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I've noticed something similar, but I'm not sure if it's SEO spam so much as something that may have changed with their algorithm. I could swear that DDG used

I've noticed something similar, but I'm not sure if it's SEO spam so much as something that may have changed with their algorithm. I could swear that DDG used to strictly honor wrapping terms in quotes, but now it behaves extremely loosely with quotes, often returning things that contain nothing that was quoted without making it clear if it's doing that because it found no matches. Quotes are kind of a niche feature, but to me the change in behavior likely reflects something that affects all searches.

not2b 5y ago
Since they mainly rely on Bing, maybe Bing has made a change.
sefrost 5y ago
I think Google and recently DDG think they’re doing me a favour by ignoring my quote marks. They’re not! If they think they only have poor results with quote marks then show me them and tell me that. If they don’t have any results with my quote marks then tell me that. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s like asking someone in the street for directions and they’re embarrassed they don’t know the way so point you in a random direction. Not helpful!
- eitland 5y ago
  > It’s like asking someone in the street for directions and they’re embarrassed they don’t know the way so point you in a random direction. Not helpful! This is an extremely good explanation of what is going on and why it drives me crazy. I argued this with a search engine employee once and he said others had told him they expected them to do this. Well, here's the point: If you go this direction the engine become unusable for certain jobs. If - on the other hand one respect user queries one maybe also have to tell users how to get the results they want. That is a tradeoff, I admit that. But one of the solutions builds a fantastic tool that might require a tiny tiny bit of training. The other solution builds a toy that also works as a tool in simple cases. Why do search engines go that way? Seems to be short time optimizations all the way: - making it absolutely idiot proof means more usage - annoying power users doesn't have any effects until alternatives exist. Now however Kagi exist and I have left DDG (and Google but they only used to be a fallback anyway) and I will go around tell everyone there is a new search engine in town - and I will enjoy it!
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    > making it absolutely idiot proof means more usage Perhaps that's what analysts and management believes publicly within search companies, but I don't think even normies believe that crappy search results is better than none. There's a few things that may be happening that explain why filler search results creates more engagement. A non-power-user may perceive a search engine that returns crappy results to have more pages indexed over a search engine that returns no results for the same query, even though the latter would return more accurate results for a different query. Users may also return to the search engine more because they click on these filler results expecting to find what they want, but they don't, so they click on the back button and click on another result. I suspect that analysts may conveniently omit this information when presenting their fancy graphs showing increased engagement to management, and that's because I've seen this sort of shenanigans in real life. Management either way may just not care as long as the ads being displayed in search results are being viewed or clicked more often.
ripley12 5y ago
Yeah, DDG has become nearly unusable for me since they stopped honoring quotes (a few months ago?). I've found myself instinctively using the !g Google fallback more often than not, and at that point I might as well just switch back to Google for everything, sigh.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  Right. I too feel like this change was very recent. 3 months sounds close to my experience.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
acheron 5y ago
I’ve been using DDG for.. 9 years? Something like that. I’ve noticed that too with ignoring the quotes just in the past few months. I don’t know what happened. Also it seems to sometimes throw in my location information when I didn’t ask.
_dark_matter_ 5y ago
I've been experiencing this same thing! If I'm looking for documentation or something I now go straight to Google, where at least it's on the page somewhere. DDG will be pages on pages of blagspam.

not2b 5y ago

Since they mainly rely on Bing, maybe Bing has made a change.

sefrost 5y ago

I think Google and recently DDG think they’re doing me a favour by ignoring my quote marks. They’re not! If they think they only have poor results with quote marks then show me them and tell me that. If they don’t have any results with my quote marks then tell me that. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s like asking someone in the street for directions and they’re embarrassed they don’t know the way so point you in a random direction. Not helpful!

eitland 5y ago
> It’s like asking someone in the street for directions and they’re embarrassed they don’t know the way so point you in a random direction. Not helpful! This is an extremely good explanation of what is going on and why it drives me crazy. I argued this with a search engine employee once and he said others had told him they expected them to do this. Well, here's the point: If you go this direction the engine become unusable for certain jobs. If - on the other hand one respect user queries one maybe also have to tell users how to get the results they want. That is a tradeoff, I admit that. But one of the solutions builds a fantastic tool that might require a tiny tiny bit of training. The other solution builds a toy that also works as a tool in simple cases. Why do search engines go that way? Seems to be short time optimizations all the way: - making it absolutely idiot proof means more usage - annoying power users doesn't have any effects until alternatives exist. Now however Kagi exist and I have left DDG (and Google but they only used to be a fallback anyway) and I will go around tell everyone there is a new search engine in town - and I will enjoy it!
- ravenstine 5y ago
  > making it absolutely idiot proof means more usage Perhaps that's what analysts and management believes publicly within search companies, but I don't think even normies believe that crappy search results is better than none. There's a few things that may be happening that explain why filler search results creates more engagement. A non-power-user may perceive a search engine that returns crappy results to have more pages indexed over a search engine that returns no results for the same query, even though the latter would return more accurate results for a different query. Users may also return to the search engine more because they click on these filler results expecting to find what they want, but they don't, so they click on the back button and click on another result. I suspect that analysts may conveniently omit this information when presenting their fancy graphs showing increased engagement to management, and that's because I've seen this sort of shenanigans in real life. Management either way may just not care as long as the ads being displayed in search results are being viewed or clicked more often.

ripley12 5y ago

Yeah, DDG has become nearly unusable for me since they stopped honoring quotes (a few months ago?). I've found myself instinctively using the !g Google fallback more often than not, and at that point I might as well just switch back to Google for everything, sigh.

ravenstine 5y ago
Right. I too feel like this change was very recent. 3 months sounds close to my experience.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

acheron 5y ago

I’ve been using DDG for.. 9 years? Something like that. I’ve noticed that too with ignoring the quotes just in the past few months. I don’t know what happened. Also it seems to sometimes throw in my location information when I didn’t ask.

_dark_matter_ 5y ago

I've been experiencing this same thing! If I'm looking for documentation or something I now go straight to Google, where at least it's on the page somewhere. DDG will be pages on pages of blagspam.