Hmm. Using the search term "small website discoverability crisis" . . .

On duckduckgo: original website is the third result (after what looks like a SEO firm's longform ad and ycombinator) without quotes and the first result with.

On startpage: original is the first result even without quotes

On mojeek: original is the first result even without quotes

I do not have accounts with any of these search engines and do not allow them to run Javascript or set cookies, although it's possible that duckduckgo may have noticed that someone with my ip often makes highly specific searches and looks at the long-tail results.

My conclusion from that, combined with other people's searches surfacing large sites first, is that the results you receive can be significantly distorted by the search engine's algorithm. Google in particular is likely trying to direct traffic to its advertising customers and should be avoided for that reason.