Google backtracks on search results design

Re:Google backtracks on search results design by drno123 on Saturday January 25, 2020 @04:21AM (#22145525)

I disagree about search result quality. I switched to DDG over a year ago and only need to use !g bangs when I search either for some specific local stuff or when I search for news that have happened in the last day or two. Actually, in some cases DDG gives more relevant search results than Google, especially for programming stuff.

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Re:Google backtracks on search results design by vic-traill on Saturday January 25, 2020 @06:34AM (#22145865)

I concur. I only occasionally use !g w/ DDG now, whereas two years ago it was more frequent (although I can't quantify). I stuck w/ it as I wanted some distance between myself and Google.

Whether I've achieved any distance is an open question and I suspect that it is less than it feels like when I use DDG.

The results are comparable in my current experience. Compage searches for 'bluetooth speakers' on Google [0] and DDG [1]. In my location (Canada) DDG returns national results which are preferred and relevant.

I like that on the DDG results page the ad is clearly separated from organic results and I get the results w/out a mapping insert. That's just my preference, though.

Even the results URLs speak volumes. I have no idea what data - if any - I'm exposing about myself w/ the Google result.

[0] https://www.google.ca/search?source=hp&ei=KyUsXtPGIIGL5wKRx7...

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bluetooth+speakers&ia=shopping

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Re:Google backtracks on search results design by wizzwizz4 on Saturday January 25, 2020 @08:33AM (#22146161)

I really recommend editing out most of that URL, or at least shoving something an escape in there to stop it being clickable.

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Re:Google backtracks on search results design by vic-traill on Saturday January 25, 2020 @10:09AM (#22146519)

I missed the edit window.

I do appreciate the heads up, thanks.

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Re:Google backtracks on search results design by apatters on Saturday January 25, 2020 @04:27AM (#22145541)

+1 for having zero issues at all with using DDG as my daily driver, I only use Google for some local searches and currency conversions. DDG results have improved every year even as Google's have gotten much worse.

Edit: just realized that DDG does currency conversion too, there's one less class of searches that goes to Google!

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Re:Google backtracks on search results design by BjoernKW on Saturday January 25, 2020 @06:39AM (#22145875)

This is what I keep hearing about DuckDuckGo and I'd really like this to be true for myself and my search engine usage.

Unfortunately, however, having used DuckDuckGo for the last few weeks my experience has been quite the opposite (described here in some more detail: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22106837 ), especially when it comes to programming-related queries.

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Re:Google backtracks on search results design by clarry on Saturday January 25, 2020 @09:35AM (#22146390)

It would be nice to conduct these experiments while actually saving the searches (and results) for further study & ideas from the community on how to improve them.

I hear a lot of anecdotes about search working/not working but concrete examples remain elusive.

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Re:Google backtracks on search results design by BjoernKW on Saturday January 25, 2020 @01:22PM (#22147685)

Intriguing idea. It'd be interesting to get DuckDuckGo involved in such a project because it's in their interest to improve search query matches.

Maybe, a browser plugin that allows you to easily report less than optimal or even irrelevant search results to DuckDuckGo (including a comparison with other search engine in case those yield more appropriate results) would be quite useful.

This obviously has privacy implications, though.

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