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Google Search Really Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find
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this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Despite how bad Google Search had become, DuckDuckGo and Bing are somehow still worse. While Google displays the result in the first few, DDG and Bing have no idea what I'm looking for.
Gotta try Kagi sometime.
I hear this a lot, but I changed from google to DDG about a year ago and haven't even considered looking back. I can find everything I need quite easily and can only think of maybe a handful of times that I have had to resort to using a bang to try and find something using another search engine. I'm very curious what the difference is between my experience and that of others who have problems DDG.
I recently switched aswell and am surprised how well it works. I thought it didn't worked good enough but I never failed to find what I was looking for so far. Very nice.
On technical stuff, I find DDG better than google since I don't have to wade through their sponsored ad and results. Google is getting unusable that way. I try it every few months when I can't get an answer on DDG and it doesn't work any better.
I totally agree with that. I've also found Google worse about being influenced by SEO tactics (probably just because it's targeted for that) and so you get bogus results like GeeksForGeeks that are often really poorly written and irrelevant, sometimes even wrong, up at the top.
The amount of AI articles that are a bunch of padded bullshit designed to get indexed as more credible "long form" sources is getting out of hand. Sometimes it takes a couple minutes to wade through the intro bullshit where they give a bunch of background yammering, and then you find out it's recycled trash is really starting to make research take time again.
IDK how you get around this but whichever search engine does will be very successful.
TBH I didn't even notice that I was using DDG when switching to librewolf other than the icon on the top bar. I have found everything I have needed, though I usually use "site:lemmy.world" (for example) anyways.
Yeah I can't actually notice the difference. Granted I'm not paying much attention, but that means most of the times I'm finding satisfying results with ddg.
Anecdotal evidence, but I swapped out Google for DDG about 5-6 years back and haven't missed it. I do use Google sometimes but it's once in 4-5 months when DDG fails me, which is acceptable to me.
Same here, I can usually find everything within the first 3-4 entries unless it's a bit too abstract than it ends up at the bottom of the 1st page. I don't understand people complaining about it so much as I depend on search engines for day to day and work related stuff so literally several times everyday. Although it's possible I got used to how it works but if so then I would have had to swap between ddg and google alot if the quality actually was that low.
Yeah I'm the same. I've got DDG set as my default search, if the results aren't useful then I go to google as backup.
DDG just kinda sucks for basic information. When I took up a business, google gives me the location, phone number and some relevant information about the business. DDG gives me their website.
...and the website should have all that information, right?
Sure, one option provides it immediately the other requires you to perform additional steps.
Guess which one's going to be more popular amongst the general public? You're not this obtuse are you?
Do you know how many scams happen because it's ridiculously easy for anyone to edit the "knowledge" panel? I'd rather click an extra button and get the real number from the business' own website than trust whatever is on Google.
"You're not this obtuse are you?" -- uncalled for, but, I guess you are who you are. So, you do you, buddy.
This is beyond stupid. The panel gives basic information, if you're making anything beyond a decision to follow up based on that you deserve whatever you get. I also know how easy it is to manipulate the website. Information is malleable, it seems your brain is not.
Are you completely incapable of communicating without resorting to personal attacks?
I am. In this case though the stupidity presented warrants being noted. stupid ass bitches crying over being called stupid ass bitches isn't anything new.
Personally I'm noticing the opposite.
I tend to do a lot of technical-related searches. I'm finding I'm getting consistently better results from DuckDuckGo / Bing -- what I'm looking for is usually available on the first page without having to faff around.
With Google however, it was drawing parallels to what I'm looking for but not what I explicitly queried. I had to either enable verbose search, or manipulate the search to look for specific words. Even then what I was looking for was in the 3-4 page.
On google, I started seeing too many of the first results tagged as "ad". It became even more concerning when those tag dissapeared but the same websites showed up.
I used to able to trouble shoot nearly anything I needed to, but now I come across completely unrelated posts more than I come across solutions.
I was iffy about bing, I still kind of am, but at least I find what I'm looking for most of the time. I'm personally going to wait a bit before trying out other browsers, when there's a bit less risk of them selling. I remember a good android launcher that used to be trusted before they sold to another company
It'll be a frigid day in hell before I pay some company to store my search history keyed to my CC for the inevitable sellout day. I'll get by with DDG, which frankly works better than a search engine that doesn't track your clicks has any right to.
I don't know much my opinion matters: but the unique features in kagi honestly really help me find what I need. I can lower domains, or raise other ones, it can search archives and has a general set of features that make digesting and finding relevant results easier. It's like a breath of fresh air, I can search and find not just endlessly search.
idk about bing, but duckduckgo either seems to be missing the index itself, or only works when you give it specific queries instead of generic keywords like Google.
I need to try kagi, in my usage I've found brave is best of the alternatives, and I'd put qwant after brave, though I might be biased by how nice qwant looks ๐
Try a Searxng instance. It's a meta search that pulls form multiple engines (incl. Google).
Instances here: https://searx.space/