I posted a Search Macro - fewer retail sites
This started off as an experiment but is working well enough I use it as my default engine. The goal was to create a search macro off Live.com that would help cut back on the number of retail sites that are given in search results.
Don't get me wrong, customer feedback on sites like Amazon can be really valuable, on the other hand, if I want to search about <topic> and want to find manufacturers, organizations, etc, it usually does not help when I get 5 results in my top 15 that are online resellers with only a copy of the original information. In other words, it's valuable when I desire it to be in my results and not as valuable when I specifically would prefer not to have them there.
This is true for all engines I have used, not just Live. It's easy for a retailer to have so much information on their site that they legitimately are a decent source and any good index would include it. However, it many cases those sites are not among the sources of information I am looking for. Live.com gives you the unique advantage of applying rules to results.
And of course, if the results don't have what I'm looking for I just click the "web" tab on the top of the page to go back to original results or possibly even click on "Products" to search only among online retailers!
I'm interested in feedback. I currently use the following filter:
-price -retail -buy -order prefer:history,article,definition,design,manufacture,recipe
The filter is not perfect. I originally included the word "store" and found that was blocking some technical sites especially if I was looking for information about Exchange (because of the message store). I can imagine for other disciplines the word order may also cause concerns.