Google swears everything is fine. A new study—and many people's lived experience—says different.

You’re Not Imagining It: Google Search Results Are Getting Worse, Study Finds::Google swears everything is fine. A new study—and many people’s lived experience—says different.

    • VelvetStorm@lemmy.worldEnglish
      19·
      1 year ago

      Fuck using quotes or a negative search still won’t get you what you want. I’ve had it still pull up results with the negative words in it.

      • Plopp@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        1 year ago

        It’s the same on YouTube. One time I added a negative term and I ONLY got that term in the results. I don’t understand how you can break such an important part of search.

      • Kiernian@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, so they changed it so it defaults to the “new” way where quotes and -UnwantedTerm don’t function the way they used to, but when you fill out the search box, hit “Google Search”, and it fails to perform the way you want it to, once you’re on the results page, go to “Tools” click on “All Results” and change it to “Verbatim”.

  • rivermonster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    145·
    1 year ago

    I seriously can’t recommend Kagi enough! Make an account and do a hundred searches (FREE) that aren’t monetized and/or used to advertise to you or steal your data. It’s incredible what a difference it makes.

    https://kagi.com/

    • AlecSadler@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      1 year ago

      I was reluctant to jump on the Kagi bandwagon, but I’m now a week in and genuinely enjoying it.

      Before, I’d have to search things across Google/Bing/AskJeeves a few times to finally arrive at an answer - I’ve yet to leave Kagi this last week.

      The different AI engines you can also use and the customization for styling are pretty darn good, too. I’m now using it as my dedicated search on all my android phones, my laptop, and my desktop. Time will tell if things hold up, but so far so good.

      Only con so far is that it’s sometimes slow to provide results. It isn’t devastating, but it’s like a 5 second delay which “feels” slow, but it’s whatever.

  • sturlabragason@lemmy.worldEnglish
    104·
    1 year ago

    Because I’m too lazy to do my own research; does someone have actual good experience with something else?

    I’m using Brave search and it’s good for most things if I add an extra keyword, but not good for local results.

    Thanks in advance for all the Brave downvotes.

  • Cuberoot@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    My problem seems to stem from the fact that my searches are often obscure and commercial interests probably wish I was searching for something else.

  • moshtradamus666@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    I think it’s related to paid search and SEO tactics. All my browser have adblocks for years and I think it helps. By my own experience I don’t think it’s worse, and to be honest I still think it’s unmatched. I’ve been using duckduckgo sometimes and it’s alright and all but it’s definitely not better.