I just go the official docs even if their old and then switch to the latest version once I'm on the website. Most of the software I use has easy index to switch between versions.
Some of this is just because some of these frameworks and technologies have been around for a while and they iterate frequently. I see a ton of Azure content that is obsolete after only a few years.
So many SEO trick to put yourselves into top google search for traffic.
I have google for bug and stuff, and most common bug can be found on shitty content Java tip page with broken format, lot of ads, and sometime untrue/outdate information.
It doesn't matter. List all the crap you want, but show me the most up to date official documentation for the postgres "IN" operator in the very first result! It can't be that hard.
I've started relying more on AI-powered tools like Perplexity for many of my search use-cases for this very fact - all results basically warrant a pre-filtering to be useful.
Unfortunately the spam arms race has destroyed any chance of search going back to the good ole days. SEO and AI content farms means we'll need a whole new system to categorize webpages, as well as filter out human sounding but low effort spam.
Point being, it's no longer enough to find a page that's relevant to the topic, it has to be relevant and actually deliver information, which currently the only feasible tech that can differentiate those is LLMs.
It would be interesting tho to use a LLM to spot AI/SEO crap and add whole domains to a search blacklist. In that case we wouldn't need AI to do the actual search, and this could easily just be a database for end users by the SE's side (kinda like explicit content filters).
I'd call that option "Bullspam filter" and leave it on "moderate" by default.
This is one solution to the issue, and it seems silly you are being downvoted for it.
Google became what it became, and years of seo optimisation cat & mouse play has reached new heights. Those obviously target Google instead of their competitors for now.
Would that we could have perfect search results, it would be beneficial to google as well.
Skill issue. Old version docs tend to offer you a redirect to more recent docs, and even then something sintactic like an "IN" operator is unlikely to change in form or structure between versions of a database engine.
Old version docs tend to offer you a redirect to more recent docs
Sadly, the docs, I've worked with (openstack and ansible) frequently, don't do this. They have a button to go to the latest version of the docs, but not to the equivalent page on the latest version. This means I have to find the equivalent page again, from the integrated search usually.
And yes, a lot can change between versions. New features can get added that solve your problems or older stuff can get removed.
You didn't include a version in your query. You also could try using quotes, though this specific entry may not be helped by it (e.g. "in operator"). For most things, you can click a link with the older version and somewhere there is typically a dropdown or something to change the version and, if not, you'll at least know which section/etc. it is in in the new documentation.
If you don't include a version, it's probably going to pull up questions/answers that it finds most match in general and maybe people just aren't asking that question for your version.
I think there's a lot to hate about modern search results, but I also think there's some opportunity to search better. I do miss the days when AND, OR, and NOT operators actually worked all the time and as expected.
