I’ve had real issues trying to search the fediverse. I’ve had bad luck with the search function of both Lemmy and Mbin, and while https://fedi-search.com/ exists the Whoogle server is down and either way the search just seems to be a list of various fediverse instances and nothing fancier (which also means that it’s not a complete search?). Other than that it’s quite the hassle to list all the instances you’d like to search for every search. What’s the best way to search the fediverse? What works for you? And is it somehow possible to add a shortcut to e.g., DDG that searches specific sites without having to type for example site:lemmy.dbzer0.com and all the other instances all the time?
Thanks for putting so much time and thought into the discussion. All the problems you talk about exist for every search engine in actual use today. For example, publishing a site on a brand new domain has the exact problem you’re describing with spinning up a new Forte instance. There can be a 24-hr lag before DNS can reliably find the site. Perfect search is an aspirational goal. The realistic goal is to satisfy most needs. No matter how many words you throw at it, I don’t think federated search is an outlandish idea at all.