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Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

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Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#261

Post by forgotmypw17 »

azangru wrote: post #242

> Is this page any better than what you’d have gotten in 2010? What if it looked like this instead? I can't take seriously an example that still puts w3schools as the first search result. If I were searching for a simple answer about a language feature, I would want the search engine to give me a page from the definitive authoritative source on that language. w3schools isn't that.

Web dev is my bread and butter for many years, and for realistic simple and functional samples (which work beyond the latest builds, since I try to accomodate all 100% of my visitors) no one even comes close to w3schools.

I wish them many years of success and prosperity.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#262

Post by xvello »

superasn wrote: post #249

There are some sites that are so useless and they have never ever helped me once, yet somehow they are always in the top 10 results 1. w3schools 2. pinterest 3. microsoft answers and all microsoft websites actually (it always looks like the person asking the question is asking exactly what i want, but unlike stackexchange, there are seldom any useful answers) 4. all the code clones for SO 5. all alternative to / revi…

Shameless plug for the Let's Block It project: we have a filter template to selectively remove domains from search results: https://letsblock.it/filters/search-results

For the Stackoverflow / Github clones, we partner with https://github.com/quenhus/uBlock-Origin-dev-filter and their lists are available as presets at the bottom of the filter configuration.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#263

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

tremon wrote: post #260
superasn wrote: post #249

There are some sites that are so useless and they have never ever helped me once, yet somehow they are always in the top 10 results 1. w3schools 2. pinterest 3. microsoft answers and all microsoft websites actually (it always looks like the person asking the question is asking exactly what i want, but unlike stackexchange, there are seldom any useful answers) 4. all the code clones for SO 5. all alternative to / revi…

Quora is the first site that I ended up blacklisting by DNS, even before rpz and pi-hole were a thing. I felt dirty every time I inadvertently ended up on that site.

Thanks for the idea.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#264

Post by namdnay »

atourgates wrote: post #208
kshacker wrote: post #49

I know google search is probably not the same as google flights, but I spent a few hours recently (over a few days) using google flights and it was a delight to use compared to the Expedia children. We had a bereavement in the family and had to book multiple independent tickets because we could not travel together. This was just after the Ukraine war started so prices had gone through the roof. Exact number of days w…

Google flight's true genius is being able to search multiple city-pairs. Let's say you want to get from the West Coast to Europe on a business class flight, but want to save some money. Realistically, it's cheap and easy to get from West Coast airport to another, and similarly cheap and easy to get form one European airport to another. Google flights will let you search for the best combination of flights that depart…

The product was called ITA Matrix, Google bought them a while back

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#265

Post by probabletrain »

superasn wrote: post #249

There are some sites that are so useless and they have never ever helped me once, yet somehow they are always in the top 10 results 1. w3schools 2. pinterest 3. microsoft answers and all microsoft websites actually (it always looks like the person asking the question is asking exactly what i want, but unlike stackexchange, there are seldom any useful answers) 4. all the code clones for SO 5. all alternative to / revi…

I use uBlacklist to remove these from my seach results:

https://github.com/iorate/ublacklist

https://blog.probabletrain.com/hide-w3schools-from-search-re...

With some lists to block the SO and Github clones:

https://github.com/arosh/ublacklist-stackoverflow-translatio...

https://github.com/arosh/ublacklist-github-translation

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#266

Post by namdnay »

Sebguer wrote: post #51
kshacker wrote: post #49

I know google search is probably not the same as google flights, but I spent a few hours recently (over a few days) using google flights and it was a delight to use compared to the Expedia children. We had a bereavement in the family and had to book multiple independent tickets because we could not travel together. This was just after the Ukraine war started so prices had gone through the roof. Exact number of days w…

Google bought the main provider of flight information in 2010 (ITA). ITA had such a monopoly that Google was required to continue licensing their software out for years afterwards, though I think it expired in ~2016.

ITA wasn’t in any way to e main provider of flight information in 2010. It’s a relatively minor player, but with great features

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#267

Post by lament76 »

superasn wrote: post #249

There are some sites that are so useless and they have never ever helped me once, yet somehow they are always in the top 10 results 1. w3schools 2. pinterest 3. microsoft answers and all microsoft websites actually (it always looks like the person asking the question is asking exactly what i want, but unlike stackexchange, there are seldom any useful answers) 4. all the code clones for SO 5. all alternative to / revi…

Alternativeto is quite good in my experience.

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#268

Post by namdnay »

avrionov wrote: post #198
nerdponx wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will also plug Kayak as being the only other decent flight search site. The difference between Kayak/Google and the others is that Expedia and friends are online travel agencies . Kayak and Google are really just search engines. It makes a world of difference.

Can you explain what is the difference? I suppose the flight search engines don't book the flights.

On top of querying the travel agency APIs, Kayak will also query each airline directly. So you also get fares and airlines that aren’t published to agencies

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#269

Post by seymore_12 »

Markoff wrote: post #225
discordance wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITA Matrix is still available and is my preferred flight search tool. Still find the old interface much better than the new: https://oldmatrix.itasoftware.com/

it's pretty horrible, I just search my vacation destination and it doesn't have LCC Wizzair I'm flying with in Europe = useless search tool

At least on my searches with Google Flights, Wizzair shows up as a carrier for EU flights. Good search engine for low cost EU carriers is https://www.azair.eu/

Re: Three areas where Google Search lags behind competitors: code, cooking, travel

#270

Post by jordanwallwork »

naoqj wrote: post #251
superasn wrote: post #249

There are some sites that are so useless and they have never ever helped me once, yet somehow they are always in the top 10 results 1. w3schools 2. pinterest 3. microsoft answers and all microsoft websites actually (it always looks like the person asking the question is asking exactly what i want, but unlike stackexchange, there are seldom any useful answers) 4. all the code clones for SO 5. all alternative to / revi…

w3schools is good.

I think the problem is that w3schools _was_ terrible. It certainly seems to have improved, but it's reputation - amongst the older coders that I know, at least - is in the toilet
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