[SOLVED] Making Google block sites

[siddartha]

Hello,

Is there a way to get Google block some unwanted sites? For example I am looking for reviews for a certain piece of equipement and it's always the same spammers who abuse the engine and get in the list with misleading pages that have no relevant content whatsoever and which offer you the unique opportunity to spend your time and improve their database. That would be nothing, but usually these no good sites are just clever masks for dumping you on a kind seller of that product.

Cheers,
Sidd

[macogw]

If you put a - before a term you want to not show (like when I search for creepers (the shoes), i put "creapers -jeepers" to keep the movie "jeepers creepers" out), you can filter like that

[ice60]

you could try another search engine, the spammers probably only try and get their ranking up with google and not bother with other search engines. i don't know what other search engines there are though?, maybe someone has started a google search engine and blocked all the spammers??

[Dr Small]

I just switched to IXquick (http://ixquick.com) for privacy issues with Google.

[darklemming54]

If you use firefox, the customize google extension will let you filter out sites.

[igknighted]

you could try another search engine, the spammers probably only try and get their ranking up with google and not bother with other search engines. i don't know what other search engines there are though?, maybe someone has started a google search engine and blocked all the spammers??

This post made me LOL... Altavista, Yahoo and MS Live are the first to come to mind, and don't forget Dogpile, which conglomerates all the major engines. There are certainly more, (ask, lycos, etc.), but that's besides the point. How much has google taken over that linux geeks don't even know anything else exists?

[billgoldberg]

Try http://www.metacrawler.com/

I find it strange that a linux user only knows 1 search engine.

There are hundreds.

Hell I even used askjeeves.com and hotbot.com a few years back.

[siddartha]

Actually there is no other search engines. Only poor excuses to gain some money from the adverts. So far no other engine has comparable results with google. It's sad but true. The shortcoming of google is multiple sites that have no real value... just like the other search engines. They don't offer anything more than price quotations and the ability given to you to improve their own site for free. It seems that the Customize Google extension is what I was looking for. It's sad it's only availabe to firefox. Zapping sites would be a pleasure.

As for using the minus sign, I thought about it. It's hard to keep a thousand site list and than remembering to add it at each search. Also, giving a bad review doesn't help as there is no unified rating system for the sites. An IMDB but for websites would be great. But, as I see above, no company or person is willing to invest so much effort even with the ads revenue. They are all waiting for the "community" to build it up for them.

[walsh416]

Zapping sites would be a pleasure.
much agreed. I'm seeing this little cross hair...

[siddartha]

CustomizeGoogle is the solution to my problem. This way, among other features, the filtered sites become only a link with no other detail, easy to overlook. Thanks darklemming54. Sadly it isn't valid for other browsers as well.