Re:Ask HN: Has Google search got noticably worse recently?
by rcarmo on Thursday June 03, 2021 @12:42PM
(#27383915)
I switched to DuckDuckGo on a permanent basis for around a year now. What I’ve noticed:
- I find myself doing “!g query” every now and then because I can’t find some very specific things (typically dev-related), but I can find 80-90% of the stuff I want in the first page.
- The index takes a long time to update (if I post something on my blog - which uses ddg for site search - it may take up to a week to show up)
- Comparatively zero nuisances (although there are so many spam blogs out there with gear reviews that they have pretty much the same effect as search ads)
In general, I’m happy, but I would agree that search, in general, has become worse over the past five years or so, as regardless of what engine I use, I now have to be much more specific about what I want and scroll through one or two pages of results before I find what I need.
- I find myself doing “!g query” every now and then because I can’t find some very specific things (typically dev-related), but I can find 80-90% of the stuff I want in the first page. - The index takes a long time to update (if I post something on my blog - which uses ddg for site search - it may take up to a week to show up) - Comparatively zero nuisances (although there are so many spam blogs out there with gear reviews that they have pretty much the same effect as search ads)
In general, I’m happy, but I would agree that search, in general, has become worse over the past five years or so, as regardless of what engine I use, I now have to be much more specific about what I want and scroll through one or two pages of results before I find what I need.