Been looking for a search engine that isn’t plauged with SEO garbage every time I look for anything. Been using DDG for quite a long time now, and I’m starting to get dissatisfied with results. It seems like more and more results are just companies trying to make their way to the top of the search results instead of anything organic. It’s even worse when I look for any kind of service or product.

Looking for as close to 100% organic results as possible.

  • cerement@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago
    • so yeah, Google is Google, the very definition of SEO – to the point now they will completely ignore your query to show you “relevant” results
    • and Bing is Microsoft, ’nuff said – although I hear they seem to be THE choice for porn searches …
    • people have been claiming DuckDuckGo has become just a frontend for Bing which is why their results have been declining 🤷
    • ad tech company System1 owns a majority stake of Startpage – apparently they’ve mollified PrivacyTools that it would not impact Startpage’s privacy focused mission
    • Qwant out of France actually seems to be stepping up as a good netizen, not only focusing on privacy but also investing in privacy initiatives in EU
    • otherwise you’re stuck bouncing around SearX instances – Google and Bing REALLY don’t like meta search engines and will regularly block overactive instances
    • birdcat@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Qwant “The search engine that doesn’t know anything about you, …”

      Clicks on link: “Unfortunately we are not yet available in your country.”

      🤔

      • cerement@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        I mean … I suppose that’s marginally better than Google’s frontpage telling me what town I’m in?

      • HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I guess any site will have access to the address that is used to access them. The question is what do they do with it. Maybe Qwant has a bot that scans addresses and sends back this message if they are not operating in a specific country. Important thing is that they don’t put any cookie in your navigator and don’t keep any information after you’ve left.

    • Link.wav [he/him]@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Qwant claims not to know anything about me, yet I’ve noticed its results are very much tailored to my location.

      I realize this is just data any site can easily see based on my IP, but still it’s one of my pet peeves. If I want to see information tailored to my general location, then I’ll add the name of the location in the search field. I really hate how search engines try to be so “smart.”

      I’ll give you an example of why it bugs me: The first time I ever looked at Tik Tok, I saw nothing but right-wing MAGA content, certainly based on the political climate where I live. I don’t like sites trying to determine my interests based on the fact that I’m in [location].

      The only ones that don’t seem to tailor results based on my location are SearX instances and Startpage. I have the same misgivings about Startpage, though I use it fairly regularly, and I haven’t noticed anything questionable, in spite of the fact that I deeply distrust System1. There’s no way they bought into it out of the goodness of their hearts. We may still be in the “bait” stage of a bait-and-switch.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        What’s most annoying about the “tailored experience” is that they presume to know what you’re looking for, even though you directly told them what to show you. They don’t give a fuck about relevancy, they’re going to show you whatever is going to make them the most money, which usually means corporate ad crap, and outrage news. Plus if they show you shit results then you’ll search multiple times and they’ll get to show you 4 times the ads.

        • Link.wav [he/him]@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          Yes, and sometimes it’s straight-up dangerous. I’m into longboarding, and I’ve noticed if you use a site like Google or Bing to search for the best longboards, you get swamped by Amazon affiliate sites recommending cheaply made junk that could end in injury or worse. But hey, at least someone profits. Yay capitalism!

    • V ‎ ‎ @beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      These points seem to mirror my experience for the most part. DuckDuckGo has also been going downhill because certain search modifiers don’t work anymore. Microsoft raised the price of API queries which in turn made it too expensive for DuckDuckGo to maintain certain ones. I mostly enjoyed it because it gives you access to Bing’s search results without the user-hostile UX garbage Microsoft loves to put on all its products. These days I’m using Kagi. It’s been about six months now and I’m really enjoying it.

    • Geth@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’d be curious to understand what Qwant brings extra to the table compared to DDG. Backend is the same, results seem quite similar and it’s missing some things like math and conversion quick tools.