[rngname22]

So much of the problem of extermination is due to SEO and misinformation, agree or disagree?

If a poorly educated, stressed mom working two jobs googles "cockroaches in kitchen", what percentage of online information she finds is naive, misguided, maliciously lies, etc?

[hcurtiss]

Agreed. And, maybe more subversive, it's like there's some effort to discourage the solutions that actually work (e.g., poisons and growth regulators) in favor of "natural solutions" that don't do any good. For instance, here's the top of the Google page I get for "cockroaches in kitchen."

https://img.bigchief.wtf/i/cf993b56-5831-4d4a-974f-4860158db...

[genewitch]

boric acid is extremely effective. I use only boric acid, and i live in a forest. I put the powder under the stove, around the edges of cabinets, under the fridge, etc. After a new dusting (every 3-4 months or more) the carcasses will show up, maybe a half dozen.

And if you want a spray to kill insects you can see and watch, IPA (rubbing alcohol) and mint extract works fine. Except against centipedes.

For ants boric acid works sometimes, but so does talc or diatomaceous earth. However this stops them from tracking while you clean up whatever they're after. In my experience dealing with sugar ants, pissants, RIFA (fire ants from south america), fire ants (red ants in CA), and so on; the only 100% effective way to get rid of them is to put popcorn kernels in a blender and chop it till everything is smaller than 1/16" or so, and leave that somewhere moisture can't get to it. Ants eat it and bring it back to the nest to eat and then explode. I can't verify they actually explode, but that's the mechanism of action.

AFAIK boric acid and DE aren't harmful to humans, and corn and rubbing alcohol are usually fairly safe.

[teamspirit]

Isn’t that problem with everything now and Google search? I can’t find information that I can confidently trust to be genuine. Just SEO spam.

Recently I was looking for information on better food and treats for diabetic dogs and was inundated with so much bs I gave up.

[littlecranky67]

Because of this I use Kagi's FastGPT to get infos like this: https://kagi.com/fastgpt

[wincy]

I mean from a cursory glance, yeah Googling it doesn’t look great. Baking soda, diatomaceous earth, boric acid, and bay leaves come up as the top results. I didn’t even consider any of those having worked for a few years in my early 20s as an exterminator. Right when I quit we were starting to use the “green options” like eucalyptus oil spray if people requested but they barely did anything. They were mostly for paranoid people with too much money who didn’t really have bugs in the first place. We weren’t spraying apartment buildings (which often had the most problems) with that stuff.

More broadly to your point, I am certain recipes and diet advice at least are totally captured by SEO with bad advice. My cooking has improved so much now that I stopped Googling recipes and mostly consult Kenji’s Food Lab book. For fat loss, I’ve lost 80 pounds mostly eating tons of fat and completely cutting out sugars/grains. The Internet is in a sad state where a Google search that can make someone money will often steer you wrong.