Sometimes Iโm looking for something online - often โhow toโ articles - and I want to filter for - like - a website that was clearly built in 2010 at the latest, which may or may not have been updated since then, but contains a vast wealth of information on one topic, painstakingly organized by an unknown legend in the field with decadesโ worth of experience. I donโt want a listicle with a nice stolen picture in a slideshow format written by a content aggregator that God forgot. I want hand-drawn diagrams by some genius professor who doesnโt understand SEO at all, but understands making stir-fries or raising stick insects better than anyone else on this earth. I donโt know what search settings to put into Google to get this.
thank you for articulating this cri de coeur for me
ngl these days iโm just happy when itโs not a video
search.marginalia.nu is the search engine you want!
The search engine calculates a score that aggressively favors text-heavy websites, and punishes those that have too many modern web design features.
This is in a sense the opposite of what most major search engines do, they favor modern websites over old-looking ones. Most links you find here will be nearly impossible to find on a regular search engine, as they arenโt sufficiently search engine optimized.
โIt is a search engine, designed to help you find what you didnโt even know you were looking for. If you search for โPlatoโ, you might for example end up at the Canterbury Tales. Go looking for the Canterbury Tales, and you may stumble upon Neil Gaimanโs blog.
If you are looking for fact, this is almost certainly the wrong tool. If you are looking for serendipity, youโre on the right track. When was the last time you just stumbled onto something interesting, by the way?
I donโt expect this will be the next โbigโ search engine. This is and will remain a niche tool for a niche audience.โ
i clicked around for a few minutes searching various things and I now have two fourteenth century pie crust recipes and an apple filling recipe i want to try, so thanks!
it has been twenty minutes and I am deeply in love with this search engine.
INCREDIBLE. I *do* want to know how to test Windows 95 for Y2K Compliance and I am glad that someone is still hosting step by step instructions for that.
tl;dr: search.marginalia.nu for the old or old looking and just plain serendipitous stuff that google or Duck duck go are gonna not find/bury on the 20th page. For perfectly good reasons, but โฆ
My absolute favorite part of having made this post - other than causing people to be introduced to this site - are the people in the tags/comments talking about their interests and stuff they found about their hobbies.
Good luck out there surfing the cyberweb, you crazy cats. I love the shoelace website too - Ianโs Shoelace Site [link], unless thereโs another. My personal favorite old-school site is Alysionโs string figure collection [link].






















