8 ms·
Sort of. Google is paying Apple to not doing something else. When 8-12B is gone, Apple loses the incentive to not make something like DDG the default or build o
by matwood 6y ago
Sort of. Google is paying Apple to not doing something else. When 8-12B is gone, Apple loses the incentive to not make something like DDG the default or build or buy their own search engine.
- tptacek 6y agoThe fact that DDG is grossly inferior to Google is a pretty strong incentive.
- gogopuppygogo 6y agoHave you used it lately? It’s on par or better for 99% of what I use it for (tech, real estate, and advocacy).
- tptacek 6y agoI have. Also, I just checked my browser history of searches against DDG. I stand by what I said. What they're doing is impressive, but that's not the same thing as saying that they're on the same level of result quality as Google.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoI have to use !g a lot because of inferior results from the default search. It can be tough to even get a relevant wikipedia entry to show up in the top 5.
- depressedpanda 6y agoNot really. I usually just add 'wiki' to my query. Or use !w.
- bleepblorp 6y agoI use DDG daily. It's fine for simple, popular, searches (e.g. finding the website of a company by name) but is completely useless for anything even remotely complicated or specialized. DDG won't even return Stack ("Your question has been deleted as a duplicate") Overflow results for technical questions.
- greenyoda 6y agoWe must be asking very different technical questions, since I get lots of Stack Overflow results on DDG.
- leokennis 6y agoI disagree. Google has one strong point, which is "context search". For example, "song with the trumpet intro 90s" or something, will yield crap on DDG and a YouTube link to the song you had in your head on Google. For any other search term, Google generally spams me with "answer boxes" that are universally slightly besides the point, while DDG gives me a clean page of relevant links.
- dheera 6y agoThere's also Bing, which IMO is not that inferior to Google.
- acdha 6y agoIt’s worse but Google has closed the gap a lot over the last few years as they remove anything which advertisers aren’t asking for. I periodically tried DDG for years and always switched back but about a year ago I didn’t. I still use Google a few times a week but it’s increasingly for more obscure technical things and DDG is often winning those due to not having removed their advanced search operators. Barring C-level change at Google I’m expecting the gap to disappear in a year or two.
- _qulr 6y agoCould this be because Google doesn't have to compete? My impression is that Google Search is worse now than it was in the past. They've gotten complacent. So if they had to fight for users instead of taking them for granted through paying off Apple and Mozilla, then maybe Google would have to perform better. Everyone wins? (Except AAPL stockholders.)
- bleepblorp 6y agoI think much of the apparent deterioration of Google Search is because high-quality information is disappearing from the web. Google can't return results that don't exist. If you Google '$PRODUCT review' and only get Amazon-affiliate scam sites pretending to be review sites, it's not because Google has been SEOed but rather because there are no actual reviews of $PRODUCT. Aside from a botched update last year, where Google would only return results that were selling things, Google Search is still very good at finding information that exists.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoGoogle could downrank websites with affiliate links, since those are ads stuffing organic results. But they choose not to.
- gundmc 6y agoMany of the only high quality review sites left (like Wirecutter) are partially monetized with referral links. I don't think this would be a good approach.
- smnrchrds 6y agoApple Maps was grossly inferior to Google Maps. It still is, but not grossly. Its inferiority didn't stop Apple from forcing it on their users.
- judge2020 6y agoI wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple acquired DDG.
- tptacek 6y agoApple owned the outcome of that decision (and thus one of the world's best map services). They don't get that by pointing searches at DDG. In fact, even if they bought DDG, they wouldn't own DDG's search results, because DDG repackages other search engines.
- utopcell 6y agoHow could they buy DDG ? It serves organic results from Bing.
- matwood 6y agoI think any inferiority is mainly because DDG doesn't build a user profile. I tested this the other day by searching for 'rust'. On Google the entire first page of results were either about the programming language or some game. DDG had something about iron oxide as the third result. Whenever I use DDG, I just have to remember that DDG does not have my personal profile, and adjust accordingly. Then the results are fine, and even better if I'm searching outside my normal profile.
- pessimizer 6y ago> I think any inferiority is mainly because DDG doesn't build a user profile. It is. I haven't accepted cookies from google in many years, and when I get frustrated enough to !g bang on ddg it never finds me anything better.