Choices have slowly been running out when it comes to effective search engines. It seems inevitable an open source search engine project independent from big tech will be needed.

Some of my own tricks are:

  • Use the blacklist plugin to block sites from search.
  • Search for forum sites and communities instead of specific queries. (Wikipedia has a list of forums that might be useful)
  • For technical questions favor Q&A websites like stack exchange.
  • YouTube videos often offer better information than results from search engines. (Use search engines instead of YT search)
  • Look for blogs and journals that specialize in the topic you’re searching for.
  • Use boolean search when possible.
  • Self-host and customize your own metadata search engine. Create a graph network linking websites based on subject/topic. You may not be able to query specific questions but you can discover sites that you otherwise can’t in traditonal search. This is a great way to discover hidden gems! (Example: https://internet-map.net/)
  • (Difficult) Self-host and scrape sites across the web in order to create your own query-able database. This would be the most effective way to search the internet and would be completely independent from potential enshittification and censorship. The cost however is quite high both in term of hardware and time. Kiwix offers a way to download websites for offline use. (Ex: Wikipedia, Stack exchange). This is a good starting point to build your own custom search engine.

I would love to hear the tips and tricks you use! I hope this post helps others in more efficiently finding information on the internet!

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
    4·
    17 hours ago

    for research, stem, look for sites like researchgate, and others for peer reviewed papers. articles, magazines, blogs are not good sources unless they are citing said research paper that links you to the proper site, and important to not put it out of context which might lull people into pseudoscience beliefs. some people jump the gun on these sites which are basically articles, often using dumbed down wording. universities/colleges often have access to most if not the full library of papers, that usually are behind paywalls of publishers, if yuo somehow can get acces to those go for it.