[mike10921]

Completely agree. Just a few years back before I was using a password manager with random passwords I googled one of my commonly used passwords. I was able to find leaked databases of passwords etc. The other day I did a similar search and absolutely nada.

When I search for technical information 2 out of 3 times I get a website that I must pay to view content.

The internet is clearly going in a bad direction and most average joe users are suffering and will likely suffer more in the future.

[mrsteveman1]

> When I search for technical information 2 out of 3 times I get a website that I must pay to view content.

I usually get thousands and thousands of cloned websites that were likely set up in bulk using a template. They copy-paste just enough text to produce a search engine hit, while the real website it came from may not even be in the search results no matter how many pages of results I click through.

And then there are the elaborate clones of Github content, Stack Overflow, and various other technical help websites, all designed to make it look like all of those discussions are happening on the clone rather than the original. Some of them include a link back to the original, some don't. I get why some of those websites are ok with their content being openly reused (not that spammers care anyway), but in practice it destroys discoverability of their own service and wastes people's time.

Pinterest has spread through Google Images like a virus, they're plastered all over the results for searches that clearly aren't from boards made by real Pinterest users. I doubt it's a 3rd party spamming Pinterest because the only entity who actually benefits from it in practice is Pinterest itself. They've changed their onboarding pattern a lot over the years, but at one point it was virtually impossible to click through to the original website at all before the account creation popup blocked everything else.

Putting Pinterest at the top of image search results is effectively nothing more than a funnel to onboard more users for Pinterest, they rarely, if ever, have any relevance. I can't imagine why Google hasn't knocked them out of the results entirely at this point.

Whatever they're doing to combat actively hostile spam websites is either failing or they simply don't care anymore. The end result could not be more obvious.

[alvah]

"Putting Pinterest at the top of image search results is effectively nothing more than a funnel to onboard more users for Pinterest, they rarely, if ever, have any relevance. I can't imagine why Google hasn't knocked them out of the results entirely at this point." Absolutely. Pinterest makes Google Image Search much worse than it otherwise would be. I haven't clicked through to Pinterest from an image search for a while, but IIRC you couldn't click through to the image without getting 1. pestered to login and 2. having to scroll through multiple pages once you logged in. I have a vague recollection of this not being compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines, but I can't recall which specific section, and it's not as if Pinterest is the only large player allowed to get away with breaches the average webmaster would be deindexed for.

[mulmen]

Pinterest is the genetically modified dinosaur clone theme park of the web.

The engineers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

[jjoonathan]

Agreed, the long tail is disappearing from google.

Between datasheets and old cringey fanfic of mine, there are more and more resources that I am aware of that absolutely still exist on the internet, with reasonable robots.txt, but can't be coaxed out of google even with exact snippets.

[Scoundreller]

Some time ago, google seemed to start really favouring corporate content.

It used to ensure most searches would have a few blog results, a wiki link, some large corps, some small corps, but that’s fallen apart.

I know this for the wrong reasons. I used to publish pages for my bank’s phone numbers because… I’d just publish their phone numbers.

While this is kinda a bad idea, now searches will give you 10 links to the bank’s own website and they make it difficult to find a number because they don’t want you to call them.

[hattmall]

I have been trying to find what refrigerant my vehicle uses for 2 days. It is absolutely insane that I can't find anything but spam content.

[bombcar]

I often drop to YouTube videos about the vehicle (but check a few to make sure they're consistent, there's bad info there, too).

[RedShift1]

There should be a sticker somewhere in the engine bay with type and quantity.

[hattmall]

Yeah, this drove me nuts looking for it, but then I remembered car was in a wreck and I think hood was replaced, no sticker. Manual only says contact qualified service technician. I'm pretty sure it's R1234yf, but still would think it should be something to easily find online.

[RedShift1]

Sorry for mansplaining if you already know this.

If the car was in an accident and the aircon doesn't work anymore, it means the gas loop is leaking. You can try to refill it but depending on the size of the leak it's going to work for a few hours to maybe a couple of days. You should evacuate the loop and do a vacuum test. If it is leaking, refilling the system with some added dye can show you where it is leaking. The Schrader valves are the usual suspects but as the car has been in an accident it could be anywhere. Adding refrigerant to a leaking system is just blowing away money that could be used to actually fix the aircon properly.

[westmeal]

Mansplaining? Really?

[aquaduck]

Well, the GP was specifically complaining about how he's tired of all the bot-splaining.

[traverseda]

Maybe it's short for manual.

[djbusby]

It's also in the manual. Searching for Make+Model+Manual has usually found it for me, then use the index in the manual to find the right page.

[nix0n]

AutoZone has a database of that type of thing. Search for the product and filter by the vehicle, or you can just ask at the desk if that's where you're gonna buy the refrigerant anyhow.

[sokoloff]

Post-1995 and old enough to be out of warranty? Overwhelmingly R-134a.

If you can’t find a sticker (or if that sticker says R-12, it still may have been converted), unscrew the cap on the service port and match it up to the type of port used by each refrigerant.

[rainbowzootsuit]

There is supposed to be a sticker per SAE J639 as the other person noted.

If it came off then I'd suggest calling a dealer parts department with your VIN and they should be able to get the information.

[baryphonic]

I had this experience the other day. I was searching for a #define constant I knew was in the Linux kernel source at least once (I was staring at it from my local clone), but none of the search engines returned anything. It's infuriating.

[lexfors]

I usually find what I need regarding kernel source here:

https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source

[mike10921]

When google was pure this would absolutely not of happened.