Michael Nolan <htfoot@xxxxxxxxx> 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
