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Or maybe they realize people are starting to leave for DuckDuckGo etc. because Google no longer has better results.

by yccs27 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
russellbeattie 4y ago
Google defines what good search results are. Any company trying to compete with them is just tilting at windmills. They'll always be a step behind, forever. "Hey, why does Google show me x and DDG doesn't?", "Why is it so hard to find x on DDG, it's on the first page of Google." Etc. It will never be the reverse for 99% of users. And face it, for all its flaws, Google's index is larger, it has more servers, has way more signals to use - including its own web browser, DNS and ads - more money to spend and actual computer scientists who've been banging away at the problem for decades. Bing is just Microsoft's way of siphoning off some search revenues from the most technically illiterate users who don't know better and never change their defaults on their Windows box they bought at Walmart. MS has zero incentive to improve the results. DDG is a cute little boutique web site. Good for them. But their impact on Google Search is so small as to be non-existent.
- joelthelion 4y ago
  Disagree. I use DDG because I'm frustrated with Google search results. And granted, sometimes Google is better, so I just add "!g" to my query and let DDG redirect me to Google.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    for me I’d be very happy to just use google through a proxy service. google now hides images and maps behind a cookie consent page, so if you’ve got their cookies blocked, you can’t access then
- pschuegr 4y ago
  Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that. I was part of the Kagi beta test and I think the results were on average better than Google, and not just for lack of ads. I'm not a Google hater either, but their systems are just not as far in front as they used to be.
  - russellbeattie 4y ago
    What's the fundamental rule to get users to switch products or services? Answer: 10x. When a competitor's results are 10 times better than Google's - not a little better, or sometimes better, or better if you add a special character to your search, or subjectively better based on your personal preference, but an actual order of magnitude better - then and only then will Google even begin to start worrying about its dominant position in search. "But Russ," I can hear you say, "How can a search result be 10x better? That's a straw man. What does it even mean to be 'better'? Faster? More accurate? More contextual? More personal? More predictive? Less spam? More niche sites? Less niche sites? More photos? More videos? More news? Less photos? Less videos? Less news? More languages? Less languages? More international? More local? More convenient? More customizable? How can you even measure something like that?" Exactly.
    - andrelaszlo 4y ago
      For me, not feeling spied on was the big part and the search results were also much more consistent and less frustrating. The final parts were the ads, and that I simply try to avoid Google products. 10x sounds like a lot but for me personally Kagi is probably like 30x when you take all the factors into consideration.
    - erichocean 4y ago
      > but an actual order of magnitude better Well, when you can't get the result on Google no matter how you finesse your query, but you can get it on another search engine, is that infinity better? Because that's the situation.
- Beldin 4y ago
  That used to be the case. It's why they rose to dominance (that and the "no extra crap on the page"). Nowadays, Google's search results are pretty meuh. However, the domain has become much more adversarial with many companies devoted to manipulating search results for a fee. Not sure, perhaps "meuh" is the best we can hope for nowadays. If a service can consistently deliver good results on the first page (like Google used to, 20-odd years ago), they could definitely dethrone Google. Of course, the moment that appears to be the case, all SEO spammers start focusing on the new rival and the newcomer's job becomes a lot harder.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    google results seem meh when you compare them to google results. go and try and use duckduckgo or brave search for anything more than basic one or two keyword searches, and you’ll be back to google like a shot
    - eino 4y ago
      That's just not true. I switched from google at least two years ago (first to cliqz now DDG), and haven't looked back ever since. And I run pretty technical queries. When I try google again, it's not better, and many times it's worse.
      - cassianoleal 4y ago
        I've been setting DDG as my default search engine on all browsers for at least 4 or 5 years. Sometimes I get terrible results and add a !g to my search query to see if le gouglè gives me something better. Almost every time it's just as bad. Usually because of SEO crap.
      - permo-w 4y ago
        lack of quote search is a huge downside for me
    - hulahoof 4y ago
      I find DDG to be better than anything other than finding local stores, but I just use (google) maps for that anyway.
- wrp 4y ago
  Have to disagree. I've tried DDG and was never impressed enough to switch from Google, but I have found Yandex to increasingly give better curated results, especially for stuff originating in Europe. Bing has also gotten much better, but I don't find it adds anything to Yandex+Google.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    Sorry, but as critical as I'm of Google I'm not going to exchange it for a Russian propaganda instrument.
- spaniard89277 4y ago
  Maybe, I'm fine over here though, using both ddg and brave search
- bambax 4y ago
  I agree with you, but I also think that it's bad that they are unbeatable. It can only lead to complacency and monopolist behavior. I think as a society we need to think what it means to have one private company control access to all information.
  - russellbeattie 4y ago
    Thanks. I don't think it's a good thing either. Was just pointing out that their dominance is pretty unassailable.
- roelschroeven 4y ago
  I started using DDG a number of years ago out of principle, even though its search results were clearly worse than Google's (but still mostly acceptable). Quite often I fell back to Google to get better results. After a while, things started to change. I don't feel the need to fall back to Google nearly as often anymore, and when I do I'm very unhappy with the results from Google. They're often worse than what I get from DDG. YMMV of course. And yes, DDG's impact on Google Search is probably negligible, but market share is often only verly lightly related to quality.
  - russellbeattie 4y ago
    Good morning! Always fun to come back and see a pretty straightforward comment getting downvoted to oblivion. :-) To be clear, I wasn't saying the current state of affairs was a good thing, I was simply stating in detail that Google is still a gargantuan machine. Unless a competitor is somehow able to fire a couple of torpedoes down a hidden exhaust port, they're all going to be outgunned for the foreseeable future. But sure, the unpredictable vagaries of public sentiment could somehow turn against them, I guess. I mean, it's going to be a while. Their company name is a verb.
sh4rks 4y ago
I sometimes find that duckduckgo has better results than Google for a particular query, and other times it's the opposite. I wish there was a way to aggregate the two results together.
- wakeupcall 4y ago
  There is. Look at SearX.
permo-w 4y ago
after a few weeks of trying all the different (free) options, I found that anything longer than 3 keywords and Google is the only option. duckduckgo doesn’t even have [consistently working] quote search
sirius87 4y ago
If we are speculating why Google is now caring to pay attention to user reports, I strongly feel such things usually precede a wave of user monetization. I would not be surprised if the ads situation gets worse or some other egregious action takes place, as if to say, "Remember how we fixed search results for you? Well, here's how we plan to pay for it".
- sdoering 4y ago
  > Well, here's how we plan to pay for it. I would change one little word: Well, here's how we plan _you_ pay for it.
joaogui1 4y ago
Not just DDG, there has been an increase in search engine startups, some with pretty well-known people taking the lead, that probably got them worried
- rr888 4y ago
  Any good ones? I'd love to experiment.
  - maronato 4y ago
    Kagi has been pretty great in my experience
    - gabrielgio 4y ago
      I started using as a test drive (as I have been a happy DDG user before that). I really like the fact that there is no ad, I can easily rank the pages or even block them (be gone w3schools) and ultimately I don't ever have to go to google anymore. The result are quite solid, even for local non-english searches which DDG struggles a bit.
    - Johnythree 4y ago
      Very much This. It's good that google is now doing a panic because of Kargi. Too little, too late. Pity they didn't listen years ago.
    - rr888 4y ago
      Ooof you have to pay? I guess I can't complain about ads any more. I'll try it out.
  - mminer237 4y ago
    Brave Search is quite good. They basically trained their model to give the same results as Google, but they give prioritized sections to real discussions. Plus they have a cool goggles experiment. Mojeek is hit or miss, but occasionally does better than Google. I haven't really used it myself, but I've heard good things about Kagi.
felipemnoa 4y ago
Personally I find myself using bing more. Nothing against google search, but a lot of times I just cannot find what I need in google so I go over to bing to see if I have better luck. Sometimes I do. Although, google search is still better, for now.

Or maybe they realize people are starting to leave for DuckDuckGo etc. because Google no longer has better results.

by yccs27 4y ago

Or maybe they realize people are starting to leave for DuckDuckGo etc. because Google no longer has better results.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

russellbeattie 4y ago

Google defines what good search results are. Any company trying to compete with them is just tilting at windmills. They'll always be a step behind, forever. "Hey, why does Google show me x and DDG doesn't?", "Why is it so hard to find x on DDG, it's on the first page of Google." Etc. It will never be the reverse for 99% of users. And face it, for all its flaws, Google's index is larger, it has more servers, has way more signals to use - including its own web browser, DNS and ads - more money to spend and actual computer scientists who've been banging away at the problem for decades. Bing is just Microsoft's way of siphoning off some search revenues from the most technically illiterate users who don't know better and never change their defaults on their Windows box they bought at Walmart. MS has zero incentive to improve the results. DDG is a cute little boutique web site. Good for them. But their impact on Google Search is so small as to be non-existent.

joelthelion 4y ago
Disagree. I use DDG because I'm frustrated with Google search results. And granted, sometimes Google is better, so I just add "!g" to my query and let DDG redirect me to Google.
- permo-w 4y ago
  for me I’d be very happy to just use google through a proxy service. google now hides images and maps behind a cookie consent page, so if you’ve got their cookies blocked, you can’t access then
pschuegr 4y ago
Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that. I was part of the Kagi beta test and I think the results were on average better than Google, and not just for lack of ads. I'm not a Google hater either, but their systems are just not as far in front as they used to be.
- russellbeattie 4y ago
  What's the fundamental rule to get users to switch products or services? Answer: 10x. When a competitor's results are 10 times better than Google's - not a little better, or sometimes better, or better if you add a special character to your search, or subjectively better based on your personal preference, but an actual order of magnitude better - then and only then will Google even begin to start worrying about its dominant position in search. "But Russ," I can hear you say, "How can a search result be 10x better? That's a straw man. What does it even mean to be 'better'? Faster? More accurate? More contextual? More personal? More predictive? Less spam? More niche sites? Less niche sites? More photos? More videos? More news? Less photos? Less videos? Less news? More languages? Less languages? More international? More local? More convenient? More customizable? How can you even measure something like that?" Exactly.
  - andrelaszlo 4y ago
    For me, not feeling spied on was the big part and the search results were also much more consistent and less frustrating. The final parts were the ads, and that I simply try to avoid Google products. 10x sounds like a lot but for me personally Kagi is probably like 30x when you take all the factors into consideration.
  - erichocean 4y ago
    > but an actual order of magnitude better Well, when you can't get the result on Google no matter how you finesse your query, but you can get it on another search engine, is that infinity better? Because that's the situation.
Beldin 4y ago
That used to be the case. It's why they rose to dominance (that and the "no extra crap on the page"). Nowadays, Google's search results are pretty meuh. However, the domain has become much more adversarial with many companies devoted to manipulating search results for a fee. Not sure, perhaps "meuh" is the best we can hope for nowadays. If a service can consistently deliver good results on the first page (like Google used to, 20-odd years ago), they could definitely dethrone Google. Of course, the moment that appears to be the case, all SEO spammers start focusing on the new rival and the newcomer's job becomes a lot harder.
- permo-w 4y ago
  google results seem meh when you compare them to google results. go and try and use duckduckgo or brave search for anything more than basic one or two keyword searches, and you’ll be back to google like a shot
  - eino 4y ago
    That's just not true. I switched from google at least two years ago (first to cliqz now DDG), and haven't looked back ever since. And I run pretty technical queries. When I try google again, it's not better, and many times it's worse.
    - cassianoleal 4y ago
      I've been setting DDG as my default search engine on all browsers for at least 4 or 5 years. Sometimes I get terrible results and add a !g to my search query to see if le gouglè gives me something better. Almost every time it's just as bad. Usually because of SEO crap.
    - permo-w 4y ago
      lack of quote search is a huge downside for me
  - hulahoof 4y ago
    I find DDG to be better than anything other than finding local stores, but I just use (google) maps for that anyway.
wrp 4y ago
Have to disagree. I've tried DDG and was never impressed enough to switch from Google, but I have found Yandex to increasingly give better curated results, especially for stuff originating in Europe. Bing has also gotten much better, but I don't find it adds anything to Yandex+Google.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Sorry, but as critical as I'm of Google I'm not going to exchange it for a Russian propaganda instrument.
spaniard89277 4y ago
Maybe, I'm fine over here though, using both ddg and brave search
bambax 4y ago
I agree with you, but I also think that it's bad that they are unbeatable. It can only lead to complacency and monopolist behavior. I think as a society we need to think what it means to have one private company control access to all information.
- russellbeattie 4y ago
  Thanks. I don't think it's a good thing either. Was just pointing out that their dominance is pretty unassailable.
roelschroeven 4y ago
I started using DDG a number of years ago out of principle, even though its search results were clearly worse than Google's (but still mostly acceptable). Quite often I fell back to Google to get better results. After a while, things started to change. I don't feel the need to fall back to Google nearly as often anymore, and when I do I'm very unhappy with the results from Google. They're often worse than what I get from DDG. YMMV of course. And yes, DDG's impact on Google Search is probably negligible, but market share is often only verly lightly related to quality.
- russellbeattie 4y ago
  Good morning! Always fun to come back and see a pretty straightforward comment getting downvoted to oblivion. :-) To be clear, I wasn't saying the current state of affairs was a good thing, I was simply stating in detail that Google is still a gargantuan machine. Unless a competitor is somehow able to fire a couple of torpedoes down a hidden exhaust port, they're all going to be outgunned for the foreseeable future. But sure, the unpredictable vagaries of public sentiment could somehow turn against them, I guess. I mean, it's going to be a while. Their company name is a verb.

sh4rks 4y ago

I sometimes find that duckduckgo has better results than Google for a particular query, and other times it's the opposite. I wish there was a way to aggregate the two results together.

wakeupcall 4y ago
There is. Look at SearX.

permo-w 4y ago

after a few weeks of trying all the different (free) options, I found that anything longer than 3 keywords and Google is the only option. duckduckgo doesn’t even have [consistently working] quote search

sirius87 4y ago

If we are speculating why Google is now caring to pay attention to user reports, I strongly feel such things usually precede a wave of user monetization. I would not be surprised if the ads situation gets worse or some other egregious action takes place, as if to say, "Remember how we fixed search results for you? Well, here's how we plan to pay for it".

sdoering 4y ago
> Well, here's how we plan to pay for it. I would change one little word: Well, here's how we plan _you_ pay for it.

joaogui1 4y ago

Not just DDG, there has been an increase in search engine startups, some with pretty well-known people taking the lead, that probably got them worried

rr888 4y ago
Any good ones? I'd love to experiment.
- maronato 4y ago
  Kagi has been pretty great in my experience
  - gabrielgio 4y ago
    I started using as a test drive (as I have been a happy DDG user before that). I really like the fact that there is no ad, I can easily rank the pages or even block them (be gone w3schools) and ultimately I don't ever have to go to google anymore. The result are quite solid, even for local non-english searches which DDG struggles a bit.
  - Johnythree 4y ago
    Very much This. It's good that google is now doing a panic because of Kargi. Too little, too late. Pity they didn't listen years ago.
  - rr888 4y ago
    Ooof you have to pay? I guess I can't complain about ads any more. I'll try it out.
- mminer237 4y ago
  Brave Search is quite good. They basically trained their model to give the same results as Google, but they give prioritized sections to real discussions. Plus they have a cool goggles experiment. Mojeek is hit or miss, but occasionally does better than Google. I haven't really used it myself, but I've heard good things about Kagi.

felipemnoa 4y ago

Personally I find myself using bing more. Nothing against google search, but a lot of times I just cannot find what I need in google so I go over to bing to see if I have better luck. Sometimes I do. Although, google search is still better, for now.