4 ms·

FWIW, DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. It used to be that 90% of my searches ended up repeated with !g to go to goog

FWIW, DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. It used to be that 90% of my searches ended up repeated with !g to go to google, but nowadys I'd guess that's like 30%, and even among those, half the time google's answer quality ends up the same. The only cases where Google is predictably and consistenly superior are 1. error/diagnostic messages: DDG still sucks at precision search, and quotes are not always the answer; 2. queries that require Natural Language Processing: Google understands stuff like "the bad moustache guy from XYZ series" where I myself have only a vague idea of what I'm looking for. And oftentimes the Instant Answers end up offsetting somewhat poorer quality of results, so kudos to DDG for coming up with those. (None of this is meant to disqualify your experience though, just expressing my own joy at their results having improved for my use case.)

stinos 11y ago
DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. Had the exact same impression. There are numerous threads on HN involving DDG in the last couple of years and in more than one of them I complained about the results, but slowly yet steadily there are always less reasons to complain it seems. DDG does not yet find everything as quick as I'd want it to but when my go-to would be !g in the past I'm now starting to notice I use it much less (say only 1 out of 20 searches) and when I do chances are high google won't find what I want either, it usually just comes up with the same results but in 'better' order.
- AdamSC1 11y ago
  Hey Stinos, Thanks for the feedback - part of the changes you've noticed are simply due to the fact that we do read threads like this, and we do encourage users to send/share their feedback and examples of where we haven't hit the mark for them; and then actively try and improve that experience. We've recently streamlined this process by adding a feedback tool on the bottom right of the results page. If you feel we don't quite show the results/experience you were expecting (or if we really really nail it) then we encourage you to share that feedback with us! You can opt-in to how much detail you provide, and as always we don't collect, store and share personally identifiable details. Thanks for your continued support!
  - stinos 11y ago
    by adding a feedback tool on the bottom right of the result Shame on me, didn't notice this. But thanks for pointing to it: I'll definitely put this to use.
pixard 11y ago
I last tried DDG a few years ago and couldn't get anything done at all as the results were simply not what I needed (PHP / Laravel / WordPress development). Your comment made me try it again today and after several hours of using it I can definitely say it has vastly improved in results for my particular use case. While a few hours are obviously not a huge metric it's still satisfying enough so I have switched it to default for now and we'll see how it goes. Thanks for sharing your experience.
- AdamSC1 11y ago
  Thanks for your feedback pixard, glad to hear you've seen the improvements. While you're right a few hours does not a huge metric make, it's also awesome to hear that the changes were that noticeable. We've added a new feedback tool in the bottom right of the results page, we encourage you to let us know when results aren't up to snuff (or when we really nail it!) Also be sure to check out the bangs (https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang) and settings which can be saved to the cloud or via URL using the bookmarklet tool button (https://duckduckgo.com/settings https://duckduckgo.com/settings). Those are some favorite features of a lot of our long time users that we feel really add to the experience.
temp 11y ago
>FWIW, DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. Unfortunately, I can't say the same. As someone from a smaller and non-English-speaking country, I doubt there'll ever be an effort to improve their results for my language and considering that even Bing does an absolutely terrible job at it, Google is my only choice for when doing local searches. It's like all search engines apart from Google are stuck 20 years in the past with how bad they are.
- contingencies 11y ago
  This could probably be fairly generalized to "90% of Silly Valley lacks internationalisation experience"... I type this as an Aussie/German/Kiwi on a Thai keyboard (desktop; normally I'm on a French Macbook Pro) here in southwest China.
- AdamSC1 11y ago
  Hi Temp, Can you share the region/language you're using and a few sample queries? Feel free to email me at adam@duckduckgo.com if you don't want to share them publicly. We're always looking to improve, and get an understanding of where we're lacking. We know in this industry there are a lot of challenges surrounding localization and so concrete examples really help!
DanBC 11y ago
> 2. queries that require Natural Language Processing: Google understands stuff like "the bad moustache guy from XYZ series" where I myself have only a vague idea of what I'm looking for. I suspect that Google has been trained by a bunch of people who just don't know how to search, and that's why natural language works and the + operator failed. Have a look at Reddit's "Tip of my tongue" subreddit for examples. https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbpmp/tomt_movie_very_specific_scene/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbpmp/tomt_... Doesn't mention that it's a live action movie; doesn't give any clue about time; doesn't mention that it's (probably) an American film; doesn't mention genre of the movie; etc. https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbpsu/tomtsong_about_moving_from_georgia_to_california/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbpsu/tomts... It's a pop song. About moving west. Maybe from Georgia. https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbqxu/tomt_video_youtube_video_of_a_teenager_out_in_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbqxu/tomt_... > I remember this guy who went out to the woods for the day. The guy was pretty young, I want to say late teens. He made some lunch for himself and then got lost on the way back. I found the video on reddit 1 or 2 years ago. The video production style is very Survivorman-esque if that helps at all. I haven't carefully selected these. I just grabbed a few from New. About the + operator. Check my math, but only 1 in 600 searches used it correctly. Another 2 in 600 searches used it, but used it incorrectly. http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/search-using-your-terms-verbatim.html http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/search-using-your... > In the past, we provided users with the “+” operator to help you search for specific terms. However, we found that users typed the “+” operator in less than half a percent of all searches, and two thirds of the time, it was used incorrectly. A couple of weeks ago we removed the “+” operator, encouraging the use of the double quotes, which are more likely to be used correctly. I'm not sure what DDG is supposed to do here. Are they supposed to target "power users"? People who know what AND and OR and + and "exact phrase" mean? Because that's a niche audience. It would mean DDG is loved by a small group of people, but never breaks into mainstream use.
- Mahn 11y ago
  > I suspect that Google has been trained by a bunch of people who just don't know how to search, and that's why natural language works and the + operator failed. Have a look at Reddit's "Tip of my tongue" subreddit for examples. I get where you are coming from, but I'm 99% sure it's not just this. I've searched for extremely vague things such as "that movie where there's one guy that shouts funny catchphrase all the time" and was amazed when the first result was the Wikipedia entry for the specific movie I was looking for, even though the Wikipedia entry didn't mention the specific trait being searched. Google really does do natural language processing on the queries.
wutbrodo 11y ago
> 1. error/diagnostic messages: DDG still sucks at precision search, and quotes are not always the answer Wow _this_ is interesting to hear. I would've thought that this would be the main area where the quality gap would be smallest, since there's such little wiggle room and most results are likely to be relevant. I wonder why this is the case.

stinos 11y ago

DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. Had the exact same impression. There are numerous threads on HN involving DDG in the last couple of years and in more than one of them I complained about the results, but slowly yet steadily there are always less reasons to complain it seems. DDG does not yet find everything as quick as I'd want it to but when my go-to would be !g in the past I'm now starting to notice I use it much less (say only 1 out of 20 searches) and when I do chances are high google won't find what I want either, it usually just comes up with the same results but in 'better' order.

AdamSC1 11y ago
Hey Stinos, Thanks for the feedback - part of the changes you've noticed are simply due to the fact that we do read threads like this, and we do encourage users to send/share their feedback and examples of where we haven't hit the mark for them; and then actively try and improve that experience. We've recently streamlined this process by adding a feedback tool on the bottom right of the results page. If you feel we don't quite show the results/experience you were expecting (or if we really really nail it) then we encourage you to share that feedback with us! You can opt-in to how much detail you provide, and as always we don't collect, store and share personally identifiable details. Thanks for your continued support!
- stinos 11y ago
  by adding a feedback tool on the bottom right of the result Shame on me, didn't notice this. But thanks for pointing to it: I'll definitely put this to use.

pixard 11y ago

I last tried DDG a few years ago and couldn't get anything done at all as the results were simply not what I needed (PHP / Laravel / WordPress development). Your comment made me try it again today and after several hours of using it I can definitely say it has vastly improved in results for my particular use case. While a few hours are obviously not a huge metric it's still satisfying enough so I have switched it to default for now and we'll see how it goes. Thanks for sharing your experience.

AdamSC1 11y ago
Thanks for your feedback pixard, glad to hear you've seen the improvements. While you're right a few hours does not a huge metric make, it's also awesome to hear that the changes were that noticeable. We've added a new feedback tool in the bottom right of the results page, we encourage you to let us know when results aren't up to snuff (or when we really nail it!) Also be sure to check out the bangs (https://duckduckgo.com/bang https://duckduckgo.com/bang) and settings which can be saved to the cloud or via URL using the bookmarklet tool button (https://duckduckgo.com/settings https://duckduckgo.com/settings). Those are some favorite features of a lot of our long time users that we feel really add to the experience.

temp 11y ago

>FWIW, DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. Unfortunately, I can't say the same. As someone from a smaller and non-English-speaking country, I doubt there'll ever be an effort to improve their results for my language and considering that even Bing does an absolutely terrible job at it, Google is my only choice for when doing local searches. It's like all search engines apart from Google are stuck 20 years in the past with how bad they are.

contingencies 11y ago
This could probably be fairly generalized to "90% of Silly Valley lacks internationalisation experience"... I type this as an Aussie/German/Kiwi on a Thai keyboard (desktop; normally I'm on a French Macbook Pro) here in southwest China.
AdamSC1 11y ago
Hi Temp, Can you share the region/language you're using and a few sample queries? Feel free to email me at adam@duckduckgo.com if you don't want to share them publicly. We're always looking to improve, and get an understanding of where we're lacking. We know in this industry there are a lot of challenges surrounding localization and so concrete examples really help!

DanBC 11y ago

> 2. queries that require Natural Language Processing: Google understands stuff like "the bad moustache guy from XYZ series" where I myself have only a vague idea of what I'm looking for. I suspect that Google has been trained by a bunch of people who just don't know how to search, and that's why natural language works and the + operator failed. Have a look at Reddit's "Tip of my tongue" subreddit for examples. https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbpmp/tomt_movie_very_specific_scene/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbpmp/tomt_... Doesn't mention that it's a live action movie; doesn't give any clue about time; doesn't mention that it's (probably) an American film; doesn't mention genre of the movie; etc. https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbpsu/tomtsong_about_moving_from_georgia_to_california/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbpsu/tomts... It's a pop song. About moving west. Maybe from Georgia. https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbqxu/tomt_video_youtube_video_of_a_teenager_out_in_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tipofmytongue/comments/3xbqxu/tomt_... > I remember this guy who went out to the woods for the day. The guy was pretty young, I want to say late teens. He made some lunch for himself and then got lost on the way back. I found the video on reddit 1 or 2 years ago. The video production style is very Survivorman-esque if that helps at all. I haven't carefully selected these. I just grabbed a few from New. About the + operator. Check my math, but only 1 in 600 searches used it correctly. Another 2 in 600 searches used it, but used it incorrectly. http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/search-using-your-terms-verbatim.html http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/search-using-your... > In the past, we provided users with the “+” operator to help you search for specific terms. However, we found that users typed the “+” operator in less than half a percent of all searches, and two thirds of the time, it was used incorrectly. A couple of weeks ago we removed the “+” operator, encouraging the use of the double quotes, which are more likely to be used correctly. I'm not sure what DDG is supposed to do here. Are they supposed to target "power users"? People who know what AND and OR and + and "exact phrase" mean? Because that's a niche audience. It would mean DDG is loved by a small group of people, but never breaks into mainstream use.

Mahn 11y ago
> I suspect that Google has been trained by a bunch of people who just don't know how to search, and that's why natural language works and the + operator failed. Have a look at Reddit's "Tip of my tongue" subreddit for examples. I get where you are coming from, but I'm 99% sure it's not just this. I've searched for extremely vague things such as "that movie where there's one guy that shouts funny catchphrase all the time" and was amazed when the first result was the Wikipedia entry for the specific movie I was looking for, even though the Wikipedia entry didn't mention the specific trait being searched. Google really does do natural language processing on the queries.

wutbrodo 11y ago

> 1. error/diagnostic messages: DDG still sucks at precision search, and quotes are not always the answer Wow _this_ is interesting to hear. I would've thought that this would be the main area where the quality gap would be smallest, since there's such little wiggle room and most results are likely to be relevant. I wonder why this is the case.