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How do you find information online?
There are Lists of search engines.
But, which one(s) do you use and why?
Do you use just one search engine? Do you have one primary search engine and another one that you use only when your primary fails? May you use multiple engines depending on whether your search is on your desktop, mobile, or TV?
How do YOU choose?
This discussion was created by martyb (76) for logged-in users only, but now has been archived.
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We are not loved by our friends for what we are; rather, we are loved in
spite of what we are.
-- Victor Hugo
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Saturday March 02 2024, @06:58PM (1 child)
I've actually thought about creating it. It would search based on the metadata supplied in the HTML, look in the first paragraph, and have fields for title, author, description, a date range, and would obey all the old Google flags like the minus sign. Unlike Google it wouldn't care about popularity.
There are a lot of tools in my web host's toolbox, I wonder if they have a spider? I wonder how big the database would be and if I could afford to do it?
Poe's Law [nooze.org] has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poetry
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Common Joe on Sunday March 03 2024, @11:30AM
Save your money. Alta Vista did this, trusted the content on the page, and it was gamed to death.
There are two problems with your suggestion. First, if I wanted to be a bad guy, I'd get a website that was nothing but many, many pages with pretty much nothing but ads which sleazy companies would pay me for. I would game your search engine by making the metadata and the first paragraph of each web page would change based on what common searches are being made and it would have nothing to do with the ads. For instance, one page would start off with HP laser printers, another with HP ink jet printers, another with Brother laser printers, another with multi-function, another with color vs black and white. And that's just for printers. I could create an army of webpages for every item imaginable -- printers, snakes, farming, Git. And once you blocked that website, I'd have a thousand other websites waiting to take over.
Second, your search engine would not like my Git Glossary [gitlab.io]. The first <div> tag says "Glossary, Alphabetically Sorted" but doesn't mention anything about Git. My first actual <p> tag says "Return to the Introduction (Click here to go to one level up)". Again, nothing about Git. If you look at the glossary itself, it's very clear that this is a Git glossary. Even better, it's a glossary built upon simplicity, elegance, and speed. No ads. You don't have to watch 10 minutes of video to get a definition. If you click on a definition, it doesn't even have to reload because it's all on one page. And the whole page is 84 kilobytes. It is very epitome of how most websites should be constructed... but your search engine would miss it.
You know, my comment sucks because I would love to have an Internet that would allow your search engine to work. The world would be a much better place.