6 ms·

Its not as lucrative as you would think. When Google Code Search shut down I launched code search http://searchco.de http://searchco.de and while it got some at

by boyter 14y ago

Its not as lucrative as you would think. When Google Code Search shut down I launched code search http://searchco.de http://searchco.de and while it got some attention it was nowhere near as much as you would expect. That said I do think that going after markets abandoned by the big guys is an excellent way to go. Usually they abandon it because its not a billion dollar business and isn't worth their time. I believe now that you need to start attacking their market-share before they close the product down and use the closure as a marketing opportunity.

pyre 14y ago
I think that the base of Google Code Search users that would be willing to pay for a replacement is probably dwarfed by the amount of users willing to pay for a Google Reader replacement.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
tejaswiy 14y ago
Code search never made sense I think. You could argue stackoverflow / github were the replacements.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- herewego 14y ago
  I strongly disagree with this. Much of the world's code is not on GitHub or StackOverflow. This is a much underserved market in my opinion.
  - orangethirty 14y ago
    Well Nuuton will have that feature. Not at the alpha stage, but it will roll out.
philgoetz 14y ago
I never found Google Code Search useful. What I wanted to be able to do was to search for code expressions with Google -- to be able, for instance, to search for the words "C++" or "call-next-method", exactly as I type them, punctuation and casing and all. No synonyms, no "corrections", no singular/plural conversions, no punctuation-stripping. Google never provided a way to search for exactly what I asked it to search for. Still the main thing missing from google search.
- schrodinger 14y ago
  Weird. I find they get literal code searches correct very very frequently.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- herewego 14y ago
  Their implementation was lacking, but the concept was sound. Someone could get this right, particularly if it was marketed as a learning tool.
- subsection1h 14y ago
  Google's Verbatim tool doesn't do the job? http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1734130 http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    Verbatim doesn't even fully disable word corrections. There is no way at all to search for punctuation characters. Try it yourself, type in ((((())))) or something and look at all zero results.
  - eitland 14y ago
    I wrote up a quick reponse to that one (many googlers ask for data when confronted with how their main product is declining) and here it is: techinorg.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-is-going-on-with-search-results.html Not pretty but have some real examples. Please post your own and paste a link here or in the comments.
onassar 14y ago
I developed http://imnosy.com http://imnosy.com to notify you when bookmarks/pages you add are updated. Google Reader used to provide this kind of functionality, so I thought I would mention it here myself.
- patrikr 14y ago
  I use page2rss.com for this.
  - onassar 14y ago
    Good find patrikr: http://imnosy.com http://imnosy.com is a little different then that service. More of a bookmarking engine.
lambda 14y ago
Hmm. I personally have needed to use Google Code Search several times since it shut down, but have never found your site. When I've looked for alternatives by searching Google (say, for "code search"), I've found Koders (now Ohloh code search), but not yours. It seems like you might need to do a bit more SEO.
- boyter 14y ago
  Yes I certainly do. I have been working on it, but Koders and Ohloh are pretty established so its a long climb. I think the .de domain might be hurting a little bit too. Happy to listen to any actionable items that can address this though.
  - EwanToo 14y ago
    Not a huge thing, but your HTML isn't valid - for example, there's Google analytics stuff after the closing </html> tag. That kind of thing is never going to help http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fsearchco.de%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fsearchco.de%2...
    - nl 14y ago
      That doesn't make any difference at all to SEO (and in some cases can improve performance - or at least having it after the body tag does).
    - boyter 14y ago
      I didn't know that had any bearing on it but thinking about it seems like it would be a ranking factor. I'll fix that up soon and see if anything changes. Cheers.
  - patrickk 14y ago
    Check out the periodic table of SEO: http://searchengineland.com/seotable http://searchengineland.com/seotable Kalzmeus on SEO (click around his blog for more, guy's a genius): http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/ Also some quick, simple advice: 1. Blog 2/3 times per week minimum. Target a single, relevant keyword per blog post (relevant to your domain). The post title, H1s, H2s etc, image tags should all contain your primary keyword. Blog posts don't have to be long, but they do have to be useful. 2. Build a G+, FB, Twitter account for your site if you haven't already. Blast out your new posts to these accounts using Hootsuite (free, but you can pay if you like). 3. Build an audience on the social networks - just search around, follow relevant people and share useful, educational material. Don't spam. 4. Personalised mass email from Google Docs and Gmail (kind of hesitant to recommend this in light of Google shuttering services!): http://www.labnol.org/internet/personalized-mail-merge-in-gmail/20981/ http://www.labnol.org/internet/personalized-mail-merge-in-gm... you need to have "newsletter" signs ups (blast out a digest of your blog posts once per month), calls to actions etc on your site for this to work properly (i.e. optimise your site to capture names & emails). Great, low cost/free way to make sure your audience stays engaged and coming back to your site. You can pay for this kind of service too, e.g. Mailchimp (they've a free tier), Constant Contact, or the likes of Hubspot for full suite of marketing automation tools. 5. Best of Startup marketing/SEO here, that I've compiled over the years (absolute gold): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag_fyIIMSJ6DdGtkckxQUy1XMzRaSXh4S3kzdEFrQ1E#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag_fyIIMSJ6DdGt... 6. Check out Sell More Software by patio11: http://www.hyperink.com/Sell-More-Software-Website-Conversion-Optimization-For-Software-Developers-b9B393B465B http://www.hyperink.com/Sell-More-Software-Website-Conversio... Many engineers don't fully appreciate marketing as patio11 would be quick to point out, but there's a start.

by boyter 14y ago

pyre 14y ago

I think that the base of Google Code Search users that would be willing to pay for a replacement is probably dwarfed by the amount of users willing to pay for a Google Reader replacement.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

tejaswiy 14y ago

Code search never made sense I think. You could argue stackoverflow / github were the replacements.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
herewego 14y ago
I strongly disagree with this. Much of the world's code is not on GitHub or StackOverflow. This is a much underserved market in my opinion.
- orangethirty 14y ago
  Well Nuuton will have that feature. Not at the alpha stage, but it will roll out.

philgoetz 14y ago

I never found Google Code Search useful. What I wanted to be able to do was to search for code expressions with Google -- to be able, for instance, to search for the words "C++" or "call-next-method", exactly as I type them, punctuation and casing and all. No synonyms, no "corrections", no singular/plural conversions, no punctuation-stripping. Google never provided a way to search for exactly what I asked it to search for. Still the main thing missing from google search.

schrodinger 14y ago
Weird. I find they get literal code searches correct very very frequently.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
herewego 14y ago
Their implementation was lacking, but the concept was sound. Someone could get this right, particularly if it was marketed as a learning tool.
subsection1h 14y ago
Google's Verbatim tool doesn't do the job? http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1734130 http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  Verbatim doesn't even fully disable word corrections. There is no way at all to search for punctuation characters. Try it yourself, type in ((((())))) or something and look at all zero results.
- eitland 14y ago
  I wrote up a quick reponse to that one (many googlers ask for data when confronted with how their main product is declining) and here it is: techinorg.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-is-going-on-with-search-results.html Not pretty but have some real examples. Please post your own and paste a link here or in the comments.

onassar 14y ago

I developed http://imnosy.com http://imnosy.com to notify you when bookmarks/pages you add are updated. Google Reader used to provide this kind of functionality, so I thought I would mention it here myself.

patrikr 14y ago
I use page2rss.com for this.
- onassar 14y ago
  Good find patrikr: http://imnosy.com http://imnosy.com is a little different then that service. More of a bookmarking engine.

lambda 14y ago

Hmm. I personally have needed to use Google Code Search several times since it shut down, but have never found your site. When I've looked for alternatives by searching Google (say, for "code search"), I've found Koders (now Ohloh code search), but not yours. It seems like you might need to do a bit more SEO.

boyter 14y ago
Yes I certainly do. I have been working on it, but Koders and Ohloh are pretty established so its a long climb. I think the .de domain might be hurting a little bit too. Happy to listen to any actionable items that can address this though.
- EwanToo 14y ago
  Not a huge thing, but your HTML isn't valid - for example, there's Google analytics stuff after the closing </html> tag. That kind of thing is never going to help http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fsearchco.de%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fsearchco.de%2...
  - nl 14y ago
    That doesn't make any difference at all to SEO (and in some cases can improve performance - or at least having it after the body tag does).
  - boyter 14y ago
    I didn't know that had any bearing on it but thinking about it seems like it would be a ranking factor. I'll fix that up soon and see if anything changes. Cheers.
- patrickk 14y ago
  Check out the periodic table of SEO: http://searchengineland.com/seotable http://searchengineland.com/seotable Kalzmeus on SEO (click around his blog for more, guy's a genius): http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/ Also some quick, simple advice: 1. Blog 2/3 times per week minimum. Target a single, relevant keyword per blog post (relevant to your domain). The post title, H1s, H2s etc, image tags should all contain your primary keyword. Blog posts don't have to be long, but they do have to be useful. 2. Build a G+, FB, Twitter account for your site if you haven't already. Blast out your new posts to these accounts using Hootsuite (free, but you can pay if you like). 3. Build an audience on the social networks - just search around, follow relevant people and share useful, educational material. Don't spam. 4. Personalised mass email from Google Docs and Gmail (kind of hesitant to recommend this in light of Google shuttering services!): http://www.labnol.org/internet/personalized-mail-merge-in-gmail/20981/ http://www.labnol.org/internet/personalized-mail-merge-in-gm... you need to have "newsletter" signs ups (blast out a digest of your blog posts once per month), calls to actions etc on your site for this to work properly (i.e. optimise your site to capture names & emails). Great, low cost/free way to make sure your audience stays engaged and coming back to your site. You can pay for this kind of service too, e.g. Mailchimp (they've a free tier), Constant Contact, or the likes of Hubspot for full suite of marketing automation tools. 5. Best of Startup marketing/SEO here, that I've compiled over the years (absolute gold): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag_fyIIMSJ6DdGtkckxQUy1XMzRaSXh4S3kzdEFrQ1E#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag_fyIIMSJ6DdGt... 6. Check out Sell More Software by patio11: http://www.hyperink.com/Sell-More-Software-Website-Conversion-Optimization-For-Software-Developers-b9B393B465B http://www.hyperink.com/Sell-More-Software-Website-Conversio... Many engineers don't fully appreciate marketing as patio11 would be quick to point out, but there's a start.