Increasingly I've had to use `site:<domain name>` syntax with DDG, but DDG has clearly become significantly worse in recent months. This was confirmed by others in another HN thread recently. Even if I use the site-syntax or use quotes to specify exact match (which DDG used to honor), I'll often get nonsense results whereas Yandex somehow manages to find results that aren't on DDG or Google.
And yeah, I've been having to use search engines on specific sites like Wikipedia because I know there's gonna be less shenanigans.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm living in the past. Do normies actually use search engines anymore?
From my experience, they have diluted that functionality in favour of keyword and context matching against popular searches. Often the thing I want to find is not the most popular thing. Breaking out of that and the search bubbles you get associated with is becoming increasingly difficult. I find myself more and more clicking past the first page if results hoping what I want is there just with less SEO. Rarely is there anything relevant beyond page 3. I definitely remember sometimes digging multiple pages deep into the search results and still finding useful information.
In the early days of Google the speed at which you got the search results was a major factor, I remember being surprised at the speed of response and the quality of the results the first time I was introduced to Google. They still include the search time at the top of the results.
I would prefer to regain strict boolean logic in search at the cost of increased search time. I often care more about actually finding what I want than how fast the result can be returned.
Maybe something like the default search works as it does today as it gives a fast result that has a high likelihood will contain what most people want to see. Then allow for advanced search that strictly adheres to the search terms but could take a few minutes to return the results.
And from there, search a repertoire of Scheme related articles, tips, blogs, etc.
This model already exists, somewhat, in the form of scholarly articles, medical journals, etc. But there seems to be some innovation needed.
If there were such a "site" that focused on and aggregated Scheme related documentation, you'd think that being listed on that search-directory would be totally acceptable to the website owner. After all, a web article or blog generally wants to be read, especially by an interested reader.
Somehow we need to get back to the web being like a library, with a librarian and a well organized categorical index for references.
Getting humans back into the search loop I think is where we're going to circle to. Like asking your local librarian for information about a topic that is in their special collection.
on edit: I remember Carrot2 had the ability to derive categories from an index dynamically at one point, so when we put all the Danish laws into it and you searched for murder it generated categories such as Knife Murder etc. anyway here is the online Carrot2 with a search on Scheme https://search.carrot2.org/#/search/web/scheme/folders
on edit2: obviously this Carrot2 online thing is just a demo, they don't have a particularly big or up to date index. I'm also not sure how well Carrot2 would scale as it was, IIRC, an academic project to investigate different ways of searching / organizing search results. Check out the treemap.
Top -> Finance -> Credit Card -> Merchant Fees + Search
Top -> Finance -> Stock Market -> Algorithms + Search
Top -> Health -> Vitamins + Search
Maybe the start of this is taking a Wikipedia article on Price Parity and then enumerating the referenced articles in the footnotes and putting a search engine over those perhaps.
I don't know. But there's got to be something better than what we have right now. I feel another leap of search innovation happening soon.
A good search engine can and should ask you about this and present you with your choices. Or, of course, they can choose what to show you to optimise for something, be it response time, resource consumption or ad profit.
Don't you think it's more likely in a post keyboard/computer-literate world Search web sites are displaced by vendor-provided App search boxes?
You wanted news? Here's the CNN proprietary app in this beautiful walled garden! Enjoy the ads and total loss of privacy! [This app requires the following permissions: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US]
Not impossible, but given the proliferation of content on the web and the endless possibilities for competing organizing schemas and editorial choices, it would pretty much have to be a directory of directories.
So, each directory could be it's own self-organizing community, like a subreddit.
Seems to me that users would still benefit from a cross-site search capability (eg to follow your example, what if you want something funny not from a specific site or you don't know which sites offer something)
It's subjective but most of the pressure seems to be because the search quality has dropped off recently, not that I'm no longer willing/eager to search.
Ugh, that triggers me hard. I haven't lived in Germany nor Sweden for ~7 years now and Google never really figured out (despite me telling it so) that I don't need gmaps results in Stockholm and Berlin, and that yes, all my g products should be showing the English UI.
If these folks are ex-google they might consider not doing shit like this in the first place.
Instead, I am guessing (maybe hoping) that we see a return of the moderated directories, like Yahoo or DMOZ of old. A 2.0 spin on these directories, with lessons learned from all the years.
Imagine that you just go to StackOverflow and search there directly for your answer. Want a funny laugh, go to your favorite comedy website (like facebook.com) and search directly. Want some news, go to CNN or Fox (depending on your persuasion) and fill your echo chamber.
Not kidding. I think search as we know it is dead. And there is a new paradigm just sitting out there ready for the next generation to make.
A directory of well known lists of websites with specialty search engines available on each.