With Google search taking a huge nosedive in the last few years, I’ve been thinking about how effective specific search engines and databases could be. There’s still plenty of general search engines like DuckDuckGo and Ecosia that I’ll keep using but it feels like AI grift stuff may be coming to them as well. So anyway, I’ve started building out a list of more specific databases. I might eventually turn it into a standalone page so I would love to know what databases you like. I’m avoiding Fandom wikis since they’re an awful company and I don’t have a lot of confidence in them in the long term, but please recommend other wikis that aren’t owned by big companies. I’ll keep updating this over the next few days as I think of things and more suggestions come in.
Anyway, here’s a few that might be worth looking at:
Academic Journals
JSTOR
OpenAlex
OpenEdition
Board Games
BoardGameGeek
Books
The Conjuring Archive – Search for books about magic
Demian’s Gamebook Web Page
GoodReads
The Online Books Page – Links to archives of magazines, journals, newspapers, and other periodicals
Standard Ebooks – Public domain books
StoryGraph
Comics
The Grand Comics Database
Fanfiction
Archive of Our Own
Wattproject
Global Myths/Folklore
The Mythology and Folklore Database
Guitar Tabs
Ultimate Guitar
Internet
Internet Archive
Language
Online Etymology Dictionary
Local
LocalWiki
Open License Content
Openverse
Other/General
Basenotes – Fragrances
TVTropes
Podcasts
Podcast Index
Search Engines
A look at search engines with their own indexes
List of alternative search engines
Marginalia – independent DIY search engine focused on non-commercial content
OpenOrb – Personally curated search engine focused on blogs
Tabletop RPGs
RPGGeek
United States Art
Library of Congress
Video Games
The Adventure Games Database
Bundle Browser – Search for games in Itch.io bundles
IFDB – Interactive Fiction Database
IGDB
Game Making Tools Wiki
Michigan Games Database
MobyGames
Point and Click Adventure Games Database on AdventureGamers
Solution Archive