Here's an interesting read that attempts to compare search results of various search engines
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Just today I was searching for a news article about a local radio personality who got fired in the last few days. Zero relevant results. Just extraneous garbage. I was stunned.
I seem to find what I need. DDG is my default search and I still end up switching over to google more than half the time to get what I'm looking for.
Do I wish Google wasn't annoying and greedy? Yes. I don't think any corporation owes me that specifically though. But we do owe it to each other to bring attention to it and even reduce demand for it when possible.
Brave and duckduckgo works. I use both
Google will let you find what they want you to find. Especially if it's a commercial product of some sort.
Long time rant of mine that google has declined in worth as far as search goes. Cramming ads, videos with ads, and preferred search results now consumes the first page of results and more. If you're searching for a tech problem or a solution to some issue, it's somewhat better after you get past preferred sites and garbage SEO sites all trying to sell you something, but often it's best to use Site: search. You can't really use modifiers like "-" or quotes very much either, the "-" simply does not work at all, and getting too specific with quotes, more than a couple words, will often result in no search results at all.
I'm late to the party and I don't understand several things I read in the comments, so I need to ask for clarification.
What is Google's Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? I looked it up, but the websites StartPage was giving me were not useful (probably ads or spam sites). Is finding these ads/spam sites the problem?
How is this a search engine's fault? I mean, if the internet is now made by walled gardens and spam sites, search engines have trouble finding something really relevant, but how is it their fault?
I should add I navigate logged out on Firefox with the Ublock Origin and NoScript extensions (among others) so I at least don't see Google's ads.
I agree there are some searches where it's next to impossible to find informed sites from spam ones: just a week ago I was looking for "Best Nintendo Switch games released in 2023" and I got lots of dubious blogs, and even when I got hits from IGN, GameSpot or PcMag sites, I realized I don't know if any of these last sites are genuine or bought out (and checked the Wikipedia for more wisdom about their veracity), but how is it the search engine's fault to not navigate through seas of crap?
When I search for academic things, Google or StartPage still seem to give me useful answers.
I have been wary about searches related to reviews about anything, but it just seemed to me the internet is a worse place now in general (because of walled gardens and spam)
It's why I switched to DuckDuckGo. At least there I can find the result in a few pages. Google doesn't even respect operators anymore. Want to search for enterprise but don't want car ads? Good luck finding captain Picard through all that nonsense.
Discovering new search machines would be an alternative. But they all have their filters and algorithms which make it hard to find exactly what you want. In the long run the internet will be run by AI serving copyright cowbows and big governance.
I can give a fun example for both ddg and Google:
Earlier today I was writing an exam paper for my students, and one of the topics is "basic" normal distribution. So, I thought to myself, why not make it I testing, give them a real world normal model.
Try it yourselves - the number of bot reposts is frightening.
I’ll be the dense lunkhead and ask/say the obvious:
https://www.google.com/search?q=find+a+Hollywood+movie
I’m guessing you were trying to find a specific, older movie?
OT, but now I’m disappointed to have discovered that LMGTFY’s SSL throws a NSURLErrorDomain error. I would have used that instead.