I think on DDG you can do !mil which excludes the first million top ranking sites.
Edit: Maybe it’s the first million results? I use it to find obscure things sometimes.
Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
151–160 of 236 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
#152Re: Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
#153This is a great question, I also want a way to search the internet but exclude all major media domains as well as any company over a certain size. So I just want to search through old blogs, SO, non-corporate social media, weird forums, etc. There are so many cool things I remember reading on the web like 10-20 years ago that still exist that are so buried now on Google they might as well not exist. Nowadays searchin…
Heh, I was trying to do research on coronaviruses (of which COVID-19 is one of many coronaviruses), but Google sanitized the result and only showed me "official" COVID-19 resources and buried the broader coronavirus resources. https://www.google.com/search?q=coronavirus
"Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?"
There was "rebranded" web search that someone created a number of years ago and posted on HN that aimed to exclude the top websites from results. I cannot remember the name he gave to the project.
One way to exclude the world's biggest websites when using Google is to restrict the search to TLDs other than .com, .net and .org. The root zone is full of silly new TLDs that no one uses for large websites. There are hundreds to choose from.
https://www.google.com/search?q=coronavirus+site:edu
Looks like Google Scholar is including a number of "coronavirus links" on the main page but thankfully not in the results.
https://scholar.google.com/search?q=coronavirus
Why not skip Google and "web search" and use a database that does not include all the crap one finds on the www
Something like
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov?term=coronavirus
or
Re: Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heh, I was trying to do research on coronaviruses (of which COVID-19 is one of many coronaviruses), but Google sanitized the result and only showed me "official" COVID-19 resources and buried the broader coronavirus resources. https://www.google.com/search?q=coronavirus
COVID-19 isn't a coronavirus, it's the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
American media calls both disease and virus "corona". They seem to care little about such details.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is somewhat ironic because 20 years ago, hobbyists would frequently put their obscure personal pages on Geocities and other large corporation's web space.
20 years ago, it was extremely common for your ISP to give you 5MB or whatever of space to use. users.ispname.com/~yourname or whatever. It was great, tbh, since anyone with cuteftp and notepad could publish to the world.
Still common now, at least in Australia. My ISP gives me 1GB if hosting for a website and 10 mailboxes.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
#156Remember sites like stumbleupon?
I find that the YouTube sidebar is useful for me to find interesting music. I have eclectic tastes, and Google seems to have figured that out. I don't mind.
I suspect that it would be possible to create a custom API query to Google that would have a "blacklist."
Re: Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
#157I would pay real subscription money for a search engine that focused on knowledge-oriented results rather than retail and commercial results.
When I type “shoes”, it would give me: links for the functional and creative history of footwear, the taxonomy of shoes, methods of construction, current and historical footwear industry data, synonyms and antonyms, related terms and professions, the dictionary definition, and similar links related to secondary meanings (such as any protective covering at the base of an object, horseshoes etc). I’d also hope for a comedy link to a biography of Cordwainer Smith.
What I actually get, which I don’t want at all: pages and pages of shoe shopping.
The various means to exclude “top X sites” are the roughest possible heuristic in that direction, and throw out the baby with the bathwater (for example, a long-established manufacturer may well have an informational online exhibit)
Google has essentially failed me in its primary mission. Bing at least has the grace to admit they are here to “connect you to brands”. And sadly, right now, every other option is an also-ran.
In practice I use DDG, directed by !bangs towards known encyclopaedic or domain-specific sources. I am certain that I’m missing out.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
#158I would pay real subscription money for a search engine that focused on knowledge-oriented results rather than retail and commercial results. When I type “shoes”, it would give me: links for the functional and creative history of footwear, the taxonomy of shoes, methods of construction, current and historical footwear industry data, synonyms and antonyms, related terms and professions, the dictionary definition, and…
That sounds like the job of an encyclopedia.
Maybe some sort of collaborative encyclopedia where people can edit pages and add references.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
#159I would pay real subscription money for a search engine that focused on knowledge-oriented results rather than retail and commercial results. When I type “shoes”, it would give me: links for the functional and creative history of footwear, the taxonomy of shoes, methods of construction, current and historical footwear industry data, synonyms and antonyms, related terms and professions, the dictionary definition, and…
That sounds like the job of an encyclopedia. Maybe some sort of collaborative encyclopedia where people can edit pages and add references.
I know you’re only half joking. In practice many, perhaps most of my DDG queries do end in !w - but there’s a wealth of information that is relevant, interesting, and useful, but wouldn’t be considered encyclopaedic, or that is merely summarised in Wikipedia; in addition, their references are included as supporting citations, very far from a comprehensive index of currently accessible information.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a search engine which excludes the world's biggest websites?
#160If I search for a product on duck-duck-go, the first 10 results are from amazon.com... they must be getting kick backs... I am done with them (for now).