Technology

It is so ironic that SEO has become the very problem it was invented to fix: all these jokers gaming the system have all but plunged us all back into prehistoric internet times, before search engines appeared and people had to remember which specific sites to go to find information online.

Stick to sites you know. If you're looking for a review and you get a hit on a site you don't know there's a better than 50% chance it's just an ad generated site (and frequently these days just the output from chatgpt).

Sucks for lesser known sites that are trying to get noticed, but unless google work out a way of removing the crap from feeds that's the way it is.

Same with youtube.. unless you trust the reviewer, assume it's paid unless there's good evidence otherwise.

Search for reddit/lemmy mentions specifically.. although those can be astroturfed too.. but the comments are generally helpful.

Lemmings are going to crucify me for this, but here goes anyway...

site:www.reddit.com

Mostly Google-fu and a strong Spidey sense of links that look like they'll waste your time.

Type stuff into Google.

Scroll down until you find something that looks like a forum. Random PHPBB boards, Stack Overflow, Reddit, old Experts Exchange topics, etc. Or a wiki page.

If it isn't one of those two things, it's probably AI generated blogspam with a dozen adverts on it.

I go on 4chan and insult the product/thing/person that I need info on. Then I wait, rubbing my uhhh hands like a perv behind the tree.

I think it's becoming a lost art ... but basically, you need to go by reputation. Pick well known sites that you trust, compare what they say about the subject, don't even base your opinion on just one random blog article or tweet / reddit / lemmy post.

For some, Wikipedia is trustworthy since it (usually) cites its sources and has a pretty good track record, while for others it's not to be trusted, cause anyone can edit it. In the end it's up to you what you trust. Another example: The CDC (in the US) can be considered trustworthy for health information, being an official government agency, but many also don't trust it as it has become more politicised and so, biased. Again, you decide what to trust, and always consult at least two trusted sources, more is better.

For product reviews, I simply don't pay much attention to the star rating, but instead, read the actual reviews, and sort them chronologically so I read the most recent ones. Check that they are actually reviewing the product / service you think they are, as there are ways to get good reviews then "switch" the product listing (amazon) and other similar tricks. Check if it seems plausible, level-headed, or if it's just someone being angry, or likely fake. Like I said, it's an art, not a science. Sometimes, you have to actually buy the product / service and judge for yourself, then compare your experience with the reviews, and you'll learn to tell the truthful reviews from the fake or unreliable.

I have found some pretty neat information here on Lemmy, specifically talking about Android, Firefox and Linux.

I do better via DuckDuckGo than Google these days.

I use Kagi and it's just amazing. Don't have any problems. You can also configure Kagi to prioritize certain sites and remove others you don't care about. Very happy with it.

The bullshit is because Google wants you to visit shitty sites because of ad revenues.

Throw them out of your life.

Back in the day, Wikipedia was so neutral that they had people arguing how to write articles from a non-human POV. Yes, certain articles get political, but that is when the talk page arguments, counter-arguments, and linked ARBICOM evidence pages give you a good lesson on what people think are fact and opinion. I haven't been a editor for a while, is wikipedia not a hotbed of nerds who have to be in alignment with the facts regardless of what current political discourse says is right nowadays?

I just search ddg and get my results. I don't get those affiliates, top 10 lists, or whatever you're talking about. I just get good results, and if I don't then I try using Google.

Another tip that basically works with all search engines. Mark a word in "quotes" to have results require that word in the page. Helps you narrow results down if you need something specific.

I use SearXNG to search for things, with custom redirects and block lists.

If I want a genuine human opinion on a topic, I add "site:reddit.com" to the search. Hopefully someday there will be a good way to parse the fediverse for info.

You’re asking about a pretty tough problem, and I don’t have the silver bullet for that one. However, I do have some tools that might help you out a bit. None of these tools are 100% reliable, so take everything with a grain of salt.

Fakespot and reviewmeta can help weeding out some of the junk reviews.

When I have a lot of text to go through, I just dump all of it on chatGPT or Bing and ask for a summary. It’s a language model after all, so it should be pretty good at this sort of thing. A horse won’t plow a field all by itself, but if you’re there to steer it, it will get the job done faster than you would.

When I’m looking for a good book to read, I’ll usually use the reviews of goodreads. Just skip all the 5-star reviews, because they are usually written by people who aren’t competent at reviewing books. Take all the the 1-4 star reviews dump them on your favorite LLM and let it look for frequently reoccurring complaints.

Wiki

There's an interesting blog post on this subject (likely someone posted it already): https://dkb.blog/p/google-search-is-dying

I find it to be very agreeable. Search is dying and I don't agree that appending "site:reddit.com" is any kind of permanent solution, just a workaround that will also break.

Through Cunningham's Law.

I let people smarter than me on Lemmy and in chat rooms tell me wtf is going on in ways I can understand. If I need that info for a paper, I can always just say something stupid and get like 50 people correcting me with accurate info and sources. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Keep a log of anything you do successfully find that you may need later.

I’ve started bookmarking anything I do find genuinely useful as there’s a chance that the a similar search would yield different results that wouldn’t help at all.

I’ve also installed archivebox on one of my home lab pcs to grab a snapshot of any sites and pages that I want to keep (you never know if you’ll go back and it’s gone).

Retaining good information for yourself is just as important on the web now given all the bot spam and affiliate laden shit out there that Google and Bing seem to be promoting these days.

On programming topics, your top search results will be stack overflow followed github followed by sites that scrape stack overflow and then the sites that scrape github. It's great.

I usually look for stuff on stackoverflow and stackexchange.

If i can't find it on those sites, i'll perform some arcane google magic (dorking) to see if i can find it.

If all else fails, i'll sniff through arxiv to see if i can find some research papers on the subject.

I follow some reviewers on YouTube, Project Farm is a great one.

If I want a useful ad, I just wait on instagram to spy on me and actually give me good local ads that are useful

Kinda glad that I kept most of my university textbooks and have a bunch of encyclopaedias and shit lying around.

The internet used to be about people sharing what they know for free to help others and it became a WINNER TAKE ALL kind of internet. There are no blog, article, reviews, that are not fake anymore, you can buy each one of these services, even search results can be bought. Google, Duckduckgo, Bing, Kagi, are all the same shit different smell, the results are not relevant anymore, the only thing that makes them different is the browser extension you run to block the spyware, tracking, and surveillance on your every click, data that gets sold by your ISP, Social media, and every site you visit, not unless you are blocking that info between your browser and the site you visit - which is doable with a lot of browser extensions.

Honestly, niche YouTube channels. The problem is sometimes you don't want to sit through a 30-45 minute video to find the information you're after.

Research journals along with a university based Library search engine to find them.

Have good filters for all the crap and use search engines with modifiers. What’s a subject or thing you’ve struggled to research so I can see if I have the same issue?