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Am I the only person who just doesn't have problems with DDG search results? What am I doing wrong (or right), here? I put a thing in and find it. I just don't

Am I the only person who just doesn't have problems with DDG search results? What am I doing wrong (or right), here? I put a thing in and find it. I just don't use Google any more. Genuinely curious why it's working for me and such garbage for everyone else.

dybber 6y ago
I'm mostly getting Norwegian results, when searching for Danish subjects from a Danish IP address. It also seems it just hasn't indexed as many websites as Google.
Dahoon 6y ago
Does Google search results work for you? If yes, then I'd say the reason is you don't see or agree with how bad results are today (as others have posted extensively about). I for one find DDG as the search engine that returns the worst results. Qwant is a better Bing-using engine IMO but it is still bad.
keithnz 6y ago
for generic stuff DDG is mostly ok. But for local results, even though it has a switch for local results, it REALLY REALLY REALLY sucks bad and often doesn't get any of the expected places anywhere in the first few pages for New Zealand which makes it somewhat useless
Moru 6y ago
I'm also using DDG exclusively since many years. I find what I need usually as the first couple of results or in the box on the right, that usually goes directly to the authorative source anyway.
djsumdog 6y ago
I say about 50% I'm good with DDG. About 1/3 of the time I add !g, usually for weird error messages and tech stuff. Honestly we shouldn't be using Google for everything. Why not just search StackExchange or Github issues directly for known bug problems? If you need a movie, !imdb or !rt forward you to exactly where you want to really search on. If DDG or Google also included independent small blogs for movie results, I could see the value in that. I'd prefer someone's review on their own site or video channel, but it doesn't. We've kinda lost that part of the Internet.
- ziml77 6y ago
  Just the weekend I had the "weird error message" situation. DDG gave me 1 page with no relevant results while Google had no problem finding proper matches. Would be nice if they could do better on queries like that... though funny thing is if they didn't respect privacy they probably could. Log any searches where a user looked for something and then tried the same thing prefixed with !g. Use those for figuring out where to focus efforts and what to test with.
pizza234 6y ago
I've tried DDG for a while, around a couple of years ago, and I had lower-quality results particularly for technical subjects (which are the vast majority of my searches). I will give DDG another shot, though.
proactivesvcs 6y ago
I sometimes come across inappropriate results - for example I search for a hex error code and the results are for other numbers - and sometimes the adverts are misleading, but neither are so prevalent enough that it harms the experience in general. I always send feedback when I come across incorrect results and also try to when I get a really easy find. I have not had to resort to any other search engine for at least five years.
jlarocco 6y ago
Yeah, I'm with you. I can think of some improvements (better forum/mailing list coverage), but it's generally pretty good. Lately if I don't find it on DDG I probably won't have much luck anywhere else, either.
aembleton 6y ago
You're probably searching for English language articles and are being explicit about what you want. For example, you might search for `vue js on show` whereas `vue on show` will show you (in the UK) results for what is on at Vue cinemas. With Google, I expect it would understand that you are probably searching for JS related vue questions and rank those higher.
zeepzeep 6y ago
I re-search almost everything technical with google after ddg showed me crap. I still use ddg by default tho', it works for most things, just not for work.

dybber 6y ago

I'm mostly getting Norwegian results, when searching for Danish subjects from a Danish IP address. It also seems it just hasn't indexed as many websites as Google.

Dahoon 6y ago

Does Google search results work for you? If yes, then I'd say the reason is you don't see or agree with how bad results are today (as others have posted extensively about). I for one find DDG as the search engine that returns the worst results. Qwant is a better Bing-using engine IMO but it is still bad.

keithnz 6y ago

for generic stuff DDG is mostly ok. But for local results, even though it has a switch for local results, it REALLY REALLY REALLY sucks bad and often doesn't get any of the expected places anywhere in the first few pages for New Zealand which makes it somewhat useless

Moru 6y ago

I'm also using DDG exclusively since many years. I find what I need usually as the first couple of results or in the box on the right, that usually goes directly to the authorative source anyway.

djsumdog 6y ago

I say about 50% I'm good with DDG. About 1/3 of the time I add !g, usually for weird error messages and tech stuff. Honestly we shouldn't be using Google for everything. Why not just search StackExchange or Github issues directly for known bug problems? If you need a movie, !imdb or !rt forward you to exactly where you want to really search on. If DDG or Google also included independent small blogs for movie results, I could see the value in that. I'd prefer someone's review on their own site or video channel, but it doesn't. We've kinda lost that part of the Internet.

ziml77 6y ago
Just the weekend I had the "weird error message" situation. DDG gave me 1 page with no relevant results while Google had no problem finding proper matches. Would be nice if they could do better on queries like that... though funny thing is if they didn't respect privacy they probably could. Log any searches where a user looked for something and then tried the same thing prefixed with !g. Use those for figuring out where to focus efforts and what to test with.

pizza234 6y ago

I've tried DDG for a while, around a couple of years ago, and I had lower-quality results particularly for technical subjects (which are the vast majority of my searches). I will give DDG another shot, though.

proactivesvcs 6y ago

I sometimes come across inappropriate results - for example I search for a hex error code and the results are for other numbers - and sometimes the adverts are misleading, but neither are so prevalent enough that it harms the experience in general. I always send feedback when I come across incorrect results and also try to when I get a really easy find. I have not had to resort to any other search engine for at least five years.

jlarocco 6y ago

Yeah, I'm with you. I can think of some improvements (better forum/mailing list coverage), but it's generally pretty good. Lately if I don't find it on DDG I probably won't have much luck anywhere else, either.

aembleton 6y ago

You're probably searching for English language articles and are being explicit about what you want. For example, you might search for `vue js on show` whereas `vue on show` will show you (in the UK) results for what is on at Vue cinemas. With Google, I expect it would understand that you are probably searching for JS related vue questions and rank those higher.

zeepzeep 6y ago

I re-search almost everything technical with google after ddg showed me crap. I still use ddg by default tho', it works for most things, just not for work.