5 ms·

The other day I was searching for a specific kind of jewelry and realized I don't know of a search engine that can do what I needed, which is to just find good

The other day I was searching for a specific kind of jewelry and realized I don't know of a search engine that can do what I needed, which is to just find good results for my search. Searches for jewelry-related keywords triggered Google to go 90+% ads, and their results (and other search engines' results) were so junked up with spam and the same couple sites over and over that they were useless. We're back to the Web needing a search engine. [EDIT] I should add that the ads Google was showing me didn't even do a very good job of showing me the very specific kind of thing I was looking for, even though there must be thousands of stores around the world selling pieces that fit the keywords. The ads were for jewelry, but most of them weren't anything like what I was trying to find. In this case an entire page of ads but all from different sites and mostly the thing I was looking for would have been better than nothing, but it couldn't even do that.

discreditable 5y ago
I know normal people would never use it but I sorely wish there was a way for me to just grep the web instead of using "search" as offered by Google et al.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  You don't have anywhere near the disposable funds that would be required to "grep the web" on your behalf.
  - demosito666 5y ago
    One could argue that the initial trigram-based google search is essentially "grep for the web" in terms of the results it provides.
entropie 5y ago
> We're back to the Web needing a search engine. I feel like that this has not changed the last 20 years. Yes - google was at some point like a miracle that seemed to solve lots of problems around searching the www for information. While google "refined" its search and monetarized it the web still evolved and is evolving to something.. different. Many of websites most people already know, competing around google top rankings and ad revenue; there are even people dedicated to "make $website more visible to the web (what they really mean is google)" for lots of money while the real internet goes on in the background. We need more ways to search the web. We need lots of different search engines that are competing and working together also. The web is still young and no one really knows what it will be in the future. (I fear it has to do with ads. Lots. Of. Ads)
- mrkramer 5y ago
  >The web is still young and no one really knows what it will be in the future. My fear is that walled gardens might win in the future because who guarantees you that websites won't move to Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Slack and Discord channels etc. Open web is weaker than ever just look at LinkedIn; walled garden, throws you Register form in the face when you try to access it and won't let anybody crawl or scrape their content except Google who drives more traffic to their walled garden.
CodeGlitch 5y ago
Am I the only one who just skips the search engines and go straight to the source? If I want factual information, I just go to Wikipedia and use their search. If I want to shop I'll go to respected online stores and again use their inbuilt search feature. Obviously I've just built up a list of good sites in my head which I trust... Google search is good for discoverability if you're new to the web I guess? Although in the old days that's what web directories where good for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_directories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_directories
- forbiddenvoid 5y ago
  > Google search is good for discoverability if you're new to the web I guess? This is almost certainly not true. I don't think kids (who make up the vast majority of 'new to the web') care about using Google for discoverability. They'll use YouTube, Twitch and Instagram to find things they care about. Google is for answering questions, not finding new things. And honestly, it's not generally that good at answering questions. Source: my 10-year old.
- pkamb 5y ago
  It's much easier to type "searchterm" or "searchterm wiki" in your web browser address bar and then click through to the Wikipedia result than it is to first navigate to every individual site and use their non-standard search bar.
  - CodeGlitch 5y ago
    By my calculations it's one less click. Is that going to save you that much in your lifetime to get you better* results? *better = more predictable in my case
  - MiddleEndian 5y ago
    I just have https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s&title=Special:Search https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s&title=Special... bookmarked with the keyboard shortcut `w` So `w fish` will produce `https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=fish&title=Special:Search https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=fish&title=Speci...` which auto-forwards to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish
billbrown 5y ago
I've found Brave Search[1] and Kagi Search[2] to be great alternatives to Google. I know exactly the sort of thing you're describing and both of them are a breath of fresh air in the space. [1] https://search.brave.com/ https://search.brave.com/ [2] Beta at the moment - https://kagi.com/ https://kagi.com/
- billbrown 5y ago
  The Kagi founder just posted this to Twitter, which illustrates what I was saying perfectly: https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1494076266508537858 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1494076266508537858
Trung0246 5y ago
Usually I've search for "gemology terms" or "gem cut types" first then I've mix and match those keyword until I get desired result
visarga 5y ago
They have the buyer ready to buy and still missed the sale because they wanted to make a profit on ads. How ironic. And this kind of experience probably turns a lot of buyers off from using Google search. We don't need your unrelated ads, we already know what to buy, don't patronize us. We need help getting to the product page from keywords. We need real reviews. We need a shopping experience we can trust.
- brimble 5y ago
  That was the craziest part to me. I was interested in both products and information, and despite deciding it was a good idea to show me almost nothing but ads, they didn't manage to show me anything worth clicking for either purpose. I was practically their ideal target for getting someone to click an ad on purpose, and they still dropped the ball.
_cs2017_ 5y ago
Could you clarify what you mean by 90% ads? I would assume there are always organic results right after the top 2-3 ads, has this changed somehow? Also you say the results were "all from different sites". Is that a good or a bad thing? I imagine having too many results from the same site would be less informative, no? I'm very curious to try the same search query myself, but of course I understand that it may not be something you'd want to share.
BakeInBeens 5y ago
Some objects are more difficult to find but I use Google lens to find products all the time assuming I have a picture.
Valakas_ 5y ago
Google's ideal would be that every single search result would be both relevant and an ad. And it's going there, somewhat at least. Because the people who have the most time to write articles are employees writing/researching 8h a day. Someone doing it on their free time has no chance of competing. The problem is that obviously the people paid to write are biased. In some cases maybe it's a problem, in others maybe not.

discreditable 5y ago

I know normal people would never use it but I sorely wish there was a way for me to just grep the web instead of using "search" as offered by Google et al.

jeffbee 5y ago
You don't have anywhere near the disposable funds that would be required to "grep the web" on your behalf.
- demosito666 5y ago
  One could argue that the initial trigram-based google search is essentially "grep for the web" in terms of the results it provides.

entropie 5y ago

> We're back to the Web needing a search engine. I feel like that this has not changed the last 20 years. Yes - google was at some point like a miracle that seemed to solve lots of problems around searching the www for information. While google "refined" its search and monetarized it the web still evolved and is evolving to something.. different. Many of websites most people already know, competing around google top rankings and ad revenue; there are even people dedicated to "make $website more visible to the web (what they really mean is google)" for lots of money while the real internet goes on in the background. We need more ways to search the web. We need lots of different search engines that are competing and working together also. The web is still young and no one really knows what it will be in the future. (I fear it has to do with ads. Lots. Of. Ads)

mrkramer 5y ago
>The web is still young and no one really knows what it will be in the future. My fear is that walled gardens might win in the future because who guarantees you that websites won't move to Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, Slack and Discord channels etc. Open web is weaker than ever just look at LinkedIn; walled garden, throws you Register form in the face when you try to access it and won't let anybody crawl or scrape their content except Google who drives more traffic to their walled garden.

CodeGlitch 5y ago

Am I the only one who just skips the search engines and go straight to the source? If I want factual information, I just go to Wikipedia and use their search. If I want to shop I'll go to respected online stores and again use their inbuilt search feature. Obviously I've just built up a list of good sites in my head which I trust... Google search is good for discoverability if you're new to the web I guess? Although in the old days that's what web directories where good for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_directories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_directories

forbiddenvoid 5y ago
> Google search is good for discoverability if you're new to the web I guess? This is almost certainly not true. I don't think kids (who make up the vast majority of 'new to the web') care about using Google for discoverability. They'll use YouTube, Twitch and Instagram to find things they care about. Google is for answering questions, not finding new things. And honestly, it's not generally that good at answering questions. Source: my 10-year old.
pkamb 5y ago
It's much easier to type "searchterm" or "searchterm wiki" in your web browser address bar and then click through to the Wikipedia result than it is to first navigate to every individual site and use their non-standard search bar.
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  By my calculations it's one less click. Is that going to save you that much in your lifetime to get you better* results? *better = more predictable in my case
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  I just have https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s&title=Special:Search https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%s&title=Special... bookmarked with the keyboard shortcut `w` So `w fish` will produce `https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=fish&title=Special:Search https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=fish&title=Speci...` which auto-forwards to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish

billbrown 5y ago

I've found Brave Search[1] and Kagi Search[2] to be great alternatives to Google. I know exactly the sort of thing you're describing and both of them are a breath of fresh air in the space. [1] https://search.brave.com/ https://search.brave.com/ [2] Beta at the moment - https://kagi.com/ https://kagi.com/

billbrown 5y ago
The Kagi founder just posted this to Twitter, which illustrates what I was saying perfectly: https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1494076266508537858 https://twitter.com/vladquant/status/1494076266508537858

Trung0246 5y ago

Usually I've search for "gemology terms" or "gem cut types" first then I've mix and match those keyword until I get desired result

visarga 5y ago

They have the buyer ready to buy and still missed the sale because they wanted to make a profit on ads. How ironic. And this kind of experience probably turns a lot of buyers off from using Google search. We don't need your unrelated ads, we already know what to buy, don't patronize us. We need help getting to the product page from keywords. We need real reviews. We need a shopping experience we can trust.

brimble 5y ago
That was the craziest part to me. I was interested in both products and information, and despite deciding it was a good idea to show me almost nothing but ads, they didn't manage to show me anything worth clicking for either purpose. I was practically their ideal target for getting someone to click an ad on purpose, and they still dropped the ball.

_cs2017_ 5y ago

Could you clarify what you mean by 90% ads? I would assume there are always organic results right after the top 2-3 ads, has this changed somehow? Also you say the results were "all from different sites". Is that a good or a bad thing? I imagine having too many results from the same site would be less informative, no? I'm very curious to try the same search query myself, but of course I understand that it may not be something you'd want to share.

BakeInBeens 5y ago

Some objects are more difficult to find but I use Google lens to find products all the time assuming I have a picture.

Valakas_ 5y ago

Google's ideal would be that every single search result would be both relevant and an ad. And it's going there, somewhat at least. Because the people who have the most time to write articles are employees writing/researching 8h a day. Someone doing it on their free time has no chance of competing. The problem is that obviously the people paid to write are biased. In some cases maybe it's a problem, in others maybe not.