site:http://news.ycombinator.com OR site:stackoverflow.com <query>
I don't know if there's a max # of sites you can add. I tried it with three and it seemed to work great.
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:searchengineland.com+OR+...
(Yes, I did an ego search. Isn't that the best way to know if the results are likely accurate? :)
If there's a set of sites you want to search through often, you can set up a custom search engine for what you describe. For instance, see this page:
I'll have a look at your links, in a minute -- probably should have done that first.
EDIT: Well, your second link sure works. I wonder what I was doing wrong. When I saw someone else('s or s') comments online to the effect that it didn't work, I assumed that was why my own experience failed.
I'm in serious need of some coffee, at the moment. Thanks for correcting my mis-impression; I look forward to straightening it out in my mind and taking advantage of this feature.
(lowercase or just uses "or" as one of the search terms, which I think actually is considered a stop word and is then ignored.)
And I'm always a supporter of the more coffee recommendation.
I tried DDG some months (years?) ago, but it was too inconsistent. Maybe it's ready for prime time, or at least the Late Late Show, now. Jazz hands!
--
P.S. Google: I'd accept, gratefully, as a stopgap, being able to specify multiple "site:foo" parameters. I don't know what the computational (or financial) impact to you would be.
(So far, I've held off trying browser extensions to accomplish this, but I guess I can start looking for one having a good reputation.)