"Don't Be Evil" - Google's former slogan, which they dropped after turning to the "dark side".

In what is percieved by many to be the most dastardly move to date by Google, the most popular search engine has dropped its Discussion Search filter as of January 2014.

While the average person you ask on the street may not know about this search function, a vast number of Google search "power users" used it each and every day for multiple purposes and their cries are going unanswered.

Let's go over why this was such an important feature, and how the inability to search through forums and blogs for the OPINIONS and experiences of our peers will forever inhibit knowledge and dampen the growth of global consciousness for future generations.

The discussion search filter allowed the user to look beyond Google’s first page: beyond shops, business listings, news and ads, in order to gain insight into actual real-life opinions. Such information is golddust to the online marketer, or anyone with a vested interest in what people are talking about in relation to any given subject.

Of course, the discussions haven’t gone away, it’s just that finding them is now a lot more time consuming.

Why Google has removed this function is not clear, but it likely comes down to making more money.

Many have voiced their outrage with this feature having been removed by posting in Google's help forum: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/websearch/Psb6OmlLJTg

This much traffic responding to the ability to search Q&A forums and blogs is a clear indication of the importance of Discussion within search results and a justification for its increasingly important position within Google Search. BRING IT BACK.

As Bob Hoskins once said, ‘It’s good to talk.’

FYI: An "ok" workaround that can be used when searching for forum posts is to put "intext:forum", without quotes, followed by your search query. i.e.:

intext:forum best laptop