On: For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads

[RosanaAnaDana]

I'm just gonna throw this out there as I'm noticing it more and more at this point since switching languages.

What the actual F has happened to google search results for programming issues?

I used to be able to google a question and get, more or less, a right answer from a forum or stack overflow.

Recently, many coding tutorial websites have clearly figured out how to hack googles pageranks and now instead of one 'right enough answer', its 5 clone 'tutorial' websites, with all the same crappy answer that isn't actually what I was asking. Like I can't use google for coding questions any more. Not like I was able to previously. Also, Stackoverflow with bangs from ddg are broken and it thinks I'm a robot. No answer except to go to SO directly and search.

[benlivengood → RosanaAnaDana]

Python has been the worst for me; it's almost impossible to find the official documentation for modules/functions.

Defining search aliases or custom search engines in the browser with URLs like '''https://www.google.com/search?q=site:docs.python.org+%s''' is probably the reasonable thing to do.

[soraminazuki → benlivengood]

https://devdocs.io is nice when you're searching for official documentation.

[macintux → soraminazuki]

Reminds me of Dash: https://kapeli.com/dash

[kristopolous → soraminazuki]

Thanks for dropping that link. This thing looks fantastic

[throwaway2037 → benlivengood]

I have the same experience. I assume these websites are just content farms trying to give away free introductory training for Python programming. Later, they try to upsell you to buy training. I see the same when Googling common Git issues.

[sk5t → benlivengood]

Ditto, moving from Scala to Python and Go for a stint shocked me with the craptacular state of search results for "easy/popular" languages. Next stop was an extension for blocking particular sites in search.

[CodeGlitch → benlivengood]

https://zealdocs.org

[_aavaa_ → RosanaAnaDana]

This has been a game changer for me. I got it for this very reason

https://iorate.github.io/ublacklist/docs

[shpongled → RosanaAnaDana]

It is especially bad when all of those "tutorial" websites are pay-walled Medium sites too

[llamataboot → RosanaAnaDana]

SO search results have also been broken for about 8 years unless you know how to filter for recent results. There is no good search on the internet anymore. I'm to the point where I wish I could !g2 bang DDG to go to the first result on the second page of search results.

[xfer → RosanaAnaDana]

This is sad and a recent development, i was using google to search for manuals/api docs as it was better than builtin indexing. But now-a-days official sites are never the first link.

[randomsearch → RosanaAnaDana]

100%.

Spurious garbage SEO programming sites showing unhelpful code snippets in particular have had a big productivity hit on my coding.

I wonder what the people working on those sites think about what they’re doing.

[Thev00d00 → randomsearch]

Making money from Ads?

[bspammer → Thev00d00]

Personally if I was making money at the expense of humanity’s ability to access knowledge, I wouldn’t feel so great about it.

[Nerwesta → RosanaAnaDana]

Same boat here, the only reason I switch DDG to Google was to find more relevance on programming / CS issues. But I feel like it's getting worse.

[ngc248 → RosanaAnaDana]

GeeksForGeeks is the prime culprit and lotsa times what geeksforgeeks has is just the docs.

[pyb → RosanaAnaDana]

Agreed, the most vexing thing about this is that DDG is now promoting the exact same tutorial sites that Google is : Geekforgeeks, etc

What's the point in having different search engines if they copy each other's search results?