A search engine that finds software you didn't even know existed | Hacker News Reader

A search engine that finds software you didn't even know existed

productsearch.help

3 pointsgeorgehill6 comments

OK. Let's give it a go. At the weekend, I found a few old LibreOffice docs that I wanted to see what was in them. But no longer have LibreOffice installed. So:

SEARCH: odt viewer

RESULTS:

  Visual QR Code Generator - Visualead

  Business Intelligence (BI) & Data Analytics Platform

  Cloud-based data analytics exploration for all | Chartio

  YesInsights | Simple Surveys for Consumer Feedback | One-Click

  Visualping: #1 Website change detection, monitoring and alerts

  TensorFlow

  Ubersuggest's Free Keyword Tool, Generate More Suggestions

etc. etc.

Let's try another one, that I needed a while back, when I found my ancient version of Photoshop couldn't open 'webp' files:

SEARCH: webp image converter

RESULTS:

  Manage Your Team’s Projects From Anywhere | Trello

  Buffer: All-you-need social media toolkit for small businesses

  Sublime Text - the sophisticated text editor for code, markup 

  TinyPNG – Compress WebP, PNG and JPEG images intelligently [close but no cigar!]

  Convert svg to png Online By IconScout's File Converter 

  Please Wait... | Cloudflare

  pinterest.com

  Typeform: People-Friendly Forms and Surveys

  Instagram for Business - Hootsuite

  Etsy - Shop updates

Complete junk. And the funniest thing is that the site bills itself as an 'Anti-seo spam search engine'

I understand that these results aren't great. I just checked the index for your queries, it's a bit low on these niches, but I am working hard to expand the index.

It's not only that the results 'aren't great' [to put it mildly]. It's that they're full of exactly the kind of 'SEO spam' results that your USP claims your site avoids.

In fact, running the same searches in a 'normal' search engine actually produces better results which are free from SEO spam.

GOOGLE [via Startpage]

SEARCH: odt viewer

RESULTS:

  Open Document Format (odt, odp, ods) Viewer

  View ODT Online | Free GroupDocs Apps

  ODT Viewer

  ODT File Viewer - LibreOffice – Apps on Google Play

  LibreOffice & OpenOffice document reader | ODF – Apps on Google ...

  Online ODT Viewer - Conholdate Apps

  ODT Viewer – Free Tool to Open & Read ODT File Extension

  Free Online ODT Reader/Viewer - Aspose Products

BING [via DDG]

  ODT Viewer

  View ODT Online | Free GroupDocs Apps

  ODT Viewer - Free Tool to Open & Read ODT File Extension

  ODT File Viewer - LibreOffice - Apps on Google Play

  ODT Viewer - Free download and software reviews - CNET

  ODT Viewer (free) download Windows version

  What Is an ODT File (And How to Open One) - Lifewire

  Overview of the Office Deployment Tool - Deploy Office

  Open Office Viewer - ODF, PDF - Apps on Google Play

GOOGLE [via Startpage]

SEARCH: webp image converter

RESULTS:

  WEBP Converter - CloudConvert

  WebP to JPG image converter - Ezgif

  Convert images to WebP - Image Online Convert

  WEBP to JPG - online-convert.com

  An image format for the Web | WebP - Google Developers

  WebP Converter - FreeConvert.com

  WebP image converter - TinyIMG

  JPG to WEBP (Online & Free) - Convertio

  WebP Converter

  Best Image to WEBP Converter Online - Image to JPG - 11zon

  WebP / Avif image converter

  Convert WEBP to JPG online for free - iLoveIMG

BING [via DDG]

  WEBP Converter | CloudConvert

  Jpg to Webp

  WEBP to JPG (Online & Free) — Convertio

  Webp Converter | Online Free Image Converting Tool

  WEBP to JPG Converter - 100% Free

  Image to WEBP - Online Converter

  webp to image converter online - Free webp converter

  WebP Converter

  WebP image converter | TinyIMG

  WebP Converter - FreeConvert.com

  7 Best WebP Converters to Convert WebP to JPEG, or Vice Versa - WidsMob

Now, Im not for a minute suggesting that all those results are kosher. We all know how many junk websites are out there. But at least Google and Bing returned results that were relevant to what I searched for each time. So I could at least 'sort the wheat from the chaff' [and block those domains for the future with GHHBD[0]]. But your search engine didn't return ANY relevant results at all. And, more to the point actually returned a majority of obviously spammy marketing sites --which is precisely the thing you say your site is designed to avoid.

Sorry for pissing on your fireworks here. But either your algorithm is fucked and returning the opposite of what it's meant to find. Or, as is often the case, you've rushed into announcing your 'new thing' on HN, before it's anywhere near ready for primetime. Which is a counter-productive strategy as, even if your site improves in leaps and bounds from now on, I [and I presume others who've tested it at this stage] will already have filed it away under "Does not work" and are unlikely to consider it in future.

[0] https://www.jeffersonscher.com/gm/google-hit-hider/

Whoever it is thanks for posting!

So yeah, I created this software only search engine. Currently, the index size is pretty low. The results might be irrelevant but I will be expanding the index size.

Whoever it is thanks for posting!

So yeah, I created this software only search engine. Currently, the index size is pretty low. The results might be irrelevant but I will be expanding the index size.

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