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This is an unfortunate paradox of a new search engine: the results suck because no one searches and no one searches because the results suck. I try to continue

by dqv 6y ago

This is an unfortunate paradox of a new search engine: the results suck because no one searches and no one searches because the results suck. I try to continue to work at it until I get a result I’m looking for in the hopes that it helps improve the search results for myself and others. I can say that the ddg results today are good enough that I can actually use it as my default, but this was not true several years ago.

tored 6y ago
Not only has DDG become better, especially for regional/localized searches, Google has become worse. What Google has done is to prioritize mainstream sources over correct matches. In the old days you could get a match for small unknown blog on the first page, today it is very rare for me that I get that. It is usually mainstream sources on the first page, except when the search is very technical like programming. This becomes even more apparent for Google’s affiliate YouTube where you can search for the exact title and it doesn’t show up on the first page. Related videos is also broken. What drives clicks on YouTube today is the very curated home page for a user. This was not how YouTube used to work. These factors has changed how we, at least for me, consume content. In the old days you found small independent sources much more easily, which meant that it was up to you to make a judgment if that source was interesting or not. Today it is the opposite, "here is a clip that has been viewed 20 millions times before you, enjoy!". This has made the web much worse. One thing that Google do better is grouping result from same source, like here is all matches from Reddit, this has two main benefits. First it easy to view that group separately. Second is that you can view more matches on the first search page.
- bigyikes 6y ago
  > One thing that Google do better is grouping result from same source This seems trivial compared to the search problem. I wonder if something like this is on DDG’s roadmap.
- bigyikes 6y ago
  > One thing that Google do better is grouping result from same source This seems trivial compared to solving the search problem. I wonder if something like this is on DDG’s roadmap.

by dqv 6y ago

tored 6y ago

Not only has DDG become better, especially for regional/localized searches, Google has become worse. What Google has done is to prioritize mainstream sources over correct matches. In the old days you could get a match for small unknown blog on the first page, today it is very rare for me that I get that. It is usually mainstream sources on the first page, except when the search is very technical like programming. This becomes even more apparent for Google’s affiliate YouTube where you can search for the exact title and it doesn’t show up on the first page. Related videos is also broken. What drives clicks on YouTube today is the very curated home page for a user. This was not how YouTube used to work. These factors has changed how we, at least for me, consume content. In the old days you found small independent sources much more easily, which meant that it was up to you to make a judgment if that source was interesting or not. Today it is the opposite, "here is a clip that has been viewed 20 millions times before you, enjoy!". This has made the web much worse. One thing that Google do better is grouping result from same source, like here is all matches from Reddit, this has two main benefits. First it easy to view that group separately. Second is that you can view more matches on the first search page.

bigyikes 6y ago
> One thing that Google do better is grouping result from same source This seems trivial compared to the search problem. I wonder if something like this is on DDG’s roadmap.
bigyikes 6y ago
> One thing that Google do better is grouping result from same source This seems trivial compared to solving the search problem. I wonder if something like this is on DDG’s roadmap.