Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

pet hate 1, searching for a component data sheet, using the component part number and ".pdf" and "data sheet"

results: lots of links to sites that want to either sell the data sheet, or "frame" it in a tiny window surrounded by adverts, somewhere on page 2-3 will be the actual manufacturer datasheet, maybe

pet hate 2, search for a thing using three keywords

results: lots of links that related to something else that have at the bottom "must include:" then the keywords, followed by "missing:" and then the keywords


Google is now all about trying to sell you what they thing you really should be looking for, not showing you information on what you actually want

and they have started to override and ignore more advanced searches, e.g. adding "-review" in a search when I don't want spammy reviews of a product, I'm after actual data or files related to it

leopard wrote:
and they have started to override and ignore more advanced searches, e.g. adding "-review" in a search when I don't want spammy reviews of a product, I'm after actual data or files related to it

Ditto for everything you said, but this in particular is maddening. I haven't used advanced search terms in years because they just don't work, as you said. "site:" is the only one that does any work, if you already know the site you're targeting.

I thought this would be a discussion about how much stuff gets posted to Facebook and Instagram, etc and doesn't get indexed to Google or other search engines

Assuming you know a little about what you're trying to access, Google Dorking *can* help sometimes.

Using things like filetype:, intent:, allintext:, URL:, etc, can narrow things down, but require you to know a bit about what you're searching.

Googling "Google Dork Cheatsheet" might be a helpful stepping off point.

 Fugazi wrote:

leopard wrote:
and they have started to override and ignore more advanced searches, e.g. adding "-review" in a search when I don't want spammy reviews of a product, I'm after actual data or files related to it

Ditto for everything you said, but this in particular is maddening. I haven't used advanced search terms in years because they just don't work, as you said. "site:" is the only one that does any work, if you already know the site you're targeting.

A comorbidity is that this kind of information used to be posted on message boards - someone else asked the same technical question, and a few helpful people post actual files or solutions in response. The problem is that message boards have declined.

Joining specific Facebook groups has been helpful if unwieldy in the past but not as much now, due to the same problems as search engines. Reddit, stack exchange, git hub, even medium quora or substack have been substitutes sometimes

But it’s definitely not as helpful as typing in the full text of a question and finding that someone else has asked and answered that question on a discussion board I’d never heard or thought of before