4 ms·

No mention of DDG in the comments? Is there a reason I'm not seeing or it's just not the preferred alt-search on HN? Seems to have been working fine for me when

by BbzzbB 5y ago

No mention of DDG in the comments? Is there a reason I'm not seeing or it's just not the preferred alt-search on HN? Seems to have been working fine for me when I struggle to get past the funnels and content mills on Google.

pantulis 5y ago
I dont find search results to be too relevant (at least for me, also Spaniard here). It is my default search engine only for the bang commands.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
For me, DDG results are even worse than Google. It's set as my default and I'd say at least half of my searches in DDG generate completely useless results...pages of obviously SEO'd garbage. DDG also doesn't support showing a site's basic structure in the search results (ie, the card of a company's website with Products, Contact Us, Support, etc) and the preview text is garbo as well...it reminds me of 1990's era electronic card catalog search excerpts. I look at the first page or two, give up, search google. While I have to hunt a bit in the results, I do eventually get what I wanted.
- infinitezest 5y ago
  Every time this comes up I'll see a few people talk about how the results aren't relevant but it has not been my experience. I've been using DDG as my main search engine for a few years and never have to go beyond the first page. I really curious why that is.
  - JohnFen 5y ago
    My experience is like yours -- DDG is legitimately better than Google. My hypothesis is that it's related to how you construct searches. I expect Google probably does better if you learn how to talk to it, since it seems to want to interpret your query rather than take it literally. My searches tend to be keyword-oriented rather than natural language. I think DDG does better with those.
RDaneel0livaw 5y ago
I was looking for this as well! I use it daily and have for years. Love it.
Kiro 5y ago
DDG doesn't have their own index (they're getting their results from Bing) so not really relevant to this question.
- BbzzbB 5y ago
  I.. didn't know that. However, trying it just now in incognito I don't get the same results[0] (some different links, and most re-ordered). Is Duck repurposing Bing's results? I've tested with "how to get rich", a great bait for bad content (try it on Google without an adblocker, if you dare). [0]: https://pastebin.com/xC45hL1i https://pastebin.com/xC45hL1i
  - Kiro 5y ago
    I don't know what DDG is doing but I'm imagining that they send in the raw queries while you can't get around Bing's personalisation even in incognito. I get very similar results for "how to get rich", but only after setting "All regions" on DDG. Bing: 1. How to Get Rich: 10 Things Wise and Rich People Do 2. 5 Ways to Get Rich - wikiHow 3. 16 Proven Ways On How To Get Rich Quick (2021 Edition) - TPS 4. How to Get Rich - NerdWallet 5. How to Get Rich: Follow our Step by Step Plan to Build ... DDG: 1. How to Get Rich: 10 Things Wise and Rich People Do 2. 5 Ways to Get Rich - wikiHow 3. How to Get Rich - NerdWallet 4. 16 Proven Ways On How To Get Rich Quick (2021 Edition) - TPS 5. How to Get Rich: 8 Steps to Make Your First Million ... It's no secret that DDG is using Bing so they're not trying to hide it. An easy way to verify it is to search for "what is my ip" on DDG and look for results where the IP number has been cached in the snippet, e.g.: www.myipnumber.com What is my IP number - my IP address - MyIpNumber.com What is my IP Number? The IP Number of this machine is: 157.55.39.192. This number can also be represented as a 32-bit decimal number 2637637568, or as a 32-bit hexadecimal number 0x9D3727C0 . (Note that if you are part of an internal network then this is the IP number of your local server, the machine which is connected to the external ... If you do an IP lookup on 157.55.39.192 you will see that it's in fact "Microsoft bingbot".

by BbzzbB 5y ago

pantulis 5y ago

I dont find search results to be too relevant (at least for me, also Spaniard here). It is my default search engine only for the bang commands.

KennyBlanken 5y ago

For me, DDG results are even worse than Google. It's set as my default and I'd say at least half of my searches in DDG generate completely useless results...pages of obviously SEO'd garbage. DDG also doesn't support showing a site's basic structure in the search results (ie, the card of a company's website with Products, Contact Us, Support, etc) and the preview text is garbo as well...it reminds me of 1990's era electronic card catalog search excerpts. I look at the first page or two, give up, search google. While I have to hunt a bit in the results, I do eventually get what I wanted.

infinitezest 5y ago
Every time this comes up I'll see a few people talk about how the results aren't relevant but it has not been my experience. I've been using DDG as my main search engine for a few years and never have to go beyond the first page. I really curious why that is.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  My experience is like yours -- DDG is legitimately better than Google. My hypothesis is that it's related to how you construct searches. I expect Google probably does better if you learn how to talk to it, since it seems to want to interpret your query rather than take it literally. My searches tend to be keyword-oriented rather than natural language. I think DDG does better with those.

RDaneel0livaw 5y ago

I was looking for this as well! I use it daily and have for years. Love it.

Kiro 5y ago

DDG doesn't have their own index (they're getting their results from Bing) so not really relevant to this question.

BbzzbB 5y ago
I.. didn't know that. However, trying it just now in incognito I don't get the same results[0] (some different links, and most re-ordered). Is Duck repurposing Bing's results? I've tested with "how to get rich", a great bait for bad content (try it on Google without an adblocker, if you dare). [0]: https://pastebin.com/xC45hL1i https://pastebin.com/xC45hL1i
- Kiro 5y ago
  I don't know what DDG is doing but I'm imagining that they send in the raw queries while you can't get around Bing's personalisation even in incognito. I get very similar results for "how to get rich", but only after setting "All regions" on DDG. Bing: 1. How to Get Rich: 10 Things Wise and Rich People Do 2. 5 Ways to Get Rich - wikiHow 3. 16 Proven Ways On How To Get Rich Quick (2021 Edition) - TPS 4. How to Get Rich - NerdWallet 5. How to Get Rich: Follow our Step by Step Plan to Build ... DDG: 1. How to Get Rich: 10 Things Wise and Rich People Do 2. 5 Ways to Get Rich - wikiHow 3. How to Get Rich - NerdWallet 4. 16 Proven Ways On How To Get Rich Quick (2021 Edition) - TPS 5. How to Get Rich: 8 Steps to Make Your First Million ... It's no secret that DDG is using Bing so they're not trying to hide it. An easy way to verify it is to search for "what is my ip" on DDG and look for results where the IP number has been cached in the snippet, e.g.: www.myipnumber.com What is my IP number - my IP address - MyIpNumber.com What is my IP Number? The IP Number of this machine is: 157.55.39.192. This number can also be represented as a 32-bit decimal number 2637637568, or as a 32-bit hexadecimal number 0x9D3727C0 . (Note that if you are part of an internal network then this is the IP number of your local server, the machine which is connected to the external ... If you do an IP lookup on 157.55.39.192 you will see that it's in fact "Microsoft bingbot".