I honestly think there’s something wrong with Google’s individual customization. They’re leaning in a little too hard on things you’re likely to be searching for rather than what you’re actually searching for.
DDG gives me better results for random searches on things I’m not usually looking for. When I was looking for Godot exercises yesterday every hit on DuckDuckGo for ages was just exactly what I wanted. When I went over to search Google there was a lot of more varied topics. Now, hands down if I need what time a certain store closes at a certain location Google will give me exactly what I’m looking for. Likewise if I need to know what’s near something else Google is absolutely superior to DDG. Google’s image search is also far more accurate and useful.
But then I come back and look for a medical condition for my cat that I’ve never heard of before, You passed by the sponsors and they’ve got a couple of random pages about it maybe a Reddit article or two that’s now blocked, but it quickly devolves to adjacent searches.
But if I go and search for any of my usual suspects, The rankings come back pretty decent.
Wogi@lemmy.world 10 months ago
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.
0110010001100010@lemmy.world 10 months ago
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.
LWD@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Care to share what kind of stuff you look for? Usually, when I look for niche media or code stuff, either I find it effectively enough on DuckDuckGo, or it’s not on Google at all, full stop.
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
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
!gout 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:
Image
0110010001100010@lemmy.world 10 months ago
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:
I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
tyler@programming.dev 10 months 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 🤷♀️
aniki@lemm.ee 10 months ago
just use a
!gif you don’t get what you want the first time on ddg and you’ll still get a proxied google search result.Engywuck@lemm.ee 10 months ago
AFAIK !g on DDG doesn’t proxy anything.
noodlejetski@lemm.ee 10 months ago
nothing gets proxied, it’s just like searching directly on Google.
Aopen@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
!sp is something like ddg for bing, but it is based on google
victorz@lemmy.world 10 months ago
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.
Wogi@lemmy.world 10 months ago
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.
LWD@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Makes sense. After all, Google has Maps to request specific data from people, and it stalks your location at all times to help figure out when places are busy.