I don't need a 27-page novel to know the temperature and time to cook something. I also don't want to he directed to Pintrest and be required to have an account. Honestly, I've started using Bing more often.
That's not only a search engine problem in itself - websites also got worse in general to appeal to googles algorithm. Which means that other search engines would show similar crap, unfortunately.
I feel like 90+% of the time I use Google, it's just because it's more convenient than going to the actual website I want. Like if I want a Wikipedia article about a movie, it turns out it's faster to type in the movie name in Google and click than go to Wikipedia and search the movie.
Honestly people keep saying this but I just don't find it to be true. Google is a vital daily resource for me, and usually the best way for me to find most things.
Is this because I don't use social networks? Are people somehow using Instagram or TikTok as search engines to find what they're looking for? It feels like people just use social networks these days and nothing else, so maybe that's it?
not sure about other languages, but with Polish Google is still the most useful one, Bing and DDG don't even hold a candle to it, that said i still think Google went to shit hard
Of course it has, and this effect was completely foreseeable, and indeed, was foreseen, from the very moment they decided to whore themselves out with that IPO. They took their role as custodian of the baby internet and became a pimp.
Stop calling it anything else. As a musician, I promise you, trying to promote yourself online feels like prostitution. If you've ever tried, then you know too. The only difference is if I were a prostitute I might actually make some money back.
Kagi.com is one of the best services I pay for. I know paying for Internet search seems outrageous because we've been accustom to our data being the payment, but I think it's worth it. The search feature and added stuff really make it very functional plus the no adds or SEO type sites is bonus.
Search engines funded by ads have this perverse incentive to not give you the best possible results (or at least stop trying so hard to improve their results) so you search more (and thus served more ads). This may not be true for the underdogs (because they're trying to gain marketshare) but seems to be especially true for Google.
Yeah, If the search is about something relatively obscure then 50% of the links are random letters and numbers or worse, believable looking links that are riddled with viruses.
This post but replace google search with the general internet.
Nearly every place that feels like the old internet is not as popular.
I used to think that was a bad thing, I'm starting to think maybe I've just been
pushing aside the reality that when the internet was good, it wasn't as popular.
This is such an apt analogy. I only use it because I have a couple hundred tabs open in Chrome and I am too lazy to port them all over to FF. Even then, I usually have to be really manipulative to the search algorithm to get what I want from general searches and heaven forbid I want to find something that is even the least but taboo. I just use DuckDuckGo for those searches, though it struggles sometimes too.
I know I need to swap over to FF entirely, but there is just so much, from shifting my PW bank to the hundreds of tabs and thousands of bookmarks. Does anyone know of any FOSS or FF extensions that can smooth that process?
PS: Not disgussing ddg / ddg onion too much, basically because ddg is the long-time default search engine of TB. Most TB users assume ddg is a decent, standard, generic option, esp. its non-JS version.
I use Google search when I want to buy something, for some reason, it gets good résultats when I want to buy from my country. but if you want reliable results for a product review, you have to look elsewhere.
I've used Startpage for a year or more on my main computer and it works okay.
But if anyone has any tips for a search engine that actually supports queries with boolean logic and such, I'd be all for it. Lately they all seem to just not do that anymore.
I vastly prefer a search engine in the EU, that respects the privacy laws here.
Any discussion on search on Lemmy will bring up Kagi as it has been here already. I will just mention that.
A. You can cheat and just keep using a bunch of email accounts to get free trials from them
B. If you do that long enough you'll realize their 300 search plan is pretty fair and having saved preferences is worth a membership and they have an option where you can use crypto to pay your fees and remain anonymous (this is very important to me as the only thing more evil than Google would be to have all your search data, your full name and your credit card info - I strongly recommend the crypto pay option and create a dedicated email address. For Kagi membership).
Word. It's ridiculous how hard it is to get good hits these days. And while GPT makes shit up sometimes it's at least related to what I'm actually asking about. Google desperately wants to show the SEO optimized pages about something tangentially related instead of the page which actually has relevant information.
Getting a solid old forum hit for an obscure DNS issue takes a lot more work these days.
It's Googles fault, but it's not the algorithm getting worse, everyone is just too good at gaming it which fucks it up for everyone (the humanity special).
I use Google for maps and I'm still using their email for one account but I hate it. Duckduckgo's maps are way less useful. I know they're tracking my every move. I want to normalize leaving my cell phone at home at this point.
I have no idea why the best search engine is not mentioned in any of these comments. Maybe it is the same reason why I am not going to mention it either, to stop normies from ruining it.