Michael Nolan <htfoot@gmail.com> writes:
> There's so much garbage in a Google search any more that they're becoming
> nearly useless. Between 'sponsored' hits and ones that have little or no
> relevance but throw in words to get included, I find as often as not that
> IF Google finds what I'm looking for, it'll be several pages in.
>
There is certainly a bit of 'art' or 'black magic' involved when doing a
google to find relevant information and the amount of noise in the
signal has certainly gotten worse. I find putting the key terms early in
your search string can help. However, when dealing with an unfamiliar
topic, knowing what those key terms are can be challenging. This is one
reason I rarely tell people to 'just google for the answer' or assume
they haven't tried when the answer seems quite obvious and easily found
for me.
The change I've noticed over the last decade or so is the amount of
completely wrong or misleading information that is easily found. I
rarely use stack overflow sites these days because too often, the
accepted or most popular answer is wrong or gets a result, but in a poor
manner that is likely to introduce other issues.
The one thing I wish people did was provide clear and concise meta data
with the information they post. Often, I find it difficult to know, for
example, how old the information is or which version of the software it
applies to.
When it comes to PG, I think we are very lucky. In general, I find the
official documentation to be of the highest quality. Sometimes, I can be
a little dense and a few more examples would be useful, but I understand
how hard getting the balance between enough examples and concise
information can be.
It is often in this forum where I find some of the most useful
information and ideas. I really appreciate those contributors who not
only provide an answer to a question, but also include URLs to other
sources which frequently contain more background or details. Pointers to
such valuable resources from those more knowledgeable can save hours of
googling and wading through ill informed and misguided advice.
--
Tim Cross