I use duck duck go and it feels like dial-up.
When i search, Google, I don't want capital i want information.
Everything is for sale.
Even a fucking acorn.
I dunno if they’ve done any studies, but I’ve got to think after so many years the average person doesn’t even register online ads anymore, let alone click on them/buy anything
regardless of how much time you spend on Google, I doubt it translates to much ROI for the people buying ads
But don’t you get quantifiable data on how many users click through the ads and eventually buy or at least browse a product? How has that been trending over time?
You get the number of users who clicked an ad. And as a company, you know the number of people who bought a product. Tracking links get stripped super easily. So you might get more clicks and less sales, and not know why. Or less clicks and more sales. /shrug
You can get data that purports to do that. It was clear to me in 2020 when I left the field that it might be directionally correct, but it was absolutely incorrect on claimed details.
I dunno man, I don't buy the "x still works, that's why companies still do it" argument anymore, as I watch companies around the nation collapse at what appears to be an exponential rate. I'm half-convinced all the money these things "make" are just an ouroboros of cash at some point.
Google rose to prominence because it was so much better than Yahoo.
Clearly the time is ripe for someone to do the same to Google that they did to Yahoo.
Poor search results and they have recently skewed way, way to the Right’s talking points. It’s terrible and frightening, many use this as their only research.
I've had two situations in the last year where I googled a specific business by name, and Google put an ad for a different business of the same type ahead of the one I wanted. In both cases, I called the wrong place to make an appointment, and in one case, showed up to the wrong spot.
When the business where I'd accidentally made the appointment called to find out where I was, I told them that I hadn't meant to make an appointment with them, so that unpaid hole in their schedule was a result of their Google ad being shown ahead of the business I thought I was patronizing.
I've switched to Brave quite some time ago, and I love it.
Better search results than DDG, and the AI is actually very good.
The only thing i have a slight issue with is searching local businesses (hrs/map) and for that I use Opera (which also provides very good search results.)
It feels like I don't search things Google messes up that often. Usually the results are exact what I am searching. But sometimes. I agree with that fully, haha. I wonder how bad the search results would be if I restrict personalized ads on my account. Probably way worse
Highly recommended for getting rid of ads. It doesn't *actually* improve search results, but it reduces the visual garbage. I've been using Start Page for search. It's low visual clutter to begin with.
I felt like it was super obvious it was getting shittier by design. I stopped using it when they introduced AI results. I was super annoyed at first when DuckDuckGo did the same thing, but I quickly realised I could disable it easily from the search page (and give the reason "dislike AI")
I use Kagi and find it better than Duck Duck Go for most of my searches. It’s far from perfect but it’s the best mix of search quality and privacy protection IMO
What we’re seeing now is the full descent into enshittification—a platform optimized not for users, but for quarterly earnings. Google realized it doesn’t have to surface the best info anymore, because:
1. They own the attention funnel, and
2. We’re all too conditioned (or desperate) to leave.
Is it though? Because Google has gotten significantly worse, AND half the top results are ads. I have never had that much problem even with more complex searches using DuckDuckGo
Yeah, sadly have the same experience. Also all the anti AI slop blockers only work on Google somehow, which makes using DuckDuckGo for picture search absolutely infuriating. But also not sure what else to use?
it *would* be funny as hell if somebody were to
1) kidnap Sundar Pichai
2) duct tape him to the bottom of an overpass
3) post the exact location to a quiet little web page
4) loudly announce, everywhere, that Sundar's location is posted on a quiet little web page
5) see if anybody can find the guy
Since Bing is equally a piece of shit copying Google's bad homework, I guess Duck Duck Go is the choice now? Or are there better options I'm unaware of?
I wonder if anyone on BlueSky can suggest a problem with the assumption that people can't leave a dominant market player that becomes unconcerned about quality?
And they haven't looked at the studies that show you don't lose loyal customers at the first point where your service declines, because they hold on in hopes it's a blip.
But once you DO hit that point of no return, it's a cliff.
Wow it sure would be super cool if the internet was treated as a public utility instead of a capitalist free for all... almost like it would be better for literally everyone but the already obscenely rich, funny how that works
I started using chatgpt more for questions. For product Google can work but depends. duck duck go is equal. My scare is AI googlefied. But I pay or AI so I can still chose with my wallet.
It sucks too, they've recently made it less useful. I'm sure for money or so we can have the joy of AI that is wrong 15% of the time. Can you imagine having a job that you do wrong 15% of the time?
Sort of like the msm's utter failure to a present a cohesive empirical narrative of US politics & economics over the last 25 years or so.
The interests that own the msm (6 entities control 90%of the msm) decided clickbait titles and superficial hottakes sell more advertising & costs far less...
...than investigative journalism like propublica.
We're all dumber and far less democratic for it.
Which allows the dumb to become normalized, if not lionized, thanks to the greed & apathy of those 6 corporate entities.
Fortunately European-based news coverage of the US has a command of the obvious.
It got so bad that I started strictly using DuckDuckGo for search.
While even they have been trying to implement "AI", it at least shows mostly relevant results and you have the ability to turn off those ridiculous summaries
I noted the enshittification more than a year ago. And today, Google is more like combing through the Penny Finder classified ads—without the newsprint on your fingers—than the tool we made into a verb.
Interaction with corp america and larger private companies now is blatantly profit driven. The original product of the companies has become secondary to their profits to the point where manipulating consumers is more important to them than providing their actual service. What a time to be alive.
Had this conversation with a google staffer this morning. How is paid search useful if no one is using search any more? Because it is all fucked up by AI and Google itself
I guess they're also training many to not even register that there are advertisements on the page that they are reading. I don't even see them anymore.
Adblock plus helps a lot. I never see ads on google. Granted, I also prefer a different search engine that I pay for. It gives me good results almost always on the first try.
https://Kagi.com You have to pay for it, but getting good results on the 1st or 2nd try is totally worth it to me. Not having Amazon as the first 10+ results is even better. I want to find small businesses that make the stuff I need (like white oak plugs for holes left in the floor by old radiator pipes).
I have that google opinion rewards app and they have constantly giving me surveys whenever I search things. I legit had nearly $40 in rewards where a vast majority of the time I'm saying how shit it is now and I can't find what I'm looking for
I was googling Polish words and names and getting complete gibberish in return. I thought maybe the search engine didn’t get the diacritics but I’d never had this problem before. Took about a month or two before other people noticed they were getting useless results.
This makes sense. Google searches have become practically useless and stuffed with their AI BS Gemini summaries. I used to just read Wikipedia, you know for real info. Now I get anodyne word salads that tell me as much or little as I already know
DuckDuckGo became useless months ago, when they introduced their own AI shit. Almost unprecedented "No result" messages became more and more frequent...
I recall where twitter trending results would constantly throw in some random stuff. Like I'd see Chet trending so would click to see what was up.
Lo and behold if was just a random dude saying he was better than Wemby.
Google search was heading down that path.
And I no longer have Twitter acct
Moved on Lycos since months now and... Yeah no pictures but with ublocker it looks like a really good search engine. Not like Google. And no AI (for now).
You're right, Google is getting worse. Their AI system is a fucking joke. I've gone off using it as I'd prefer to spend an extra 20 seconds scrolling down then get a probably wrong result which destroys the planet quicker.
Use duckduckgo for search. They don't track you; don't keep your searches/results; don't make $ off your search results; don't play these games. https://duckduckgo.com
Ecosia is pretty amazing, they do legit stuff, and I actually uncover a lot of decent websites that don't even show up on Google's first and second pages. It's not always the best, but I'd say I'm happy with it 90% of the time
preferred alternatives? how do we feel abt duckduckgo’s search results it feels like smaller and more ethical search engines trade scope for accuracy sometimes as the logical result of having access to less data
it's particularly bad now but its been dogshit for years, ever since it decided to drop searching for specific terms in your search string bc it wouldn't return "sufficient" results. the fact you can search 3 different words & have to put one in quotes otherwise it completely ignores it is insane.
Last night I hit up a *facebook group* after an hour off and on with Google yielded nothing. 8 people immediately had the answer. This kind of thing happens constantly now with Google
If it's a niche question I slip Google and go straight to Reddit. There's always experts in hobbyist subreddits who've explained it a million times, and sometimes there's even a helpful wiki.
Unfortunately, reddit has also become shittier. When your first query brings up a bunch of irrelevant stuff, you might exclude some terms from the next one...but that might include pages that ARE potentially relevant, due to the "here are other posts you should look at!" "feature"
sorry my mistake, there's no free tier for Kagi - I was using the free trial which comes with 100 searches. But considering the starter plan is pretty cheap, i think it's worth supporting them
Udm14 has been a pretty good fix in my experience. You get Google as it USED to be, so it makes searching for things actually useful. Doesn't have the fancy interface things that newer Google has, but it's well worth the tradeoff.
DDG just works, that's all I need a SE to do. Even the dumb AI thing they have tends to be more accurate (tho often still useless) with sources actually listed too
Same. It's infuriating though--I'll search for, say, coffeeshops near me, and the first few results will be sponsored place that's an hour away. Like, what the hell.
I pay for and use Kagi. It is nearly as good as google used to be and is a lot better than google is now. I also use Duck Duck Go from time to time but Kagi gives better results most of the time. Listen to @edzitron.com for info why google search now sucks.
Now: *search question, look for correct answer, think I found correct answer, realize its not, keep looking for correct answer, eventually find correct answer after repeating 3x+ times
I worked for a company that manages google ads as a part of their marketing packages &there are a lot of companies that spend a ton of money for google ads that aren’t marketed correctly &fuck up search results. And most people don’t know that you can customize your search results to weed those out
📌bcz this has profound implications for the "profit motive is the only crucible that produces quality" and "government/public servants are inferior by definition" crowd
This has a similar vibe to supermarkets knowing self-checkout machines don’t work and are poorly staffed but they’re good for the bottom line so customer experience be damned
Astonishing reading that. I recall back in 2000 my boss at the time coming back from visiting Google raving about the company and particularly their search algorithms (we worked in the same field) calling it game changing. There were of course many search engines around back then. So depressing now.
I belong to a FB group & recently a member asked where to get wiring schematics. I told him to search online. He said he did & only got ads & YT links.
I search on DDG, found the schematics & advised him. He didn't know about other search engines.
Comments
When i search, Google, I don't want capital i want information.
Everything is for sale.
Even a fucking acorn.
I mean, not to me, I haven't used Google search in ages.
regardless of how much time you spend on Google, I doubt it translates to much ROI for the people buying ads
I’ve used an adblocker the past year and I forget how bad it actually gets without one
Ads still work. That's why they still spend money there.
Everyone *hopes* ads still work. The illusion is held together with duct tape and dreams and nondescript excel sheets.
Genuinely curious
Clearly the time is ripe for someone to do the same to Google that they did to Yahoo.
But for every day search I use DDG.
Better search results than DDG, and the AI is actually very good.
The only thing i have a slight issue with is searching local businesses (hrs/map) and for that I use Opera (which also provides very good search results.)
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
https://search.brave.com/
today's fix, worked well yesterday, should be good to go and still useful next week.
🙄
I'd've never bothered three years ago.
1. They own the attention funnel, and
2. We’re all too conditioned (or desperate) to leave.
1) kidnap Sundar Pichai
2) duct tape him to the bottom of an overpass
3) post the exact location to a quiet little web page
4) loudly announce, everywhere, that Sundar's location is posted on a quiet little web page
5) see if anybody can find the guy
Google owes me 200 bucks
But once you DO hit that point of no return, it's a cliff.
Enshitification
“a term coined by author Cory Doctorow to describe the phenomenon where digital platforms and technology make their products worse”
this appears to be the original article:
https://journalrecord.com/2025/02/20/is-google-making-search-worse-to-sell-more-ads/
here you go everyone https://journalrecord.com/2025/02/20/is-google-making-search-worse-to-sell-more-ads/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CSince%20Google%20doesn't%20have,the%20best%20results%20appear%20first.%E2%80%9D
The interests that own the msm (6 entities control 90%of the msm) decided clickbait titles and superficial hottakes sell more advertising & costs far less...
We're all dumber and far less democratic for it.
Which allows the dumb to become normalized, if not lionized, thanks to the greed & apathy of those 6 corporate entities.
Fortunately European-based news coverage of the US has a command of the obvious.
While even they have been trying to implement "AI", it at least shows mostly relevant results and you have the ability to turn off those ridiculous summaries
another option is https://archive.is
2. We no longer say we're not evil.
3. Ok, we're evil.
4. ?
5. Profit
Lo and behold if was just a random dude saying he was better than Wemby.
Google search was heading down that path.
And I no longer have Twitter acct
No one is shocked when there are fewer chips in the bag for the same price.
This is shrinkflation & consumers reward business every time it happens with continued loyalty.
https://duckduckgo.com
Don't know if it's the direct source of this post but it covers the same ground.
That said, the fact that System1 (an AdTech company) acquired them is definitely concerning
It takes a little bit of effort but I changed the default search widget on my phone to DuckDuckGo a while back. Happy with the change.
I’m still mad they didn’t at least keep the content up when taking it offline.
Not to mention that a bunch of information is now on social media with limited-to-no presence on the indexable web as text
It lacks some of the functionality of pre-shittification Google but the results are solid
+1 Ecosia for the environmental push.
https://blog.ecosia.org/eusp/
They expect that to be at least partially usable by this summer.
I've switched to startpage for now
IDK but I don't feel comfortable paying for a basic Internet function that has been free since I came out the pussy
See also: the deliberate enshittification infuriates me the same way fascism does.
No tracking. https://duckduckgo.com/about
Now: *search question, look for correct answer, think I found correct answer, realize its not, keep looking for correct answer, eventually find correct answer after repeating 3x+ times
Personally, I chose Duck Duck Go.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/05/google-dismisses-apple-execs-claim-that-search-volume-is-falling/
Google has been unusable for a while. 1rst pg results is just ads and now they have the terrible AI on top.
Image search is also unbearable, filled with AI, Pinterest and unrelated results.
Google Scholar is the only search service under the brand that still works
Search results page -> Tools button (far right under input) -> change "all results" to "verbatim"
Also, click the "Web" tab, seems to help.
i pay for kagi.
They knew what they were doing
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
How do we sneak Ed into an executive position at Google...
I belong to a FB group & recently a member asked where to get wiring schematics. I told him to search online. He said he did & only got ads & YT links.
I search on DDG, found the schematics & advised him. He didn't know about other search engines.