For the past few years, a growing number of users, analysts, and experts raised alarms about a truth that feels obvious to a lot of people who surf around in web browsers: the quality of Google results is in serious decline. Google disagrees.
Honestly I don’t think it’s just Google, DDG has been getting worse as well, not quite as bad as Google but still similar issues where the thing I’m looking for is buried under spam sites built to a generic standard with shitty content but spectacular search engine optimization.
And pumping out sites and pages like that is optimal in the current market as it is the best way to get clicks, as supposed to investing in skilled writing, investigation and research.
The problem is that the major search engines have all kind of sat on their behinds about this and actively sold these bad websites assistance in gaming their search engine. The search engines would have to rebuild their search functions to find signs of bad sites and deprioritize them in the list, not just show things that seem relevant. They’ll probably never do this because then they’d hurt the part of their business that is helping shitty sites game the engine.
It’s AI-generated content. Someone is just telling the AI to generate content that will capture X search term. Like free google ads, except instead of configuring target keywords in a system designed to do that, they’re bridging the gap with content designed to capture search traffic.
Because of AI, this is flattened again to a simple config. You could have an adwords-like interface where you’re configuring target keywords and phrases, and then you just click “run” and you have a pile of content designed to connect the dots you configured. Here’s a keyword, here’s a URl. When people search this keyword I want them to end up at this URL. Write me an article that will meet both those criteria.
Maybe this AI shit is like the warp drive in the three-body problem: it feeds off a space filled with well-organized information, but when it’s used, it pollutes that environment with bullshit, rendering future use of that information ecosystem less valuable.
It’s gotten so hard to find authentic, useful results that people have started adding the word “Reddit” to search terms
I have definitely done that multiple times.
Kagi search. 100 free ones then subscription plan, but it gives good search results like google back in 2010
Google search results suck and I’ve actually heard regular people mention it. They just either don’t know how to switch search engines or they think Bing search sucks.
Bing and Bing based searches have also gotten worse. The study in question actually says they preform worse than google. Its all Goodhart’s law in action.
Or they still think they are entitled to a “free” search engine and don’t see the amount of resources needed for that and that it’s actually a service worth paying for, either through a subscription or through a donation-based service.
Switching one private company for another is definitely not the way to go…
Or they’re working class or buried in medical bills and can’t afford to be spending money on things like search engines that have a free alternative, even if it is worse.
I’m not actually convinced the alternatives are any better here, anyway.
I’m using Kagi for quite some time now and it’s awesome. But recently I was using a different machine and did not have my login credentials at hand so I used Google and holy shit I didn’t remember Google giving such aweful results. I was not able to find what I was looking for. Then searched the same thing on my phone through Kagi and the solution was in the first three results. So yes I also feel that Google search is getting worse.
Pay for the service or you will become the product. Kagi is more than worth it, its so nice to be able to find what I’m looking for again.
I can’t be paying $5 or $10/month for yet another service. I understand the companies need to make money, but the amount of services asking for a subscription is getting out of hand. And $5 is really high for a search engine, that price is crazy. I was expecting something like $12/year for unlimited searches.
You either pay with your money or by viewing paid content. I save WAY more time than the $5 is worth to me not having to dig to find real results. It’s ability to surface actual product reviews instead of page after page of amazon affiliate links has saved me hundreds of dollars. I felt it was crazy to pay for too, the free trial immediately changed my mind. You don’t know how bad you have it until you see how good it could be.
The dangers of a monopoly. No matter how bad Google gets people will still use it because, in many people’s minds, there is no other search engine.
What are those? DDG, Bing, Ecosia etc. are all not really better than Google. I haven‘t tried Kagi yet, mostly because it costs money.
You can actually try kagi for free. 100 searches/month should be enough for you to decide if it’s worth the money to you.
(Not affiliated; just a happy user)
I’m going to give Kagi a try, thanks to this comment - I didn’t know there was a free trial.
Kagi went to bed with Brave, and when people protested they ignored it
That’s kinda stretching the definition of ‘went to bed’. Brave is one of the result providers you can select as a source, and that’s about it
Is kagi a metasearch engine? Or does it have its own crawler and so on?
It’s a mix I believe: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html
I am actually kinda ok with DDG, but the results are… not always very great and the second page is filled with weird websites related to my location…
Maybe i should try both Kagi and SearxKagi went to bed with Brave, and when people protested they ignored it
What do you mean with “went to bed”?
DDG is on pair with google, that’s enough for me. (in some topics far better and in some far worse)
Not for international (non-English) results.
This is 100% true, no contest.
Google search is horrendous now. Instead of showing you relevant search results, it’s become an advertising race to the top game. If they can find “sponsored” links or shopping results related to your search, those go to the very top space. It’s about to get way worse as the rise of AI continues to rot the brains of board room suits.
I use Ecosia and DDG. Ecosia on my personal laptop, and DDG on my phone browser.
Back in the early 00s (I think), there was a running joke about how the search engine Ask Jeeves had one purpose, and one purpose only: to amend any search to “where can I buy…?” Because no matter what you searched for, it would inevitably prioritise adverts and online shopping.
That’s what Google is now.
I also use Ecosia now. It’s powered by Bing on the back end, I believe, but the results are consistently better than what I get from Google. And it’s like… okay, yes, this is the world we live in now, where Bing is more useful than Google.
DDG keeps changing my search query because its “not returning a lot of results” or because it thinks I typo’d and it is infuriating to me, sometimes it doesnt even inform me that it did, not even giving me a link to click to get to my actual search query
'also noticed that it got worse around the same time google did
Yeah, jeez. The number of times I give up and Ctrl+F on the page I’ve clicked to, just to find that the phrase I double-quoted just does not exist there and that my time has been wasted
Yeah, that’s because it gets the results from Bing.
