Google's search results are bad by default because they're hijacked by SEO farms. Despite this, I find that there's almost always a way for me to find what I wa

Google's search results are bad by default because they're hijacked by SEO farms. Despite this, I find that there's almost always a way for me to find what I want with Google. If I want thoughtful discussion about a topic, I'll append "from:news.ycombinator" to my search. This also often surfaces great personal blogs or old documents or other things that don't rank high in search results. If it's not covered on HN, I'll append "from:reddit" instead (they're not always wise but as at least they're not getting paid per word written, and the upvote system gives me a sense of what real people think). If I want a broad survey of a topic, Wikipedia or some other wiki are usually great. If I want a really deep dive, I'll append "book", usually in conjunction with "from:news.ycombinator". Lastly, I sometimes add a time filter, e.g. "after:2021". Clearly this is an awkward pattern. But it really works, and I'm having trouble thinking of something that would be meaningfully better. I suspect most people have found ways of using Google that work well enough for them. So I'm afraid Google Search will stick around for awhile.