4 ms·

About time... I can't be the only one who thinks Experts-Exchange is lame...

by Feynman 17y ago

mg1313 17y ago
Yeah, I thought so too....bye-bye EE, if you don't adapt.
_giu 17y ago
it's truly lame, but I always have to laugh when I hit CTRL + END on their question-pages
- spyrosk 17y ago
  Could you please explain this a bit more? I'm not sure if this a browser specific thing but on opera I just get to the bottom of the page. edit: Oh, I was looking on a page that had no answers. Didn't realise that at the time.
  - nollidge 17y ago
    I still don't get it? There's nothing interesting at the bottom of their pages...
    - misterbwong 17y ago
      The context got a bit messed up due to the way HN ranks comments but _giu is referring to the experts exchange answer pages that are returned from a Google search. If you receive a search result on Google that points to an EE question page, you can see the answers at the end of the page. EE tricks casual visitors into thinking they need an account by putting a long list of things at the top of the page and the real answers all the way at the bottom. This way Google ranks the question/answer but people think they need to buy an account. Example Google Search (Click 2nd link): http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=QQM&q=sql+problem+string+experts+exchange&aq=f&oq=&aqi= http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&... note If you visit the link directly, the real answers disappear. Yet another sneaky EE trick, this time preventing bookmarking/direct linking.
tlrobinson 17y ago
I think Joel and Jeff also though ExpertsExchange was lame, and that's partly why they created StackOverflow.
- w1ntermute 17y ago
  Yes, Joel took quite a few potshots at the "hyphenated site", as he put it, during his talk at Google about StackOverflow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWHfY_lvKIQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWHfY_lvKIQ). Also, Jeff mentions it in his intro to StackOverflow Coding Horror post (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001101.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001101.html): Stackoverflow is sort of like the anti-experts-exchange (minus the nausea-inducing sleaze and quasi-legal search engine gaming)
dca 17y ago
Agreed - they've been corrupting my search results for far too long. Its refreshing to see this in its place.
- mikeyur 17y ago
  Does google have a blacklist feature? Can I exclude all links from a certain domain within my google prefs? This needs to be a feature. I came across 3 or 4 experts-exchange pages today when looking to fix a small apache issue.
  - torpor 17y ago
    add "-site:expertsexchange.com" in your google query to exclude results from that site ..
    - messel 17y ago
      pro search tip :D Hopefully search will remember we dislike particular sites and exclude them in personalized future releases.
    - TunaFish 17y ago
      Also, it's not hard to make a keyword search that adds that automatically. On firefox, left-click the google search box/"Add a keyword for this search", save it with the keyword "g" somewhere. Then look for it in your bookmarks menu, right-click/properties and edit the query string until it fits your tastes. (The %s will get replaced with your search terms.) Mine is like 200 chars long. After that, you can use g <something> in the address bar to search for something with a sane query.
  - colinprince 17y ago
    Customize Google offers great filtering for Firefox users: http://customizegoogle.com/ http://customizegoogle.com/ From the front page: "Filter spammy websites from search results" exactly what I do with Tek-Tips...
- legooolas 17y ago
jkuria 17y ago
Experts-exchange may be lame to many of the folks on this list because it is perhaps more useful to a 'light weight' crowd with a more IT bent (rather than hard core developer). I would venture to say that StackOverflow will NEVER match experts-exchange in traffic. There are just not that many smart programmers compared to the masses of IT folks and the general public that EE caters to.
- harold 17y ago
  Which is why Jeff and Joel are also rolling out serverfault.com and superuser.com experts-exchange gets most of its traffic from gaming Google. It isn't that useful of a site.
- tallanvor 17y ago
  StackOverflow probably will beat Experts-Exchange, as will the other services they'll starting. If you have a good free service and a good pay service, the free service will win out. Experts-Exchange will survive for a while, sure, but StackOverflow is an excellent service, and on the whole I think it's the better one.

About time... I can't be the only one who thinks Experts-Exchange is lame...

by Feynman 17y ago

About time... I can't be the only one who thinks Experts-Exchange is lame...

mg1313 17y ago

Yeah, I thought so too....bye-bye EE, if you don't adapt.

_giu 17y ago

it's truly lame, but I always have to laugh when I hit CTRL + END on their question-pages

spyrosk 17y ago
Could you please explain this a bit more? I'm not sure if this a browser specific thing but on opera I just get to the bottom of the page. edit: Oh, I was looking on a page that had no answers. Didn't realise that at the time.
- nollidge 17y ago
  I still don't get it? There's nothing interesting at the bottom of their pages...
  - misterbwong 17y ago
    The context got a bit messed up due to the way HN ranks comments but _giu is referring to the experts exchange answer pages that are returned from a Google search. If you receive a search result on Google that points to an EE question page, you can see the answers at the end of the page. EE tricks casual visitors into thinking they need an account by putting a long list of things at the top of the page and the real answers all the way at the bottom. This way Google ranks the question/answer but people think they need to buy an account. Example Google Search (Click 2nd link): http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=QQM&q=sql+problem+string+experts+exchange&aq=f&oq=&aqi= http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&... note If you visit the link directly, the real answers disappear. Yet another sneaky EE trick, this time preventing bookmarking/direct linking.

tlrobinson 17y ago

I think Joel and Jeff also though ExpertsExchange was lame, and that's partly why they created StackOverflow.

w1ntermute 17y ago
Yes, Joel took quite a few potshots at the "hyphenated site", as he put it, during his talk at Google about StackOverflow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWHfY_lvKIQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWHfY_lvKIQ). Also, Jeff mentions it in his intro to StackOverflow Coding Horror post (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001101.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001101.html): Stackoverflow is sort of like the anti-experts-exchange (minus the nausea-inducing sleaze and quasi-legal search engine gaming)

dca 17y ago

Agreed - they've been corrupting my search results for far too long. Its refreshing to see this in its place.

mikeyur 17y ago
Does google have a blacklist feature? Can I exclude all links from a certain domain within my google prefs? This needs to be a feature. I came across 3 or 4 experts-exchange pages today when looking to fix a small apache issue.
- torpor 17y ago
  add "-site:expertsexchange.com" in your google query to exclude results from that site ..
  - messel 17y ago
    pro search tip :D Hopefully search will remember we dislike particular sites and exclude them in personalized future releases.
  - TunaFish 17y ago
    Also, it's not hard to make a keyword search that adds that automatically. On firefox, left-click the google search box/"Add a keyword for this search", save it with the keyword "g" somewhere. Then look for it in your bookmarks menu, right-click/properties and edit the query string until it fits your tastes. (The %s will get replaced with your search terms.) Mine is like 200 chars long. After that, you can use g <something> in the address bar to search for something with a sane query.
- colinprince 17y ago
  Customize Google offers great filtering for Firefox users: http://customizegoogle.com/ http://customizegoogle.com/ From the front page: "Filter spammy websites from search results" exactly what I do with Tek-Tips...
legooolas 17y ago

jkuria 17y ago

Experts-exchange may be lame to many of the folks on this list because it is perhaps more useful to a 'light weight' crowd with a more IT bent (rather than hard core developer). I would venture to say that StackOverflow will NEVER match experts-exchange in traffic. There are just not that many smart programmers compared to the masses of IT folks and the general public that EE caters to.

harold 17y ago
Which is why Jeff and Joel are also rolling out serverfault.com and superuser.com experts-exchange gets most of its traffic from gaming Google. It isn't that useful of a site.
tallanvor 17y ago
StackOverflow probably will beat Experts-Exchange, as will the other services they'll starting. If you have a good free service and a good pay service, the free service will win out. Experts-Exchange will survive for a while, sure, but StackOverflow is an excellent service, and on the whole I think it's the better one.