DDG still often returns results that closely match the exact search term, something Google seems increasingly determined not to?

Last I checked DDG is Bing. So if you think DDG is good then I guess you think Bing is good.

I personally don’t.

Can you sell me on Kagi? I took a look at the results for "best laptop" [1] and I'm underwhelmed. I see Reddit at the top (but many people here suggest adding "site:reddit.com" to the search) and most other results are from the same sites (but different order). It's hard to tell which order is better because the query is poorly written. Best laptop for what? I was also surprised to see that it recommends a site that uses affiliate links, its hard to trust those as being unbiased since there's profit motive.

Is there a better example? Re-ordering search results doesn't feel worth paying.

[1] https://kagi.com/search?q=best+laptop&r=us&sh=MuemT1_yBcwqyx...

I’m going to say that you do need to adjust to it.

It won’t give you “personalized results” like Google so you might have to adapt to that.