2 ms·

We really should bring back OpenSearch which is/was a way for sites to expose a search URL to browsers (like RSS URLs). You'd then directly query those sites ra

We really should bring back OpenSearch which is/was a way for sites to expose a search URL to browsers (like RSS URLs). You'd then directly query those sites rather than going to the middleman (Google or other search engines). Only that sites exposing OpenSearch URLs probably aren't prepared to be queried by meta crawlers and huge query loads will bring them down rather quickly I guess. The quality of search results on both Google and alternatives is shockingly poor; I can't find documents I used to find only three years ago. I, too, wonder if Google has just lost interest in fighting SEO spam. But I find it hard to believe that they aren't all over their cash cow so I have to conclude they send you to the sites with the most AdWords and Google analytics crap on purpose. At which point Google's search results can be used as a pretty good negative filter I guess ;) Interesting times ahead for search engines.

myfonj 6y ago
Site search provided by author seems like the best option on the first glance, but sadly in my experience those in-house full-text searches are most of the times way inferior than simple `site:` limited google search. If not in relevance then in speed -- I think it is understandable, one could hardly compete with Google in this field. Two genuine anecdotal experiences: - MDN search used to be super slow, and to this days its results page is not super nice and still slower than Google: In-site: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=mutationObserver https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=mutationObserve... Google scoped: https://www.google.com/search?lr=lang_en&q=mutationObserver%20site:developer.mozilla.org https://www.google.com/search?lr=lang_en&q=mutationObserver%... - jQuery API docs search felt the same: slow and slightly confusing compared to GSERP. (Much better now with Algolia, but still prefer Google: In-site: https://api.jquery.com/?s=off https://api.jquery.com/?s=off Google scoped: https://www.google.com/search?q=off%20site:api.jquery.com https://www.google.com/search?q=off%20site:api.jquery.com

myfonj 6y ago

Site search provided by author seems like the best option on the first glance, but sadly in my experience those in-house full-text searches are most of the times way inferior than simple `site:` limited google search. If not in relevance then in speed -- I think it is understandable, one could hardly compete with Google in this field. Two genuine anecdotal experiences: - MDN search used to be super slow, and to this days its results page is not super nice and still slower than Google: In-site: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=mutationObserver https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/search?q=mutationObserve... Google scoped: https://www.google.com/search?lr=lang_en&q=mutationObserver%20site:developer.mozilla.org https://www.google.com/search?lr=lang_en&q=mutationObserver%... - jQuery API docs search felt the same: slow and slightly confusing compared to GSERP. (Much better now with Algolia, but still prefer Google: In-site: https://api.jquery.com/?s=off https://api.jquery.com/?s=off Google scoped: https://www.google.com/search?q=off%20site:api.jquery.com https://www.google.com/search?q=off%20site:api.jquery.com