"For goodness sake, Google it!"

Google just gives a very wide overview with a lot of generalisations to cover all parts of the globe-a lot of it is USA based

So no ask away is my advice-people who answer on here, answer based on their own hands-on experience-100% better

Supernoodle, if the questions weren't asked, and we didn't answer them, or try to, then there would be nothing to google!!

Whether it has been asked before, or a new question, I still read all the answers regardless. If it has been asked before, many people answer with the relevant thread, so keep asking those questions!

This site, like many others MAKE google what it is, full of answers!!

And Google does not give us the chance to show off, just how clever we are!

Good point Becks and well made, there is nothing like the true human experience with all it's variables. This  is something that the electronic/virtual  world will never be  equal to

Berghill wrote (see)

And Google does not give us the chance to show off, just how clever we are!

 LOL 

To be honest, before I joined this forum earlier this year, I googled ALL my gardening questions, jumping from different sites, forum to forum, comparing the answers. But now I know people on here much better, I'd rather just stick to asking on here. And we have our own little gurus on certain subjects! It's great.

"Oh yes" goggle it indeed and then find the answer is something you yourself put on some other forum as i discovered last week.
Looking for some old information my local history section had lost and having to go to the site then enter my own name, there was a very recent picture of me I had never put on any site. I can only think the grandchildren who use social networks must have put it on a site that was picked up by google. We are told it cannot happen, it obviously does
Going through, it turned out there was page after page from many forums a lot of them BBC there must be several hundred, I did not check for any from this site as yet. Big brother is watching and is called google.

Frank.

A recent photo?!! I thought you'd been pickled in aspic, circa 1940  at least you've achieved Internet Immortality  Seriously, you make a good point, often Google points you to Forums, and if you find one you like, why not stick with it and ask the questions there? At least you get to know the contributors......and their foibles 

I am not on any other forum and if I want a plant identified this is where I ask, and always find the answer.  If I 'Googled' it, I would be on the computer for hours, life's too short for all that malarky!!

No doubt Google is a marvelous tool to have, but certainly isn't a substitute for information from someone with years of hands-on gardening experience.

Hello my Dear Lowena, Tongue in aspic is a much tastier dish than one pickled in vinegar .
Foible a gentle eccentricity compared with having something life changing you did not ask for forced on to you for 10-12 years.
As for inter-net immortality who reads that stuff, with people unrolling their whole lives on those social networks I would not touch with a barge pole, they seem to write a lot but do they read??
My point was the BBC and I also thought the local History service would be google free only to be shocked to find they hand over everything without you knowing
So lowena a question? do we retire from all forms of writing apart from hidden files you keep for the last bugle blowing or do you carry on knowing that some big collecting agency in outer space watches your every move??
Any way all that aside I still love you

Frank.

One of the problems with any Search engine, is that you need to have a reasonable idea of the answer. You cannot, for example, put in a picture of a plant and ask what it is, which you can do on here and other garden sites. Phrasing the search question is an art in itself to avoid the tedium of false leads.  There is also the problem of targetted advertising from any Search you make. Useful to have Do Not Track Plus and Adblocker on your Browser.

It can be useful. Someone on here posted a question as to the identity of a plant giving half the name. I found it on the Web from that scrap, but it took a little searching and some knowledge of plant names to do it.

But I will tell you one thing which really annoys me, is the practice of answering a question by using a Search engine and posting the link to the answer found, instead of writing the answer for the questioner. I never follow links like that.

Sometimes links are useful but as an addition, not the sole answer.  I use RHS links to give more info on a question I'm answering,  such as pruning, as they have pictures or graphics which help explain things more clearly.

I run a garden group here with mixed nationalities.  It's always easier for them if I can demonstrate in person at a meeting or show a link to a picture in a newsletter rather than expecting them all to understand what I mean by things like "prune just above a leaf node" or "prune to an outward facing bud".   Some of them come from warmer climes or vastly different plant groups so haven't a clue about northern European gardening plants, rhythms and tricks but are keen to have the knowledge.