Exclude Spammy Sites from Google with This Custom Search Engine [Search Tip]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5756869/exclude-spammy-sites-from-google-with-this-custom-search-engine

We've shown you how to create site-specific search engines in Chrome and Firefox, and reader isaaclyman reminds us you can also use that to exclude spammy sites from your search results.

Many of you have noticed that Google's search results have become less useful lately, and while Google's working on that, there are a few other things you can do yourself. We've mentioned search page, Firefox Add-on, and bookmarklet Give Me Back My Google before, but reader isaaclyman presents another solution: just make a custom search engine using this URL:

  {google:baseURL}search?{google:RLZ}{google:acceptedSuggestion}{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}sourceid=chrome&ie={inputEncoding}&q=%s%20-spamsite1.com%20-spamsite2.com%20-spamsite3.com%20-spamsite4.com 

Where spamsite1, spamsite2, and so on are spammy sites that seem to keep cluttering up your Google search results. He recommends using the super-simple keyword !, since you may end up using this search engine a lot. Got any of your own tips for filtering out the spam? Share them with us in the comments.

[via #tips]