Post a question on an online forum and you’ll be bombarded with advice — but it’s sometimes impossible to tell if it’s from people who know what they’re talking about, or from chancers quoting Wikipedia in the hope that a little knowledge will go a long way. The sites below promise the real deal: either genuine experts or advisers ranked by how useful they were to previous questioners. Just remember that not all advice comes free of charge.
1 allexperts.com
This site claims to have answered a million questions, which can make searching through the archives a challenge. Its experts are volunteers and include lawyers, doctors, engineers and scientists. Advice is free; most questions are turned around within a day.
2 justanswer.com
Ask a question and name a price. Scan the responses and pay only when you are happy — although the experts can see your acceptance rate and will shun you if you appear too fussy. The site claims 1.5m satisfied customers, but a fair number of hacked-off ones are lurking in chat rooms.
3 doctorslounge.com
Doctors tend to be benevolent, so there is more no-strings info online from them than from lawyers. Health professionals who give advice on this site say they have answered 30,000 queries. It’s free to ask questions or browse previous answers.
4 askfromexpert.com
Unlike JustAnswer, this pay site demands money up front and has fixed rates: $16 (about £10) for a “normal” response (within hours, apparently) or $32 for an urgent one. It boasts expert advice on everything from weddings to plumbing.
5 Ask A Mad Scientist
Despite the frivolous name, and some horrible design, the question section at madsci.org is free and informative. With 36,000 questions answered by the 800 scientists on its books, it’s hard to think of something they haven’t already figured out.
6 liveperson.com
Choose your expert then chat with him or her for their advertised fee, from 35p to £3.50 a minute. Some have answered thousands of queries and their ratings suggest happy customers. Subjects include technology, business and the arts. The site claims to have 100,000 customers a year.
7 Ask An Astrophysicist
The boffins at Nasa’s Q&A service (tinyurl.com/7sxwv) will attempt to answer any space-related question in a week.
8 techsupportforum.com
For computer problems, this free, simple-to-use site is based on a chat room model and claims to have solved 136,000 glitches.
9 Yahoo! Answers
Anyone can reply to questions posed at answers.yahoo.com, but the cream hopefully rises to the top because users grade the quality of replies. Good for unbiased opinions on, say, a gadget you might buy.
10 askmehelpdesk.com
The “real experts” at this free site are self-appointed but need to have answered at least 200 questions, and you can check their feedback, too. Replies tend to be chatty but are often surprisingly well-informed.