5 ms·

This is a great question, I also want a way to search the internet but exclude all major media domains as well as any company over a certain size. So I just wan

by noad 6y ago

This is a great question, I also want a way to search the internet but exclude all major media domains as well as any company over a certain size. So I just want to search through old blogs, SO, non-corporate social media, weird forums, etc. There are so many cool things I remember reading on the web like 10-20 years ago that still exist that are so buried now on Google they might as well not exist. Nowadays searching any topic seems to always lead you to CNN and Microsoft and Facebook and other huge corporations. Search results are just becoming more sanitized and beige and meaningless every day.

lazyjones 6y ago
This is somewhat ironic because 20 years ago, hobbyists would frequently put their obscure personal pages on Geocities and other large corporation's web space.
- wolco 6y ago
  Memory can be foggy but the most useful were hosted on university pages or random folders off a random domains or you get a subdomain. I picked the username 'search' which gave me search.batcave.net which worked great until one day they just took over the subdomain for a site wide search. They were confused when I complained. Sure people hosted on geocities and tripod and they were the biggest and easiest to remember. But quality of a geocities page compared to a mit student page was much lower.
- CalRobert 6y ago
  20 years ago, it was extremely common for your ISP to give you 5MB or whatever of space to use. users.ispname.com/~yourname or whatever. It was great, tbh, since anyone with cuteftp and notepad could publish to the world.
  - ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
    Still common now, at least in Australia. My ISP gives me 1GB if hosting for a website and 10 mailboxes.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Scoundreller 6y ago
Heh, I was trying to do research on coronaviruses (of which COVID-19 is one of many coronaviruses), but Google sanitized the result and only showed me "official" COVID-19 resources and buried the broader coronavirus resources. https://www.google.com/search?q=coronavirus https://www.google.com/search?q=coronavirus
- stolenmerch 6y ago
  COVID-19 isn't a coronavirus, it's the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
  - ganstyles 6y ago
    Giving you the benefit of the doubt, and assuming this isn't just pedantry, especially since you're getting downvotes (because I assume everyone thinks this is just pedantic correction) I looked it up. In the context of "trying to do research on coronaviruses" your comment appears to be not only correct but an important distinction, rather than the pedantry it appears to be. From Wikipedia: "...more lethal varieties [of coronaviruses] can cause SARS, MERS, and COVID-19." And... "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2] is the strain of coronavirus..." I learned something today!
    - ccheney 6y ago
      I also had this epiphany awhile back and what helped me understand the difference was to think about how HIV (the virus) causes AIDS (the disease).
    - teamspirit 6y ago
      Further, CoViD-19 literally stands for: Co[rona] Vi[rus] D[isease] - [discovered in 20]19 - "D" standing for disease caused by this particular strain. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed when I found out, though I admit now it's a little refreshing to have be so simply named.
      - Theodores 6y ago
chris_f 6y ago
If you are looking for a forum search, check out https://boardreader.com/ https://boardreader.com/. I have a theory that web crawling alone is not the best way forward to find the most relevant results because of the volume of content continually being created, much of which is niche and sometimes dynamic. Instead I believe linking together vertical search sources that have targeted information based on search intent will provide better results. I created Runnaroo [0] for that purpose. If you search a programing question, it will pull traditional organic results from Google, but it will also directly query Stack Overflow for a deeper search. [0] https://www.runnaroo.com https://www.runnaroo.com
- scottlocklin 6y ago
  This is really good! https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=J+apply+verb https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=J+apply+verb versus google's completely useless: https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&q=J+apply+verb&oq=J+apply+verb https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&q=J+apply+verb&oq=... Everyone else, get in here: this is top notch stuff.
dorkwood 6y ago
For years, my trick for finding interesting content was to go to, say, the 7th page of Google results, and start there. This doesn't work anymore -- it's SEO-optimised listicle blog posts all the way down. My trick now is to use Twitter to discover interesting people, and follow them there. Granted, it's not a search engine, but it's at least given me the ability to discover weird things again.
- gbin 6y ago
  I agree on the original issue but social media tailored to people's own bubble is probably not a good source for enlightenment either...
  - dorkwood 6y ago
    I think it depends how you use it. One of the things I enjoy doing on Twitter is posting up something I'm working on, and then clicking through to all the profiles of the people who like, comment, or retweet my work. I stumble across an incredibly diverse range of people by doing this, many with conflicting opinions to my own, and many who belong to strange subcultures that I don't understand, but who were all drawn to my work for one reason or another. I think there's definitely a danger of crafting a bubble for yourself if you choose to use it that way, but as a tool for discovering people making cool stuff who otherwise wouldn't cut through the noise on something like Google search, I haven't found anything better.
- tomaskafka 6y ago
  Many times I have thought about what could happen if Twitter asked you to recommend up to 3-5 people you value, and write a tweet-sized (or shorted) recommendation. Over time you would get a 'pagerank for people' and could do awesome stuff with that, like 'You don't know XYZ, but 3 people you trust trust her, and this is what they tell about her:' ...
  - halfdan 6y ago
    Until that gets screwed using social engineering and people optimising for being affiliated with people writing them good reviews.
ryandrake 6y ago
If there was a way to simply exclude from searches: shopping, news, images, videos, and “listicles”, I think that would get us most of the way. Especially shopping. The endless stores are the worst part of search results. If I search for anything that remotely looks like a product, the results are just choked with store after store trying to sell me the thing. Awful.
- type0 6y ago
  If you do your own search engine like that, implementing rules that block affiliated commerce blogs from appearing would help alot.
fedede 6y ago
Hey! I actually liked this idea and I'm considering starting a learning project on it. I've seen a lot of interest and ideas in the comments, and decided to create a very short Google form to start gathering all the interested people so we can organise something interesing. Is anybody in? :) https://forms.gle/5KuTYVdYaMzRD2n78 https://forms.gle/5KuTYVdYaMzRD2n78

by noad 6y ago

lazyjones 6y ago

This is somewhat ironic because 20 years ago, hobbyists would frequently put their obscure personal pages on Geocities and other large corporation's web space.

wolco 6y ago
Memory can be foggy but the most useful were hosted on university pages or random folders off a random domains or you get a subdomain. I picked the username 'search' which gave me search.batcave.net which worked great until one day they just took over the subdomain for a site wide search. They were confused when I complained. Sure people hosted on geocities and tripod and they were the biggest and easiest to remember. But quality of a geocities page compared to a mit student page was much lower.
CalRobert 6y ago
20 years ago, it was extremely common for your ISP to give you 5MB or whatever of space to use. users.ispname.com/~yourname or whatever. It was great, tbh, since anyone with cuteftp and notepad could publish to the world.
- ObsoleteNerd 6y ago
  Still common now, at least in Australia. My ISP gives me 1GB if hosting for a website and 10 mailboxes.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Scoundreller 6y ago

Heh, I was trying to do research on coronaviruses (of which COVID-19 is one of many coronaviruses), but Google sanitized the result and only showed me "official" COVID-19 resources and buried the broader coronavirus resources. https://www.google.com/search?q=coronavirus https://www.google.com/search?q=coronavirus

stolenmerch 6y ago
COVID-19 isn't a coronavirus, it's the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
- ganstyles 6y ago
  Giving you the benefit of the doubt, and assuming this isn't just pedantry, especially since you're getting downvotes (because I assume everyone thinks this is just pedantic correction) I looked it up. In the context of "trying to do research on coronaviruses" your comment appears to be not only correct but an important distinction, rather than the pedantry it appears to be. From Wikipedia: "...more lethal varieties [of coronaviruses] can cause SARS, MERS, and COVID-19." And... "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2] is the strain of coronavirus..." I learned something today!
  - ccheney 6y ago
    I also had this epiphany awhile back and what helped me understand the difference was to think about how HIV (the virus) causes AIDS (the disease).
  - teamspirit 6y ago
    Further, CoViD-19 literally stands for: Co[rona] Vi[rus] D[isease] - [discovered in 20]19 - "D" standing for disease caused by this particular strain. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed when I found out, though I admit now it's a little refreshing to have be so simply named.
    - Theodores 6y ago

chris_f 6y ago

If you are looking for a forum search, check out https://boardreader.com/ https://boardreader.com/. I have a theory that web crawling alone is not the best way forward to find the most relevant results because of the volume of content continually being created, much of which is niche and sometimes dynamic. Instead I believe linking together vertical search sources that have targeted information based on search intent will provide better results. I created Runnaroo [0] for that purpose. If you search a programing question, it will pull traditional organic results from Google, but it will also directly query Stack Overflow for a deeper search. [0] https://www.runnaroo.com https://www.runnaroo.com

scottlocklin 6y ago
This is really good! https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=J+apply+verb https://www.runnaroo.com/search?term=J+apply+verb versus google's completely useless: https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&q=J+apply+verb&oq=J+apply+verb https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&q=J+apply+verb&oq=... Everyone else, get in here: this is top notch stuff.

dorkwood 6y ago

For years, my trick for finding interesting content was to go to, say, the 7th page of Google results, and start there. This doesn't work anymore -- it's SEO-optimised listicle blog posts all the way down. My trick now is to use Twitter to discover interesting people, and follow them there. Granted, it's not a search engine, but it's at least given me the ability to discover weird things again.

gbin 6y ago
I agree on the original issue but social media tailored to people's own bubble is probably not a good source for enlightenment either...
- dorkwood 6y ago
  I think it depends how you use it. One of the things I enjoy doing on Twitter is posting up something I'm working on, and then clicking through to all the profiles of the people who like, comment, or retweet my work. I stumble across an incredibly diverse range of people by doing this, many with conflicting opinions to my own, and many who belong to strange subcultures that I don't understand, but who were all drawn to my work for one reason or another. I think there's definitely a danger of crafting a bubble for yourself if you choose to use it that way, but as a tool for discovering people making cool stuff who otherwise wouldn't cut through the noise on something like Google search, I haven't found anything better.
tomaskafka 6y ago
Many times I have thought about what could happen if Twitter asked you to recommend up to 3-5 people you value, and write a tweet-sized (or shorted) recommendation. Over time you would get a 'pagerank for people' and could do awesome stuff with that, like 'You don't know XYZ, but 3 people you trust trust her, and this is what they tell about her:' ...
- halfdan 6y ago
  Until that gets screwed using social engineering and people optimising for being affiliated with people writing them good reviews.

ryandrake 6y ago

If there was a way to simply exclude from searches: shopping, news, images, videos, and “listicles”, I think that would get us most of the way. Especially shopping. The endless stores are the worst part of search results. If I search for anything that remotely looks like a product, the results are just choked with store after store trying to sell me the thing. Awful.

type0 6y ago
If you do your own search engine like that, implementing rules that block affiliated commerce blogs from appearing would help alot.

fedede 6y ago

Hey! I actually liked this idea and I'm considering starting a learning project on it. I've seen a lot of interest and ideas in the comments, and decided to create a very short Google form to start gathering all the interested people so we can organise something interesing. Is anybody in? :) https://forms.gle/5KuTYVdYaMzRD2n78 https://forms.gle/5KuTYVdYaMzRD2n78