Post ASAVkKAOaHFlbu9tke by john@sauropods.win
(DIR) More posts by john@sauropods.win
(DIR) Post #ASASrb4vnxkKE5NZJ2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2023-01-30T11:28:30Z
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Ok I’m fed up enough with google to try some other search engine. Google is trying to hard to second guess my queries. Ignoring rare key words, favoring popular or product connected terms. Ignoring independent small websites— When was the last time you discovered some hidden gem with google? I was a search engine that is less normalized and “helpful” Show me the bad results. What options are there?
(DIR) Post #ASASrbVAEQjJXReWC8 by john@sauropods.win
2023-01-30T11:52:00Z
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@futurebird I use DDG, but I have to disagree with the other people here: I don’t think it will solve your problem. It’s results are very similar to Google’s. I’ve tried a bunch, and I don’t think there is a general-purpose search engine that doesn’t suffer from the problems you’re having that also works for the stuff Google still works for.Some say Kagi, and maybe, but I suspect it’s good at programming queries mostly.
(DIR) Post #ASAUxBz4DcJO2hQqCe by JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk
2023-01-30T12:15:25Z
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@john @futurebird Agree. The main difference between DDG and Google is that the results are not polluted with ads taking up most of the first page of results, so it functions much more like Google before it became a vehicle for advertising rather than a (mostly) dedicated search engine. Which is a great reason to switch anyway.
(DIR) Post #ASAVSlXS4rdDI3ZQzw by john@sauropods.win
2023-01-30T12:21:08Z
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@JonnyT @futurebird I haven't done a Google search for years without an adblocker. I just tried it... wow... Google's got BAD.
(DIR) Post #ASAVkIHPbDg3l5QTPU by futurebird@sauropods.win
2023-01-30T12:16:28Z
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@JonnyT @john I don’t have an issue with the ads as much as the quality of the search results.
(DIR) Post #ASAVkIuPGErxi1fcBs by JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk
2023-01-30T12:19:32Z
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@futurebird @john It's partly linked. The ads on Google take up so much space that you have to scroll too much to get to the results to know whether they're any good or not. I think DDG is also less prone to trying to second guess what you want, which is the direction Google has gone with worse results imo, so the results you do see in DDG are purer to your search parameters. The downside is fewer serendipitous results.
(DIR) Post #ASAVkJOtQtFvEZvxi4 by JonnyT@mastodon.me.uk
2023-01-30T12:21:50Z
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@futurebird @john Anyway, it doesn't do any harm to switch to DDG as your default and then try Google/other search engines if it doesn't show what you want. (Whispers it: we need something like Sherlock back).
(DIR) Post #ASAVkKAOaHFlbu9tke by john@sauropods.win
2023-01-30T12:24:17Z
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@JonnyT @futurebird Yeah, I use DDG partly because of the ! trick lets me switch or narrow really easily. The search landscape kinda sucks though, and it's only going to get worse with effing AIs filling the web with even more garbage.
(DIR) Post #ASAYYme9AdjIKJGNlI by KatEmm@mastodon.art
2023-01-30T12:55:46Z
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@john @futurebird the DDG image search is also wacky. I was trying to get an image of RoundUp packaging (a pesticide). The general search results were good but the images were all of just round packaging. Not a single RoundUp result.
(DIR) Post #ASAZeBf1hCWPJCoap6 by john@sauropods.win
2023-01-30T13:08:00Z
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@KatEmm @futurebird Yep, assuming you want something generic rather than specific because it's statistically more likely is infuriating. Accidental averaging is such an obvious danger I can't believe professionally run search engines have this problem. This kind of crap infects DDG because it's pretty much just Bing.
(DIR) Post #ASAZkjw5AtP3Lfuwm8 by nu@pl.hyperboreal.zone
2023-01-30T13:01:10.881353Z
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@KatEmm @john @futurebird i honestly almost find DDG to be worse than google, at least with google i can tack stuff onto my query to help a bit (like in this situation, i could add -round in addition to the already well known method of putting quotes around important parts of the query) but iirc DDG just doesn’t seem to have much of anything like that or even the more basic quotes thing either
(DIR) Post #ASAZkkWF0SKJ9opp8S by john@sauropods.win
2023-01-30T13:09:10Z
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@nu @KatEmm @futurebird Yeah, it can definitely be worse. I do like being able to use the ! to switch search engines or restrict my search though.
(DIR) Post #ASAcZdqLmm8J88dUMi by MetalSamurai@mas.to
2023-01-30T13:40:47Z
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@john @futurebird I still miss AltaVista…
(DIR) Post #ASAdRrAmRWWS6n2lKi by jgordon@appdot.net
2023-01-30T13:50:35Z
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@john @futurebird The problem is half Google and half that web content is in very bad shape. Those two problems are related. As others have noted nothing is much better than Google.
(DIR) Post #ASAfmYYN44nuLo4m5g by bynkii@mastodon.social
2023-01-30T14:16:44Z
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@john @futurebird the problem is, unless you do a lot of work to up the weight of less-popular hits, any search engine with enough data is going to default to beige, because it’s unavoidable. And search engine manipulation is always a problem even if the search engine isn’t doing it. Finally, there’s how you pay for the damned thing because a large-scale search engine is ✨E X P E N S I V E ✨
(DIR) Post #ASAhSaAzWMZzV6kB8K by queerterpreter@lingo.lol
2023-01-30T13:43:45Z
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@JonnyT @john @futurebird My issue with DDG (and it _is_ my default search engine) is that it has its own ideas about what I want. It will usually ignore a word or two because if it searches for the full thing there will be very few (or no) results, and its syntax... isn't as advances? isn't working at all? it regularly ignores quotes and similar :/I do like that it's not google so it doesn't give me results based on what I was searching for 10, 15 years ago
(DIR) Post #ASAhSal9LvVFJFf3Ue by john@sauropods.win
2023-01-30T14:35:31Z
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@queerterpreter @JonnyT @futurebird me too, same complaint. Although I nearly always have the same problem with Google when I !g the search.
(DIR) Post #ASAmI8Hsr7FZscnvJg by maureenogle@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-01-30T15:29:35Z
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@john @futurebird I will sound like an idiot (I’m not a tech person), but what is a search engine for except queries?
(DIR) Post #ASCUWpJKHcgOVfFuj2 by queerterpreter@lingo.lol
2023-01-31T11:20:04Z
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@john What does !g do? 👀
(DIR) Post #ASCVAhlTl41OgpRIo4 by john@sauropods.win
2023-01-31T11:27:17Z
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@queerterpreter redirects the search to google. There’s heaps of them, like !w for Wikipedia, !r for Reddit, etc: https://duckduckgo.com/bangs
(DIR) Post #ASCWckJ9zngqdk81HU by queerterpreter@lingo.lol
2023-01-31T11:43:29Z
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@john Ahhh, interesting!