Personally, I've given up on results quality. It ranges from bad (Google) to worse (Bing) to barely usable (DDG).
Even if it's barely usable, I'm tired of the constant tracking and ads. Anyways, Google is already so full of SEO spam that I usually have to type in "[search term] [relevant web site]", and even DDG can handle that.
So I agree that the quality of Google search is declining, but long story short the others are still worse (IMHO obviously).
I tried DDG for a couple of weeks and it was just awful. For almost all non-trivial searches i had to result to !g. I finally switched back after two weeks or so and suddenly I'm much happier with the quality of Google search results.
Obviously this is just one man's opinion.
I think the technical challenges are big enough to make this a really difficult task.
I hope to get here. I've been using DDG since the start of the year, and I'm thinking of switching back to Google. The results for me are off the mark to such a degree that I use the `!g` more times than not. Even if DDG has the result on the first page, it's never at the top like Google often is.
Over the past 5 years I’ve tried DDG several times. Each time except the last I wanted to stick with it but the results simply didn’t stand up to what I’d see on Google.
About 6 months ago (a year? I can’t remember) I switched and haven’t looked back. Now, when I look at google, the results actually look less relevant. As well, the ads on Google have become very obnoxious. I don’t feel like I’m being served the best results but instead results of companies who paid the most.
For me the quality of DDG search results seems to fluctuate over time. In the recent times it’s become worse, and I’ve resorted to going directly to !s (startpage) or !g (google). I take many other precautions in my browsing to thwart tracking anyway.
I think DDG is decent and getting better. The tough thing though is that for search the bar is high. Alternatives need to be as good as google, not 80 or 90 or 98% as good.
Most users, once they experience just a few instances of worse results will just switch back to google.
My problem has been DDG consistently produces worse results than google for many/most of my searches. It's often sufficient, but often it is so bad I have to redo the search in google :-/
I really want to use DDG over google, but it's just not there for me yet.
Same, when I first tried DDG (2 yrs ago) the results were horrible. Now I've switched to DDG permanently 2 weeks ago as the results are good enough. Later I'm gonna change my parent's default search engine to DDG in a few days of more testing.
I love that DDG has almost no spam and the fact that it's so on point to the queries and doesnt perform the wide search. My dad has a few websites that he's visits daily, and he just goes to them directly. Since Google and DDG cant differentiate themselves much any more, I feel like the next direction for every tech company is a larger emphasis on user privacy and it's only going to be more important for already established markets as a differentiator.
Once DDG grows by 2x more, it'll become a significant competitor to Google. At the point, that additional data advantages likely approaches diminishing returns. Remember, network effects arent exponential in real life, they follow an "S" curve.
Google isn't standing still. They're getting worse over time. I've noticed a significant drop in their result quality even in the past 1-2 years. Meanwhile DDG seems to be slowly improving. They are now my default and I only go to Google if I can't find something with DDG.
My experience has been finding more garbage on DDG, not less. I ended up getting too tired of those results being above the good ones that I switched back to Google.
Are you implying that Google search is any longer the only quality search engine? Honestly, I've been using DDG for years now and only less than 1% of my searches do I ever jump over to Google for.
Yeah, DDG can even give better results at time than google does. Google search has gone from being exceptional to becoming ad filled trash. Every other major search engine (directly or indirectly) gets their results in part from Google, but since most spammers are focused on Google the father from google you get the better results can be.
I'm using DDG exclusively, for a few months now. Trying to get away from Google. I still find myself going back now and then though because the DDG results can be so bad compared to Google. I plan on continuing to use it primarily, it's just super annoying to struggle to find something and then go search Google and find it instantly.
I find myself more and more using DDG. When I use Google I am mostly finding spam nowadays. Even if I try to filter results by date or add very specific keywords, I get mostly garbage.
I have a feeling that also results that don't support current narratives are disappearing from search.
Now when I find something useful, I am now bookmarking it where I didn't have to do that a year or so ago.
I've now completely switched to DDG. I still occasionally use !g, but it's quite rare.
The results have been getting much better over time and I'd argue that the quality of Google's results is actually declining. Some queries return almost an entire 1st page full of ads.
I've noticed the significant drop in quality of Google results as well. Tried DDG couple of years ago, but wasn't happy. This post, however, pushed me to install the DDG extension in Chrome and give it another chance. Let's see how it goes.
For me, DDG results are even worse than Google. It's set as my default and I'd say at least half of my searches in DDG generate completely useless results...pages of obviously SEO'd garbage.
DDG also doesn't support showing a site's basic structure in the search results (ie, the card of a company's website with Products, Contact Us, Support, etc) and the preview text is garbo as well...it reminds me of 1990's era electronic card catalog search excerpts.
I look at the first page or two, give up, search google. While I have to hunt a bit in the results, I do eventually get what I wanted.
I switched to DDG a few years back, but whenever I accidentally search via Google, every result feels like an ad. Not sure how anyone actually uses it anymore.
I've converted most of my coworkers away from Google and they've all mentioned how much different results are on DDG, Bing or even Alta, and how much better the results are. Bye Google!
I have the exact opposite experience. I find DDG's searching to be much better than Google's - which has turned to garbage. Having said that, I've noticed the quality of DDG's search results have dropped quite a bit in the past couple of months. Don't know what could be causing that.
Even if it's barely usable, I'm tired of the constant tracking and ads. Anyways, Google is already so full of SEO spam that I usually have to type in "[search term] [relevant web site]", and even DDG can handle that.
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