Definitely agree. I remember Google being unobtrusive and genuinely helpful several years ago. Then, gradually it seems to have gotten not only worse but more “

Definitely agree. I remember Google being unobtrusive and genuinely helpful several years ago. Then, gradually it seems to have gotten not only worse but more “consumer-oriented”. Pushing me towards businesses and products and sales pages rather than just the best “search engine” text match. It also definitely seems to favor bigger and bigger sites or more cookie-cutter sites that have likely “perfected” SEO, things like WordPress blogs, Medium, etc. Not to mention the walled gardens! Try searching for anything without getting the top hits to be Pinterest links, ads, YouTube videos, etc and not because these things are the best matches for your query but rather because these sites have paid the most to be featured or paid an engineer to SEO-ify everything for them. I’ve wanted to switch to DDG but I have a paranoid worry I’ll miss out on some good things then too.