955
Google Search Really Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find (tech.slashdot.org)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
293 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 72 points 2 years ago (25 children)

Yeah, DDG skips all the sponsored links but I generally find what I'm looking for faster on Google if I just skip half the page rather than trying to find the right incantation to bring up what I'm looking for on DDG.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 25 child comments
    •
  • [–] 36 points 2 years ago (19 children)

    I've tried, many times over the years, to use DDG and you are 100% spot-on. I find it damn-near impossible to find what I need without some deep voodoo magic to somehow craft the perfect query. It's been a decade+ since I've gone to page 2 of a Google search. Using DDG I can be 3 or 4 pages deep before maybe finding the answer. There is SOOO much irrelevant stuff to filter through.

    It sucks, I don't want to use Google, but there doesn't seem to be a great alternative.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 19 child comments
    •
  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (11 children)

    deleted

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
    •
  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I swear I’m going to capture screenshots of 2-3 dozen searches across DDG & Google, as well as hopefully Bing, Startpage… SearXNG…

    b/c DDG is doodoo while corporate overlord Google is great with Ublock Origin.

    Faithfully perform every search on DDG first in the hopes I can keep the data out of Google’s hands! But !g out half the time.

    —

    Anybody know of a site, app, or TamperMonkey script that’ll search multiple search engines side-by-side?

    In the meantime, one example w/a direct quote from deep inside a Harry Potter book:

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    Honestly it's been a yearish since I've tried and my memory is shit so I don't have any specific examples I can give now. In general though the bulk of my searches involve:

    • A local company I need for xyz or a specific type of restaurant
    • Issues/repairs for a specific make/model/year car (I do lots of my own work)
    • Various homelab related things (docker services for xyz)
    • Details about a movie or TV show (sometimes a specific episode)
    • Prices for products and where I can get them (trying to de-Amazon)
    • How to fix xyz in my home

    I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Tbh using DDG is more like using old (and I mean old) Google. Googling things used to be a skill people had. You googled things for other people because they had no idea how to get good results. That's exactly how DDG is. It takes rewiring your brain to use it, and I've been using it for a year now.

    I do go to Google sometimes. Specifically for opening hours in stores, and when I'm trying to look for products from smaller online stores I do not yet know of, which takes me to page 3-4 of Google but would've taken me far longer on DDG.

    The country switch on DDG is a godsend because you can manipulate searches with it and get some really specific results if you know what you're doing. It's the learning curve that makes DDG worse if you just want to find something without having to teach yourself to search. Which is definitely a point to Google, but if you want a very specific result it's better to battle that learning curve.

    I should also add that I'm not really anti Google in any way. I just stopped finding what I was looking for about 70% of the time, and instead found products and shit to consume. It's very useful for that stuff, but I never find obscure tech solutions with Google.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    All true. DDG is my default search engine now. Yeah. I use others often enough, Google, Bing, searXNG…but I find that if I can’t find it relatively easily on DDG it means I’m going to have to sift through a bunch of SEO sites and sponsored links on Google to find it. It won’t be much easier. One of the most frustrating thing about Google is the “fuck you” they’ve given to search modifiers. The “-“ and quotes are pretty much meaningless. For instance one can enter an error code from a program, perfectly quoted, and Google will tell you there aren’t any good search results. BS. They just can’t figure out how to jam ads into what you’re looking for or something. Bing or DDG will return what you need, it might just be on page 2.

    Google really has failed as a search engine.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    I mean, kagi is great. I too got frustrated with the shittiness of DDG and others like ecosia. Paying for a search engine sounds crazy but I’m not going back. Google’s results are absolutely terrible compared to kagi so 🤷‍♀️

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    just use a !g if you don't get what you want the first time on ddg and you'll still get a proxied google search result.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Would you be able to give an example of what you couldn't find with DDG that was simpler to find with the help of Google? Sounds interesting to me, as I use DDG pretty much exclusively.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I don't remember the specific case, most of the things I Google are local businesses. I find for local businesses Google is a top tier resource. Google can tell me how busy a business is right now, or if they're closed because of the weather. I often have to do some digging to find the business' page on DDG, if they have one. If I'm looking for a local contractor, like a water heater or drywall repair guy, the ads aren't even that intrusive, they're literally what I'm looking for. On DDG, I've got to do some clicking to find a contractor and then all the reviews are on Yelp. General contractors will have a list sometimes on DDG, but it's not all that helpful, I've never seen a phone number without clicking once or twice.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    deleted

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •