It hurts to see how they are impacted by changes google has made to the algorithm. At the same time, I can't shake the feeling that they are pointing a finger at things that are not the cause of...
It hurts to see how they are impacted by changes google has made to the algorithm. At the same time, I can't shake the feeling that they are pointing a finger at things that are not the cause of their current drop in traffic. I mean, I get it, this is an emotionally driven article written by someone who is seeing years of hard work being thrown under the bus.
To give an example:
Small websites like ours had a chance to compete with larger websites because Google’s guidelines were fair, and if users were happy, then Google was happy. And to reward giving users a great and informative experience, Google would place websites higher or lower in the search results depending on how great your content was without much bias.
I am not sure if this has been true for at least a decade now? It certainly has gotten worse recently with LLM generated bullshit, but SEO driven low effort bullshit has been part of my Google results for a long time now.
In fact, I am not even sure that "quality" ever was a factor in the SEO game.
In this day and age, I am not sure if you can go without Google. Although I feel like the way they build up their platform, they set them up for extreme dependency on Google and other platforms as well.
It struck me that the only way of actually giving feedback to the team, or interaction with like-minded people around the subject, is through other platforms. There is no way to comment on articles, they don't have a community section with a forum of sorts, etc. They do have links to YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, discord and Patreon. Besides all being external to the website, they are also hidden in a footer, so when browsing the website it feels very static to me.
The reason why I think that is important is a bit anecdotal. But, I feel that a lot of similar websites that do have some form of visible community do better in regard to the Google dependency. People have more reasons to return on a regular basis, and a community also helps in generating more old-fashioned word of mouth traffic.
In fact, LTT (Linus Tech Tips) recognized the extreme dependency they have on Google, and it is one of the main reasons they did start a forum back in the days. In fact, over the past few years I have seen a lot of other websites and Youtube channel talk about diversifying in such a way they are hit less hard in case one of many Google algorithms changes for the worse.
So, while I fully sympathize with the predicament, Retro Dodo find's itself in. I also can't help but feel that a lot of their remarks about the fairness of Google in the past are simply a bit naive. To be clear, I am not saying they had it coming. In fact, it might be obvious to me, but that might as well just be me having a case of the "curse of knowledge bias".
Edit:
Of course, new thoughts enter my mind once I hit the "post comment" button. I just want to acknowledge that building up and maintaining a community on your own platform is challenging in itself. It requires a considerable time investment in the form of development and moderation.
I wanted to say this after reading the post, but I didn't want to be too negative, judgy and aggressive, but: Retro Dodo is kind of a crap site and Youtube channel. I've been in the retro...
I wanted to say this after reading the post, but I didn't want to be too negative, judgy and aggressive, but: Retro Dodo is kind of a crap site and Youtube channel.
I've been in the retro gaming/emulation community for quite some time now and ran into their content many times and have since chosen to avoid them completely. Their content is generally churned out very quickly with minimal editing and plenty of mistakes, so it's amusing that you draw a comparison to LTT in that regard.
It sucks that they're having these issues, but there's a reason I don't go there and they're generally looked upon with some derision amongst the retro gaming community.
Yeah, I can see why you find that amusing. Although LTT to some degree has acknowledged that this has been an issue and recently has taken more serious steps to mitigate a lot of these issues. If...
Their content is generally churned out very quickly with minimal editing and plenty of mistakes, so it's amusing that you draw a comparison to LTT in that regard.
Yeah, I can see why you find that amusing. Although LTT to some degree has acknowledged that this has been an issue and recently has taken more serious steps to mitigate a lot of these issues. If they are successful in that regard remains to be seen.
Part of the reason why both felt compelled to churn out content like that likely is related to the algorithm. They probably both felt/feel the need to post on a schedule because of Google algorithms giving more weight to outlets updating on a regular basis. Which also means you are constantly attempting to grow and grow and grow, which leaves little room for reflection.
I get the need to appeal to the algorithm, but you can't simply churn out content that is full of factual errors, while also being poorly edited, as well as simply uninformed and expect to stay...
I get the need to appeal to the algorithm, but you can't simply churn out content that is full of factual errors, while also being poorly edited, as well as simply uninformed and expect to stay relevant for long. Retro Dodo has been doing it for years at this point, with complaints about their quality going back at least as far as 2020.
There are other people in this space that do the same thing without all the problems, which makes Retro Dodo just feel lazy and cynical. Trying to so aggressively grow and appeal to the algorithm in such a niche space already feels cynical in and of itself; I'm willing to make space that I could be wrong here, but RD has rubbed me the wrong way for many years now, so it's just not surprising, especially when other sites/Youtubers in this space aren't having similar complaints, though they don't seem to participate in the content churn quite so dramatically.
It’s funny, back in the early days, every newspaper had a website with a rather basic comment section that filled up with noise. I think they did try to moderate them, but quality was very low,...
It’s funny, back in the early days, every newspaper had a website with a rather basic comment section that filled up with noise. I think they did try to moderate them, but quality was very low, and moderation is an expense.
They mostly got rid of them in favor of having conversations elsewhere, and I thought that was an improvement.
I actually think they tried to moderate them as little as possible, which did lead to the quality being trash and them doing away with them. But, to be clear, I am also not talking about generic...
I actually think they tried to moderate them as little as possible, which did lead to the quality being trash and them doing away with them.
But, to be clear, I am also not talking about generic news outlets. As the majority of common news seems to be politics, comment sections there are almost bound to be trash. I am more talking about more specialized outfits, like Retro Dodo, who have a more focussed subject they write about.
The ones I have in mind there put in some effort into moderation and more importantly also have something like a forum on the side. Alongside other things that invite community involvement. All of this keeps people coming back for more than just news articles and reviews. But yeah, it does require a fair amount of effort to set up properly and to maintain.
This is the first I've heard of the site, and I quite like retro gaming. A couple things, but I notice they have 0 community. There isn't a comment section or a forum available. Also, and maybe...
This is the first I've heard of the site, and I quite like retro gaming. A couple things, but I notice they have 0 community. There isn't a comment section or a forum available. Also, and maybe I'm wrong, but the articles read like undeclared sponsored posts.
The Vowkeepers have taken all the magic in the world, and it’s up to you to take back what is rightfully yours.
Using your gauntlets, you must become the battlemage you were born to be, chasing a class from Frostborn to Pyromancer and harnessing the elements to bring about your will.
Unleash your inner battlemage in Spellbreak.
I've never heard of Spellbreak, it has mixed reviews, and it's cancelled. It also reads like an advertisement.
Basically, was there really a need for another Top 10 ___ website? And why would I choose this website over a subreddit for retro gaming if I wanted a top 10 list of games?
I don't think Google is to blame here (as a proud Kagi user).
Somewhat related, Google results have been awful for me for 5+ years now, due I'm sure in part to the SEO arms race u/creesch mentioned. Kagi.com (which is a paid alternative) is more than worth...
Somewhat related, Google results have been awful for me for 5+ years now, due I'm sure in part to the SEO arms race u/creesch mentioned. Kagi.com (which is a paid alternative) is more than worth the money for me, and while the algorithm unmodified is better for Kagi, the ability to filter and up/down prioritize individual sites is a godsend.
At this point i find myself using chatGPT as a sortof google-butler. I'm currently paying for 4.0 because it's a quality increase I enjoy using whilst I jobhunt, but once I'm done there I'll...
At this point i find myself using chatGPT as a sortof google-butler. I'm currently paying for 4.0 because it's a quality increase I enjoy using whilst I jobhunt, but once I'm done there I'll downgrade back to 3.5 and will seriously consider a paid service to get past the awful SEO hellscape Google has become. Kagi is definitely on the list, you're not the first to say positive things about it so I'm intrigued.
I really wasn't convinced paying for search would be worth it, but it's seriously night and day for me and my family. Even if you never adjust rankings or block websites, Kagi is strictly better...
I really wasn't convinced paying for search would be worth it, but it's seriously night and day for me and my family. Even if you never adjust rankings or block websites, Kagi is strictly better out of the box. Once you start using bangs like !i in your searches to go straight to image results, it's awesome.
Full disclosure, I ditched Google for Kagi on the recommendation of this forum and will likely never go back. So fundamentally, I'd say I agree with the premise. I read the article and, while it's...
Full disclosure, I ditched Google for Kagi on the recommendation of this forum and will likely never go back. So fundamentally, I'd say I agree with the premise.
I read the article and, while it's lamentable that this website that I've never heard of is going under due to Google not prioritizing its results, this stood out to me:
I honestly hope that Google can eventually create a search engine that’s fair, one that supports small independent publishers who actually follow their guidelines instead of punishing them for “writing for search engines and not readers” and treating them differently to websites that have a higher “domain authority” than them.
Imagine running a website that makes money from ad revenue, it starts to go under because your results aren't getting prioritized, and your suggested solution is for the internet search monopoly to make its search algorithm more "fair."
Also, notably:
I am no SEO expert;l I have a million plates to spin as a content website operator, and I cannot get everything right.
I'm sympathetic, really, but maybe you need to shift your focus for a little while and become one, man. Flexibility and agility is what being a small business owner is.
It's interesting they use the example of reddit links popping up above sites like theirs in results. Because a lot of people I talk to, myself included, do search for things and add "reddit" at...
It's interesting they use the example of reddit links popping up above sites like theirs in results. Because a lot of people I talk to, myself included, do search for things and add "reddit" at the end, quite frequently. Whether it's product reviews, how-to's, or recommendations. Whether for personal things or work things.
I'm much more willing to take into consideration the opinions random average joe's like me, than someone who's supposedly a professional or expert. That may sound weird, but they're just another person with a website; for all I know all they care about is making money via Amazon affiliate links or similar. Which was an issue on the Internet for awhile there. That's not to say I completely distrust website/blog content; they also factor into my decisions, provided I find them trustworthy in the first place.
I find this myself too. As mentioned in another comment, I essentially use ChatGPT (4.0) as a Google-butler. Meaning I ask it to give me a quick overview of e.g. the differences between...
I find this myself too. As mentioned in another comment, I essentially use ChatGPT (4.0) as a Google-butler. Meaning I ask it to give me a quick overview of e.g. the differences between [field-specific] software X and Y. That gets me a nice neutral summary of the general differences, which is what I used to trust smaller websites on, but now no longer can due to affiliate bullshit, SEO clickbait cheating or simply awful UI.
Those smaller websites would also almost always have a 'human opinion' section where the author would weigh in and give their personal preference for either X or Y in situation A or B. That's the part that I've replaced with "in:www.reddit.com".
Honestly I feel more and more like I cannot stand any fucking website anymore that's not either 1) Wikipedia, 2. Stackexchange or 3. Reddit (not that Reddit is a great beacon of fairness at all, but I don't feel the 7-upvote post with 2000 words comparing their personal experience of X vs. Y is looking for any kind of algorithm chase).
Almost every single other website I try to get information from feels like its trying to convince me of something, and not because they """believe"""" in whatever they're praising - but because they want to sell it to me. And fuck that.
Edit: actually I'll add that I do generally trust tweakers.nl, but since that is NL-specific, only available in Dutch and focussed on purely tech, it's not very relevant here. But that's the only place I feel like I can safely trust that the authors will present things neutrally, and if it's an opinion piece I feel like it's actually that person's opinion - rather than their """"opinion"""".
A thought occurred to me as I was considering the rise of AI bullshit SEO garbage... Couldn't an AI model be trained to recognize that stuff? I would happily contribute data annotations for that....
A thought occurred to me as I was considering the rise of AI bullshit SEO garbage... Couldn't an AI model be trained to recognize that stuff? I would happily contribute data annotations for that. I'm imagining a browser extension that adds two buttons to the toolbar: Bullshit, and Not Bullshit. Or something that effect. Then I guess the goal would be for a search engine (not necessarily Google) to apply those learnings in its own result sorting algorithm.
I think we're getting to the point where a lot of people are just reflexively demonizing AI, but it's just a tool that can be used for good or ill. This strikes me as a good application, if not a necessary one for cutting through all the noise of the coming age.
As I understand it, this is essentially exactly what Kagi is - a paid search engine. Where you can rank websites based on trustworthiness, and it will prioritise search results from more trusted...
As I understand it, this is essentially exactly what Kagi is - a paid search engine. Where you can rank websites based on trustworthiness, and it will prioritise search results from more trusted sites over others.
I honestly don't know if we can entirely blame them for it, or if it's a simple reaction to the consolidation that's been happening on the internet over the past few years. I think that when...
I honestly don't know if we can entirely blame them for it, or if it's a simple reaction to the consolidation that's been happening on the internet over the past few years. I think that when people search for something, they're expecting to get results from the major players.
They are very much not free of blame, though. It's frustrating when I have a food question I need answered and it gives me some terrible source like The Spruce Eats, with articles that scream "I am paid to summarize encyclopedia articles".
Those who pay, end up getting their stuff shown which is the biggest issue, I think, and that's how the big guys got to where they are. Google is definitely to blame there. It's rippled through...
Those who pay, end up getting their stuff shown which is the biggest issue, I think, and that's how the big guys got to where they are. Google is definitely to blame there.
It's rippled through the entire internet too. As an example, I post things on instagram and occasionally boost things to my audience when I notice my engagement is lower than normal. I recently boosted something and have almost 700 likes, and everything I've posted after that, even though I've had growth of over 100 follwers in the same time as those 700 likes (unrelated to the boost), only have 5-15 likes each.
I'm planning on experimenting once I'm back from vacation an asking if my followers see what I post without a boost, because I suspect I'm being buried.
When I follow their advice/challenges, I lose follwers. The only time I gain anything is when I spend money on instagram. It's the same thing as paid ads on Google. You want to be seen? You have to pay.
I think we can definitely blame Google a fair amount. They have adjusted their results to provide pages that encourage making purchases instead of providing good information. Sometimes relevant...
I think we can definitely blame Google a fair amount. They have adjusted their results to provide pages that encourage making purchases instead of providing good information. Sometimes relevant info and shopping centric results combine, but often times they do not.
I use Kagi for my searches and I am very happy with it so far. It's subscription based, so they do not use advertising to make money. Their success is based on whether they can provide results good enough to retain users. I do go back to Google when I do need to buy something because they are still the best for local business recommendations, but Kagi is way better for finding good information.
It hurts to see how they are impacted by changes google has made to the algorithm. At the same time, I can't shake the feeling that they are pointing a finger at things that are not the cause of their current drop in traffic. I mean, I get it, this is an emotionally driven article written by someone who is seeing years of hard work being thrown under the bus.
To give an example:
I am not sure if this has been true for at least a decade now? It certainly has gotten worse recently with LLM generated bullshit, but SEO driven low effort bullshit has been part of my Google results for a long time now.
In fact, I am not even sure that "quality" ever was a factor in the SEO game.
In this day and age, I am not sure if you can go without Google. Although I feel like the way they build up their platform, they set them up for extreme dependency on Google and other platforms as well.
It struck me that the only way of actually giving feedback to the team, or interaction with like-minded people around the subject, is through other platforms. There is no way to comment on articles, they don't have a community section with a forum of sorts, etc. They do have links to YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, discord and Patreon. Besides all being external to the website, they are also hidden in a footer, so when browsing the website it feels very static to me.
The reason why I think that is important is a bit anecdotal. But, I feel that a lot of similar websites that do have some form of visible community do better in regard to the Google dependency. People have more reasons to return on a regular basis, and a community also helps in generating more old-fashioned word of mouth traffic.
In fact, LTT (Linus Tech Tips) recognized the extreme dependency they have on Google, and it is one of the main reasons they did start a forum back in the days. In fact, over the past few years I have seen a lot of other websites and Youtube channel talk about diversifying in such a way they are hit less hard in case one of many Google algorithms changes for the worse.
So, while I fully sympathize with the predicament, Retro Dodo find's itself in. I also can't help but feel that a lot of their remarks about the fairness of Google in the past are simply a bit naive. To be clear, I am not saying they had it coming. In fact, it might be obvious to me, but that might as well just be me having a case of the "curse of knowledge bias".
Edit:
Of course, new thoughts enter my mind once I hit the "post comment" button. I just want to acknowledge that building up and maintaining a community on your own platform is challenging in itself. It requires a considerable time investment in the form of development and moderation.
I wanted to say this after reading the post, but I didn't want to be too negative, judgy and aggressive, but: Retro Dodo is kind of a crap site and Youtube channel.
I've been in the retro gaming/emulation community for quite some time now and ran into their content many times and have since chosen to avoid them completely. Their content is generally churned out very quickly with minimal editing and plenty of mistakes, so it's amusing that you draw a comparison to LTT in that regard.
It sucks that they're having these issues, but there's a reason I don't go there and they're generally looked upon with some derision amongst the retro gaming community.
Yeah, I can see why you find that amusing. Although LTT to some degree has acknowledged that this has been an issue and recently has taken more serious steps to mitigate a lot of these issues. If they are successful in that regard remains to be seen.
Part of the reason why both felt compelled to churn out content like that likely is related to the algorithm. They probably both felt/feel the need to post on a schedule because of Google algorithms giving more weight to outlets updating on a regular basis. Which also means you are constantly attempting to grow and grow and grow, which leaves little room for reflection.
I get the need to appeal to the algorithm, but you can't simply churn out content that is full of factual errors, while also being poorly edited, as well as simply uninformed and expect to stay relevant for long. Retro Dodo has been doing it for years at this point, with complaints about their quality going back at least as far as 2020.
There are other people in this space that do the same thing without all the problems, which makes Retro Dodo just feel lazy and cynical. Trying to so aggressively grow and appeal to the algorithm in such a niche space already feels cynical in and of itself; I'm willing to make space that I could be wrong here, but RD has rubbed me the wrong way for many years now, so it's just not surprising, especially when other sites/Youtubers in this space aren't having similar complaints, though they don't seem to participate in the content churn quite so dramatically.
To be clear, I am agreeing, :) I am just drawing parallels between the two. In fact, it already did backfire for LTT in a massive way last year.
Thanks for the feedback re the article. Gaming journalism isn't my usual topic.
Did you intend to reply to a different post entirely or are you actually involved with Retro Dodo?
Neither.... They gave useful feedback to an article I found intriging
It’s funny, back in the early days, every newspaper had a website with a rather basic comment section that filled up with noise. I think they did try to moderate them, but quality was very low, and moderation is an expense.
They mostly got rid of them in favor of having conversations elsewhere, and I thought that was an improvement.
I guess these things go in cycles?
I actually think they tried to moderate them as little as possible, which did lead to the quality being trash and them doing away with them.
But, to be clear, I am also not talking about generic news outlets. As the majority of common news seems to be politics, comment sections there are almost bound to be trash. I am more talking about more specialized outfits, like Retro Dodo, who have a more focussed subject they write about.
The ones I have in mind there put in some effort into moderation and more importantly also have something like a forum on the side. Alongside other things that invite community involvement. All of this keeps people coming back for more than just news articles and reviews. But yeah, it does require a fair amount of effort to set up properly and to maintain.
This is the first I've heard of the site, and I quite like retro gaming. A couple things, but I notice they have 0 community. There isn't a comment section or a forum available. Also, and maybe I'm wrong, but the articles read like undeclared sponsored posts.
I looked up Morrowind, and found this article for best magic games of all time: https://retrododo.com/best-magic-games/
The very first result is: Spellbreak
I've never heard of Spellbreak, it has mixed reviews, and it's cancelled. It also reads like an advertisement.
Basically, was there really a need for another Top 10 ___ website? And why would I choose this website over a subreddit for retro gaming if I wanted a top 10 list of games?
I don't think Google is to blame here (as a proud Kagi user).
Somewhat related, Google results have been awful for me for 5+ years now, due I'm sure in part to the SEO arms race u/creesch mentioned. Kagi.com (which is a paid alternative) is more than worth the money for me, and while the algorithm unmodified is better for Kagi, the ability to filter and up/down prioritize individual sites is a godsend.
At this point i find myself using chatGPT as a sortof google-butler. I'm currently paying for 4.0 because it's a quality increase I enjoy using whilst I jobhunt, but once I'm done there I'll downgrade back to 3.5 and will seriously consider a paid service to get past the awful SEO hellscape Google has become. Kagi is definitely on the list, you're not the first to say positive things about it so I'm intrigued.
I really wasn't convinced paying for search would be worth it, but it's seriously night and day for me and my family. Even if you never adjust rankings or block websites, Kagi is strictly better out of the box. Once you start using bangs like
!iin your searches to go straight to image results, it's awesome.Full disclosure, I ditched Google for Kagi on the recommendation of this forum and will likely never go back. So fundamentally, I'd say I agree with the premise.
I read the article and, while it's lamentable that this website that I've never heard of is going under due to Google not prioritizing its results, this stood out to me:
Imagine running a website that makes money from ad revenue, it starts to go under because your results aren't getting prioritized, and your suggested solution is for the internet search monopoly to make its search algorithm more "fair."
Also, notably:
I'm sympathetic, really, but maybe you need to shift your focus for a little while and become one, man. Flexibility and agility is what being a small business owner is.
It's interesting they use the example of reddit links popping up above sites like theirs in results. Because a lot of people I talk to, myself included, do search for things and add "reddit" at the end, quite frequently. Whether it's product reviews, how-to's, or recommendations. Whether for personal things or work things.
I'm much more willing to take into consideration the opinions random average joe's like me, than someone who's supposedly a professional or expert. That may sound weird, but they're just another person with a website; for all I know all they care about is making money via Amazon affiliate links or similar. Which was an issue on the Internet for awhile there. That's not to say I completely distrust website/blog content; they also factor into my decisions, provided I find them trustworthy in the first place.
I find this myself too. As mentioned in another comment, I essentially use ChatGPT (4.0) as a Google-butler. Meaning I ask it to give me a quick overview of e.g. the differences between [field-specific] software X and Y. That gets me a nice neutral summary of the general differences, which is what I used to trust smaller websites on, but now no longer can due to affiliate bullshit, SEO clickbait cheating or simply awful UI.
Those smaller websites would also almost always have a 'human opinion' section where the author would weigh in and give their personal preference for either X or Y in situation A or B. That's the part that I've replaced with "in:www.reddit.com".
Honestly I feel more and more like I cannot stand any fucking website anymore that's not either 1) Wikipedia, 2. Stackexchange or 3. Reddit (not that Reddit is a great beacon of fairness at all, but I don't feel the 7-upvote post with 2000 words comparing their personal experience of X vs. Y is looking for any kind of algorithm chase).
Almost every single other website I try to get information from feels like its trying to convince me of something, and not because they """believe"""" in whatever they're praising - but because they want to sell it to me. And fuck that.
Edit: actually I'll add that I do generally trust tweakers.nl, but since that is NL-specific, only available in Dutch and focussed on purely tech, it's not very relevant here. But that's the only place I feel like I can safely trust that the authors will present things neutrally, and if it's an opinion piece I feel like it's actually that person's opinion - rather than their """"opinion"""".
A thought occurred to me as I was considering the rise of AI bullshit SEO garbage... Couldn't an AI model be trained to recognize that stuff? I would happily contribute data annotations for that. I'm imagining a browser extension that adds two buttons to the toolbar: Bullshit, and Not Bullshit. Or something that effect. Then I guess the goal would be for a search engine (not necessarily Google) to apply those learnings in its own result sorting algorithm.
I think we're getting to the point where a lot of people are just reflexively demonizing AI, but it's just a tool that can be used for good or ill. This strikes me as a good application, if not a necessary one for cutting through all the noise of the coming age.
I like this thought
As I understand it, this is essentially exactly what Kagi is - a paid search engine. Where you can rank websites based on trustworthiness, and it will prioritise search results from more trusted sites over others.
They aren't the only ones affected. Google's algorithm fuckery has ruined traffic for most sites that aren't the major players, at this point.
I honestly don't know if we can entirely blame them for it, or if it's a simple reaction to the consolidation that's been happening on the internet over the past few years. I think that when people search for something, they're expecting to get results from the major players.
They are very much not free of blame, though. It's frustrating when I have a food question I need answered and it gives me some terrible source like The Spruce Eats, with articles that scream "I am paid to summarize encyclopedia articles".
Those who pay, end up getting their stuff shown which is the biggest issue, I think, and that's how the big guys got to where they are. Google is definitely to blame there.
It's rippled through the entire internet too. As an example, I post things on instagram and occasionally boost things to my audience when I notice my engagement is lower than normal. I recently boosted something and have almost 700 likes, and everything I've posted after that, even though I've had growth of over 100 follwers in the same time as those 700 likes (unrelated to the boost), only have 5-15 likes each.
I'm planning on experimenting once I'm back from vacation an asking if my followers see what I post without a boost, because I suspect I'm being buried.
When I follow their advice/challenges, I lose follwers. The only time I gain anything is when I spend money on instagram. It's the same thing as paid ads on Google. You want to be seen? You have to pay.
I think we can definitely blame Google a fair amount. They have adjusted their results to provide pages that encourage making purchases instead of providing good information. Sometimes relevant info and shopping centric results combine, but often times they do not.
I use Kagi for my searches and I am very happy with it so far. It's subscription based, so they do not use advertising to make money. Their success is based on whether they can provide results good enough to retain users. I do go back to Google when I do need to buy something because they are still the best for local business recommendations, but Kagi is way better for finding good information.