Searching for a better way.

Hi all, I started this post on another website, but someone suggested I post it here as there is a larger knowledge base. My question is does anybody out there know of an internet search engine that isn't completely useless? Google I'm looking at you. I was thinking something that isn't solely keyword based. Funnily enough I had no luck finding one using google.

Don't anyone assuming I don't know how to use a keyword search engine. Been using keyword searches since before the internet, I know how it works. Unfortunately google doesn't have options like checkboxes or tags such as "don't include spammy webpages", "don't include webpages that just spam keywords", "don't include results from another webpage search engine that has '0' results found", "don't send me to pages that just want to sell me junk", "don't include irrelevant webpages".

Google has gotten worse. Yahoo etc. are exactly the same, using very similar or identical engines. I noticed about a year ago that it was getting worse, it used to be much easier to find things. I even remember a time when page 3 or 4 still had pages with some relevance to my search. Nowadays, who actually looks past page 1? Can't find it on the first page, you're out of luck! Time to go juggle some more keyword combinations, fun.

For example, try finding me an online website in the UK with a shopping basket that stocks Yamaha parts and has an online fiche. Most will be in the US, most results will be for dealers that don't have an online presence, just a token website with an email contact form and a few pretty pictures. Try using google.co.uk. Please, to see an example of what I mean, try variations of keywords based on 'Yamaha UK dealer parts fiche'.

From the above search, with regional search set to UK:

1st: A forum, where someone is asking where to find one too.
2nd: Follow a link, that links to another link, and on to the site. Find out it's a US site.
3rd: Another forum with someone who is lost on the internet too.
4th: As above.
5th: As above.

I guess I'm after a search engine that doesn't rely solely on keywords... something that categorises webpages to some extent too, so that you can use keywords, but you can reduce it first, say, to 'automotive' > 'motorcycles' > 'Yamaha', and select say from a list of 'forums', 'dealers', 'online stores', 'books', etc. etc. clicking, crossing, or leaving blank. Or just something that can give more relevant results without me spending a long time crafting keyword strings and trying them all one by one...

Surely there is something else... though the market is completely monopolised by google and clones and I've never heard of any conversations along the lines of:

"...What's that?"
"Hard to explain, foo-bar it."
"Foo-bar?"
"Yes, it's better than google, it gives consistently relevant results, without all the spam!"

I can only dream of hearing that conversation.

One thing that really gets my goad is google always showing Alibaba in the top search results. It doesn't matter what I'm searching for, I could be searching for the rain precipitation rates in Brisbane in July for all it matters, and there it goes, giving me Alibaba again, trying to sell me 1000 rain gauges for a great price.

It's not even a useful webpage!!! I just bit the bullet and looked at it, everything on it for sale is made in friggin' China and has minimum order quantities.

End rant.

Though, what would be better than google? I mean, it has it's adherents, walking talking computers that can craft and juggle keyword combinations out of thin air and have adapted to google, rather than google adapting to other people. I'm sure they'll be the first to reply and flame me for not being able to operate a keyword based search engine, and explain the use of +, -, and/or combinations and quotations, etc.

It would be nice to have a feature that allows you to specify which sites you'd like to include/exclude. I.e shown forums, show online shopping/auction sites, show news sites, show academic results... etc. etc. That kind of stuff would be impossible to specify or filter out with keywords.

It's starting to get ridiculous though, google has the monopoly on the internet. Everything else, as pointed out, is a clone of google; a rebranded google. If nobody has a product better than google, it will remain the standard, and I for one am tired of being told to "google it".

Why can't the internet be categorised like I mentioned above, i.e shopping/auction sites, academic pages, news and media, forums etc. etc. so you can find what you're looking for without juggling keywords? Surely it'd be simple as hell to do (with the resources of google it wouldn't take much at all). You'd have though by now that they'd have found a way to rid us of sites that spam keywords, but no. It seems there are sites that are specially designed just to spam keywords, with no relevant content at all in them!

 

I believe I heard that Google search results are based on popularity. As in, when the common 'idiot' googles something the top result is based on the index and the number of people who clicked through to that link. So if a bunch if ' geniuses' google a subject say barnstorming and the first link comes back like

Barnstorming
www.freebuggering.com
Bla bla bla bla Bla bla bla blaBla bla bla blaBla bla bla blaBla bla bla blaBla bla

And the 'geniuses' don't see the link says something totally opposite or contradictory to the subject they searched & they click the first link, guess what??? That link just went up on the search index, so you get a few thousand or million people who can barely use the Internet and you get a search engine that give some bad results.

So in short some search engines can only be as good as the people who use them.

 

Thanks for the welcome. I apologise for bumping like that. If I want to add something to what I've previously written I can edit my post and add to it without it bumping, correct? If so, I'll do this in future.

I don't like Google. Yes, there are plenty of search engines out there, I said this in my post, I also said that none of them is discernibly different (that I have encountered) and I've tried a few. I haven't tried Bing lately, though I have tried it, so at a guess it's not substantially different than google?

It's a oligopoly as I said. There is no competition or discernible difference as an oligopoly circumvents that. Just the same rebranded product. Sure you can say I've got a choice, just like somebody can offer me the choice of any colour, so long as it's black.

 

You might find something of use in this old article at About.com. The Invisible Web, How To Find and Search the Invisible Web.

 

Thanks for that. I just took a look but didn't find them terribly comprehensive. Searches gave very few and limited results for the links that worked on that page, as you said it's old. Maybe there is a newer article, I'll take a look.

 

I remember webcrawler. I used it in post 1995, when I first got the internet. I tried it again many years ago, but didn't like it.

I found one that looks promising for any interested, it's called seeks. http://www.seeks-project.info

I can't give any details yet, as I haven't actually had much time to use it, nor have I read in depth about it. I did glace at the FAQ and here is an extract of some points that I liked.

 

Guess what? I've been using Seeks for about a week now, and I'm getting the same crappy results that I got from google. No difference. It just pipes google and yahoo results through it, and spits out poop!