3 ms·

Finding genuine product reviews is borderline impossible these days. Search results are usually just worthless affiliate link spam, even from supposed "reputabl

Finding genuine product reviews is borderline impossible these days. Search results are usually just worthless affiliate link spam, even from supposed "reputable" outlets. Are there any other places on the internet that try to solve this problem in a way that can't be easily gamed by marketers?

medstrom 3y ago
At risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, think back to how you would've browsed the internet before Google. You probably would've grown your own web-directory of bookmarks, right? That's also how you explore the non-SEO-paved parts of the internet now. I haven't learned to find product reviews yet, but I imagine that a trick would be to know which forums to go for certain kinds of products, e.g. maybe https://xdaforums.com/ https://xdaforums.com/ for Android devices. There is also the search engine https://boardreader.com/ https://boardreader.com/ which ONLY searches proper forums--sometimes you find neat threads, sometimes not.
- dns_snek 3y ago
  Forums are a good one, but they're surprisingly hard to find these days. It really feels like we're back to word of mouth again. This boardreader search engine sounds promising though! I'll give that a try next time I'm shopping in an unfamiliar market.
- wyclif 3y ago
  I used AltaVista.
dclowd9901 3y ago
Forums, surprisingly, are still quite good resources for product recommendations. I suspect it's because forums tend to be _slightly_ nerdier and more focused than more mainstream resources like Reddit. I do a lot of car restoration, and forums are goldmines of product recommendations and information.