Show HN: Search engine for finding the best of anything (bestlist.com)
All of our results are non-biased, non-paid, and are dynamically generated via our search algorithm. It’s not perfect, but we’re working extremely hard and are determined to make it ubiquitous in the lives of the everyday internet user.
Other Features
Voting If you’re feeling strongly about a search results, you can up or downvote the listing to voice your opinion. When you vote, you’ll be asked to state why you voted. This gives other users better insights into the listing.
Collections With collections you can easily save and keep track of all of your favorite listings. Collections can be public or made private, and they’re easily edited, reordered, and shared.
Submissions If you find that we’re missing a result for a particular query, you can easily submit it as a suggestion. We’ll review it, and publish it if it makes the cut.
Current Limitations •It’s currently English only. •We don’t handle searches that start with “Best way..” or “Best settings ..” or “Best route..” very well. •Also, searches for professionals (doctors, etc,) and recipes have issues.
I’m sure there are a lot more we’re missing.
I'd love for you to try and it and let us know what you think.
Thank you, Tyler
41 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 92.7 ms ] thread.. but porn doesn't work.
"best boobs" "best hentai"
Alright, enough porn talk. I really like the UI. Please allow me to ask whether you plan on monetizing this, and if so, how?
Some people like the playful graphics, others not so much.
Oh, and we just hardcoded some popular recommended searches in the search field.
I don't think anyone is quite doing it well. I love to see experimentation of any kind.
We're just getting started, and will refine it over time, but we had to start somewhere, and get this thing out in the world to see if it resonates with people. The jury is still out.
The algorithm on its own is not working well... at all. It's no better, and often worse, than generic "best of" queries in any other search engine. More details in my other post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32500543
Tried searching for a certain type of software and the results just aren't relevant. Most aggressively marketed and SEO'd stuff is on top and the actually good stuff is not even on the list :-/
"best national park" = Teton, Bryce, Zion... why does Yellowstone get 3/5 stars? No idea
"air fryer" = random products with generic descriptions, several of which are 3/5 stars (out of the dozens of air fryers available, why are the top 5 the mediocre ones? who's saying they're mediocre? No idea)
"airline to fly to thailand" = two of the five results aren't even airlines
"tech forum" = nearly all useless spam sites
"place to get programming help" = takes forever to load, but actually returned useful results (kudos!)
"restaurants near me" (autosuggested, pushed enter like it said) = nothing happened. UI bug that doesn't select the entry if you push enter instead of clicking on it
"awd suv" = many aren't even cars, and the ones that are just have manufacturer's descriptions instead of any useful comparison
I was excited to try your service, but to be honest, I probably would never use this again after this experience. I would not consider this even early alpha quality, much less beta, because its result sets are largely not trustworthy. The signal to noise ratio is way too low, and your algorithm is totally opaque, and there are no visible signals for me to use to evaluate the quality of your results. If I didn't have foreknowledge of a topic, I would have no way to determine whether to trust your results. Of the topics I AM familiar with, your results were not very convincing... at all. Sorry to be harsh, I hope you guys keep working on this and making it better... but maybe don't make it public yet until it gets much, much better? The first impression was negative for me.
If you would, I'd like to get your contact info so I can reach back out when we've improved things.
If you're up for it, please email me: tyler at bestlist.com.
Thanks again!
https://www.bestlist.com/search/best-developers-forum
Then I searched for the best shirt for men and it gave me Uniqlo and Everlane - okay. Then it followed that up with Brooklinen (luxury bed sheets), J Crew (A woman's clothing store), a search results page for amazon.com for search query "Men's Flannel Shirts". Not very great.
Another thing is the star rating. "Based on public opinion" means nothing to me without some context and sources.
Also, https://www.jcrew.com/mens XD
I do like what you got going here though, it's a fresh take on search as a whole.
Good luck!
J Crew isn’t a women’s only clothing store, and they do have some pretty high quality shirts for men.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sGAI_QF9s
A kindof trip advisor, but I guess that's also tricky because you will face the wall of the fake ratings.
The upvote feature although I see also why its behind login and the steps, maybe it will be worth to shorten also the process to upvote. Because as it is right now you will need a really committed community to upvote or downvote.
I will use this as a main search for a while when I try to find stuff and see how it behaves and let you know!
Javascript is #1 and Java is #2. C is #4, Rust doesn't even make top 10.
Discuss in groups.
You can also upvote Rust if don't agree.
Thank you for your feedback.