5 ms·

Show HN: Search engine for finding the best of anything

31 points by switchstance 4y ago

Bestlist is a search engine that is focused solely on helping users discover the best of anything. All of our results are non-biased, non-paid, and are dynamically generated via our search algorithm. It’s not perfect, but we’re working extremely hard and are determined to make it ubiquitous in the lives of the everyday internet user. Other Features Voting If you’re feeling strongly about a search results, you can up or downvote the listing to voice your opinion. When you vote, you’ll be asked to state why you voted. This gives other users better insights into the listing. Collections With collections you can easily save and keep track of all of your favorite listings. Collections can be public or made private, and they’re easily edited, reordered, and shared. Submissions If you find that we’re missing a result for a particular query, you can easily submit it as a suggestion. We’ll review it, and publish it if it makes the cut. Current Limitations •It’s currently English only. •We don’t handle searches that start with “Best way..” or “Best settings ..” or “Best route..” very well. •Also, searches for professionals (doctors, etc,) and recipes have issues. I’m sure there are a lot more we’re missing. I'd love for you to try and it and let us know what you think. Thank you, Tyler

switchstance 4y ago
I should also mention that very niche subjects that are not discussed often don't yield the best results.
Mo3 4y ago
Nice work! .. but porn doesn't work.
- switchstance 4y ago
  Yeah, I figured we'd lose a lot of people there, but what can you do? Maybe we'll add it in the future when we have some kind of "safe search" option.
  - Mo3 4y ago
    You're not losing me, but you just know everybody will try it.
    - switchstance 4y ago
      It looks like some terms have slipped through, which we learned about only because of user searches. XD "best boobs" "best hentai"
      - Mo3 4y ago
        Lmao. That sounds like a very hard problem to solve in any case.. Alright, enough porn talk. I really like the UI. Please allow me to ask whether you plan on monetizing this, and if so, how?
        switchstance 4y ago
        Hah. We're not too concerned about monetizing it right now, but our initial thought is to show tasteful ads based on the user's query.
        Mo3 4y ago
        Sounds like a plan, but I'd appreciate if you could consider optional subscription plans in return for no tracking and no advertisement scumbag companies collecting my data. I'd gladly pay a few bucks for this and I know other people would too, Kagi is a good example.
        switchstance 4y ago
        We don't plan on sharing any info. Our ads would be more inline with DDG's, and based only on the user query.
        Mo3 4y ago
        I fully believe you have only the best intentions, but unfortunately advertisement companies don't. Simply allowing them to put ads there directly leads to your users being tracked, even across websites. DDG does not have a clean slate either, Microsoft is actively tracking through ads.
jessfyi 4y ago
Love that more of these little search alternatives are cropping up. Try suggesting search queries that do perform well on the page or as a watermark in the search box if you're currently that limited. One thing that definitely turned me off were the silly graphics over the picture under the privacy pledge; it makes it look like a joke when it should be serious because people who care about it really care.
- switchstance 4y ago
  Thank you so much for your feedback! Some people like the playful graphics, others not so much. Oh, and we just hardcoded some popular recommended searches in the search field.
  - zestyping 4y ago
    Playful is good! Just not next to an actual commitment you want people to trust.
    - switchstance 4y ago
      Agreed. We'll be stripping those out asap.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Search is a really hard design problem, because it's not obvious how to use a search field, and even presenting the results is hard. I don't think anyone is quite doing it well. I love to see experimentation of any kind.
- switchstance 4y ago
  Playful privacy guy... is now not so playful. Thanks again.
zestyping 4y ago
What ratings are you using to determine which things are "best"?
- switchstance 4y ago
  There are a lot of factors that go into our search algorithm, but in brief, we crawl the web, check various sources for ratings, and we also do sentiment analysis when possible. We're just getting started, and will refine it over time, but we had to start somewhere, and get this thing out in the world to see if it resonates with people. The jury is still out.
  - solardev 4y ago
    IMO your algorithms can be a starting point, but your results would be a lot more useful if actual humans then did a second pass and added various pros and cons to the most popular queries to enhance their trustworthiness and level of detail. The algorithm on its own is not working well... at all. It's no better, and often worse, than generic "best of" queries in any other search engine. More details in my other post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32500543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32500543
    - switchstance 4y ago
      We were hoping that the voting system would allow for user based manual refinement. We'll see. I'm not sure the users will be that invested.
huhtenberg 4y ago
Results seem pretty spammy to be honest. Tried searching for a certain type of software and the results just aren't relevant. Most aggressively marketed and SEO'd stuff is on top and the actually good stuff is not even on the list :-/
- switchstance 4y ago
  Can you share your search query? Thank you!
solardev 4y ago
I dunno, sorry, but it honestly seems kinda spammy and it doesn't tell me why I should trust any of the results... it looks and works like any other SEO-optimized "best of" spam site :( "best national park" = Teton, Bryce, Zion... why does Yellowstone get 3/5 stars? No idea "air fryer" = random products with generic descriptions, several of which are 3/5 stars (out of the dozens of air fryers available, why are the top 5 the mediocre ones? who's saying they're mediocre? No idea) "airline to fly to thailand" = two of the five results aren't even airlines "tech forum" = nearly all useless spam sites "place to get programming help" = takes forever to load, but actually returned useful results (kudos!) "restaurants near me" (autosuggested, pushed enter like it said) = nothing happened. UI bug that doesn't select the entry if you push enter instead of clicking on it "awd suv" = many aren't even cars, and the ones that are just have manufacturer's descriptions instead of any useful comparison I was excited to try your service, but to be honest, I probably would never use this again after this experience. I would not consider this even early alpha quality, much less beta, because its result sets are largely not trustworthy. The signal to noise ratio is way too low, and your algorithm is totally opaque, and there are no visible signals for me to use to evaluate the quality of your results. If I didn't have foreknowledge of a topic, I would have no way to determine whether to trust your results. Of the topics I AM familiar with, your results were not very convincing... at all. Sorry to be harsh, I hope you guys keep working on this and making it better... but maybe don't make it public yet until it gets much, much better? The first impression was negative for me.
- switchstance 4y ago
  Hey, I appreciate your tough criticism very much. This is the exact reason I wanted to post here on HN. If you would, I'd like to get your contact info so I can reach back out when we've improved things. If you're up for it, please email me: tyler at bestlist.com. Thanks again!
- switchstance 4y ago
  Are these results what you were expecting to see with "tech forum?" https://www.bestlist.com/search/best-developers-forum https://www.bestlist.com/search/best-developers-forum
radiojasper 4y ago
I've searched for the best hotel in Barcelona and the W hotel came out on top. At least you got that right! Then I searched for the best shirt for men and it gave me Uniqlo and Everlane - okay. Then it followed that up with Brooklinen (luxury bed sheets), J Crew (A woman's clothing store), a search results page for amazon.com for search query "Men's Flannel Shirts". Not very great. Another thing is the star rating. "Based on public opinion" means nothing to me without some context and sources.
- switchstance 4y ago
  Thank you for giving us a shot, and for your feedback. We still have a ton of work to do, and this is just our initial test to see if the product resonates with people. Also, https://www.jcrew.com/mens https://www.jcrew.com/mens XD
  - radiojasper 4y ago
    Hey I gotta give that one to you: I misread that! I do like what you got going here though, it's a fresh take on search as a whole. Good luck!
    - switchstance 4y ago
      Thank you! This is exactly what I needed to keep pushing.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  > J Crew (A woman's clothing store) J Crew isn’t a women’s only clothing store, and they do have some pretty high quality shirts for men.
switchstance 4y ago
Here's a demo video that goes into more details.. if you're interested in watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sGAI_QF9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sGAI_QF9s
louiselista 4y ago
I see a case where I can use this app like each minute, and I think is a niche that can be useful for you too: places. A kindof trip advisor, but I guess that's also tricky because you will face the wall of the fake ratings. The upvote feature although I see also why its behind login and the steps, maybe it will be worth to shorten also the process to upvote. Because as it is right now you will need a really committed community to upvote or downvote. I will use this as a main search for a while when I try to find stuff and see how it behaves and let you know!
- switchstance 4y ago
  Thank you for the feedback!
marginalia_nu 4y ago
Answers for "Best Programming Language": Javascript is #1 and Java is #2. C is #4, Rust doesn't even make top 10. Discuss in groups.
- switchstance 4y ago
  "Discuss in groups?" I'm not following. Can you elaborate? You can also upvote Rust if don't agree. Thank you for your feedback.
IndigoIncognito 4y ago
"Best Programming language" = Javascript, wow, bias much
- switchstance 4y ago
  Hi there. I'm curious, what would you have as the #1 result in such a subjective topic, and why?
alex1212 4y ago
The trickiest thing with this is what qualifies as "best". Most people might have an idea in their heads but that idea might not translate into the search itself so unfortunately have no way of knowing. Personally, I would be interested in a search engine that surfaces meaningful comparisons
- switchstance 4y ago
  Thank you! Great insights.
cupachabra 4y ago
Its a good start, best of luck!
- switchstance 4y ago
  Thank you so much!

31 points by switchstance 4y ago

switchstance 4y ago

I should also mention that very niche subjects that are not discussed often don't yield the best results.

Mo3 4y ago

Nice work! .. but porn doesn't work.

switchstance 4y ago
Yeah, I figured we'd lose a lot of people there, but what can you do? Maybe we'll add it in the future when we have some kind of "safe search" option.
- Mo3 4y ago
  You're not losing me, but you just know everybody will try it.
  - switchstance 4y ago
    It looks like some terms have slipped through, which we learned about only because of user searches. XD "best boobs" "best hentai"
    - Mo3 4y ago
      Lmao. That sounds like a very hard problem to solve in any case.. Alright, enough porn talk. I really like the UI. Please allow me to ask whether you plan on monetizing this, and if so, how?
      - switchstance 4y ago
        Hah. We're not too concerned about monetizing it right now, but our initial thought is to show tasteful ads based on the user's query.
        Mo3 4y ago
        Sounds like a plan, but I'd appreciate if you could consider optional subscription plans in return for no tracking and no advertisement scumbag companies collecting my data. I'd gladly pay a few bucks for this and I know other people would too, Kagi is a good example.
      - switchstance 4y ago
        We don't plan on sharing any info. Our ads would be more inline with DDG's, and based only on the user query.
        Mo3 4y ago
        I fully believe you have only the best intentions, but unfortunately advertisement companies don't. Simply allowing them to put ads there directly leads to your users being tracked, even across websites. DDG does not have a clean slate either, Microsoft is actively tracking through ads.

jessfyi 4y ago

Love that more of these little search alternatives are cropping up. Try suggesting search queries that do perform well on the page or as a watermark in the search box if you're currently that limited. One thing that definitely turned me off were the silly graphics over the picture under the privacy pledge; it makes it look like a joke when it should be serious because people who care about it really care.

switchstance 4y ago
Thank you so much for your feedback! Some people like the playful graphics, others not so much. Oh, and we just hardcoded some popular recommended searches in the search field.
- zestyping 4y ago
  Playful is good! Just not next to an actual commitment you want people to trust.
  - switchstance 4y ago
    Agreed. We'll be stripping those out asap.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  Search is a really hard design problem, because it's not obvious how to use a search field, and even presenting the results is hard. I don't think anyone is quite doing it well. I love to see experimentation of any kind.
switchstance 4y ago
Playful privacy guy... is now not so playful. Thanks again.

zestyping 4y ago

What ratings are you using to determine which things are "best"?

switchstance 4y ago
There are a lot of factors that go into our search algorithm, but in brief, we crawl the web, check various sources for ratings, and we also do sentiment analysis when possible. We're just getting started, and will refine it over time, but we had to start somewhere, and get this thing out in the world to see if it resonates with people. The jury is still out.
- solardev 4y ago
  IMO your algorithms can be a starting point, but your results would be a lot more useful if actual humans then did a second pass and added various pros and cons to the most popular queries to enhance their trustworthiness and level of detail. The algorithm on its own is not working well... at all. It's no better, and often worse, than generic "best of" queries in any other search engine. More details in my other post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32500543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32500543
  - switchstance 4y ago
    We were hoping that the voting system would allow for user based manual refinement. We'll see. I'm not sure the users will be that invested.

huhtenberg 4y ago

Results seem pretty spammy to be honest. Tried searching for a certain type of software and the results just aren't relevant. Most aggressively marketed and SEO'd stuff is on top and the actually good stuff is not even on the list :-/

switchstance 4y ago
Can you share your search query? Thank you!

solardev 4y ago

I dunno, sorry, but it honestly seems kinda spammy and it doesn't tell me why I should trust any of the results... it looks and works like any other SEO-optimized "best of" spam site :( "best national park" = Teton, Bryce, Zion... why does Yellowstone get 3/5 stars? No idea "air fryer" = random products with generic descriptions, several of which are 3/5 stars (out of the dozens of air fryers available, why are the top 5 the mediocre ones? who's saying they're mediocre? No idea) "airline to fly to thailand" = two of the five results aren't even airlines "tech forum" = nearly all useless spam sites "place to get programming help" = takes forever to load, but actually returned useful results (kudos!) "restaurants near me" (autosuggested, pushed enter like it said) = nothing happened. UI bug that doesn't select the entry if you push enter instead of clicking on it "awd suv" = many aren't even cars, and the ones that are just have manufacturer's descriptions instead of any useful comparison I was excited to try your service, but to be honest, I probably would never use this again after this experience. I would not consider this even early alpha quality, much less beta, because its result sets are largely not trustworthy. The signal to noise ratio is way too low, and your algorithm is totally opaque, and there are no visible signals for me to use to evaluate the quality of your results. If I didn't have foreknowledge of a topic, I would have no way to determine whether to trust your results. Of the topics I AM familiar with, your results were not very convincing... at all. Sorry to be harsh, I hope you guys keep working on this and making it better... but maybe don't make it public yet until it gets much, much better? The first impression was negative for me.

switchstance 4y ago
Hey, I appreciate your tough criticism very much. This is the exact reason I wanted to post here on HN. If you would, I'd like to get your contact info so I can reach back out when we've improved things. If you're up for it, please email me: tyler at bestlist.com. Thanks again!
switchstance 4y ago
Are these results what you were expecting to see with "tech forum?" https://www.bestlist.com/search/best-developers-forum https://www.bestlist.com/search/best-developers-forum

radiojasper 4y ago

I've searched for the best hotel in Barcelona and the W hotel came out on top. At least you got that right! Then I searched for the best shirt for men and it gave me Uniqlo and Everlane - okay. Then it followed that up with Brooklinen (luxury bed sheets), J Crew (A woman's clothing store), a search results page for amazon.com for search query "Men's Flannel Shirts". Not very great. Another thing is the star rating. "Based on public opinion" means nothing to me without some context and sources.

switchstance 4y ago
Thank you for giving us a shot, and for your feedback. We still have a ton of work to do, and this is just our initial test to see if the product resonates with people. Also, https://www.jcrew.com/mens https://www.jcrew.com/mens XD
- radiojasper 4y ago
  Hey I gotta give that one to you: I misread that! I do like what you got going here though, it's a fresh take on search as a whole. Good luck!
  - switchstance 4y ago
    Thank you! This is exactly what I needed to keep pushing.
colechristensen 4y ago
> J Crew (A woman's clothing store) J Crew isn’t a women’s only clothing store, and they do have some pretty high quality shirts for men.

switchstance 4y ago

Here's a demo video that goes into more details.. if you're interested in watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sGAI_QF9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sGAI_QF9s

louiselista 4y ago

I see a case where I can use this app like each minute, and I think is a niche that can be useful for you too: places. A kindof trip advisor, but I guess that's also tricky because you will face the wall of the fake ratings. The upvote feature although I see also why its behind login and the steps, maybe it will be worth to shorten also the process to upvote. Because as it is right now you will need a really committed community to upvote or downvote. I will use this as a main search for a while when I try to find stuff and see how it behaves and let you know!

switchstance 4y ago
Thank you for the feedback!

marginalia_nu 4y ago

Answers for "Best Programming Language": Javascript is #1 and Java is #2. C is #4, Rust doesn't even make top 10. Discuss in groups.

switchstance 4y ago
"Discuss in groups?" I'm not following. Can you elaborate? You can also upvote Rust if don't agree. Thank you for your feedback.

IndigoIncognito 4y ago

"Best Programming language" = Javascript, wow, bias much

switchstance 4y ago
Hi there. I'm curious, what would you have as the #1 result in such a subjective topic, and why?

alex1212 4y ago

The trickiest thing with this is what qualifies as "best". Most people might have an idea in their heads but that idea might not translate into the search itself so unfortunately have no way of knowing. Personally, I would be interested in a search engine that surfaces meaningful comparisons

switchstance 4y ago
Thank you! Great insights.

cupachabra 4y ago

Its a good start, best of luck!

switchstance 4y ago
Thank you so much!