
At this point I have moved to another search tool as my baseline. I also use hoogle a lot for work so I'm used to switching search tool.

wolco 7y ago

I remember a thread where everyone complained over too many wikipedia results popping up. Now we complain the other way.

mlang23 7y ago

I noticed that as well over the years. Also, one thing that really drives me crazy is that Google is trying to steer me into using the german wikipedia, even though I am already explicitly searching for the english article name. I really prefer reading the english version for techie topics, no matter if there might be an article in my native language. This is the sort of "smart" behaviour that really feels dumb.