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Not because DDG got better, but just because google got worse.

google is still better for site-specific searches, and google scholar still has minimal AI slop

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[-] EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted 21 points 20 hours ago

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

...........Oh, sorry.

Hell no. If anything, it's gotten worse.

In their defense, however, it's probably largely not their fault. In my admittedly one-person-sample-size experience, 90% of the searchable Web is either Reddit threads or articles, and with Reddit going officially with Google (meaning DDG doesn't catch as many Reddit threads as they used to), that leaves most of the searchable Web being articles. Because SEO has to ruin everything.

So, it's not really that DDG is shitty (mostly), but that all searches are shitty. Though, with the whole Google-and-Reddit thing, I find Google's results are noticeably less shitty (though still shitty).

[-] untorquer@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

I feel the same except Google is worse due to higher number of ads in results and most SEO prioritizes Google over Bing meaning more Google results are AI spam articles.

[-] shinratdr@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 hours ago

Yeah I really tried with DDG, switched my phone to it for 2 months. I was using !g so often it made the whole thing pointless.

Google sucks, but right now nothing is better. This is why they’re able to push their AI bullshit results so heavily, because just like with YouTube, ultimately there is no real competition.

[-] Lyra_Lycan 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

The killer for me has to be that it doesn't support searching for phrases within websites I need. Latest example: github. I can be on the project page, copy a phrase from the code and search ddg with it in double quotemarks, and get 0 results. Copy - google.com - paste - enter - loads of results.

Also the search function broke for about a day, a few days ago

[-] flux@lemmy.ml 2 points 16 hours ago

That's a bit surprising, given DDG uses Bing, Bing is Microsoft and Microsoft owns Github.

Did you try the same search with Bing, or have an example to share?

[-] EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted 1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

To be honest with you, I didn't even know that was a feature. (Unless I'm misunderstanding you.) Sounds cool!

If I need to search a website, I use either Ctrl+F or the site: search engine operator.

this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
283 points (100.0% liked)

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