DuckDuckGo seems like a significantly worse search engine than Google despite SEO bloat, and I think community discussions mislead people by omitting that

I use Kagi now but used DDG for a couple of years before switching. I never had to resort to Google for any searches that I can recall where Google provided better answers than DDG.

I did try resorting to Google a handful of times while dealing with cryptic error messages in niche software, but on those couple of times I got no results from either provider.

Can you give some examples of searches that got you better results in Google? I have to wonder if you search differently than me. Most of my searches are for things that have an objectively correct answer - a link to the software documentation.

Hi
As others have indicated, DDG is great for general enquiries.
I have DuckDuckGo Light as default search in the browser address bar.
Also !bangs use other engines such as amazon, bing, google, reddit, wikipedia etc.
eg...
!a dog washes
Info is here ---> https://duckduckgo.com/bangs

I think you are right when you say that discussions of search engines often leave out some details. It seems to me that often such discussions come down to talking about general and non-specific use cases. For example, people mean queries like “what to cook with eggs,” “what movie was this actor in,” or “why do wombats poop in cubes?”

Most people likely consider their usual profile of queries while discussing this topic. For instance, as a programmer, I evaluate search engines based on how easily I can find information related to computer science. For me, it turned out that the best search engine was Kagi.com, although it doesn’t know much about wombats. And during my university years I was an active user of Wolfram Alpha, but I wouldn't recommend it in general discussions now because it's too specific.

Based on my experience using DDG, it is a fairly good search engine for general queries. It's probably not perfect, but it found what I needed. I absolutely couldn't find rare or specific information with it, but it was enough for me to find out, for example, the director's filmography. I still think it is a good option if you don't want the search engine to track your geolocation or search history.

What topics do you usually search? How do you evaluate the quality of results?

I've been using DDG for about six months. A couple thoughts:

• I specifically switched off Google because the mix of SEO and sponsored results meant I would search for something and get the literal exact opposite - eg look up "Android" and get a sponsored Apple result. Look up Lowes, get Home Depot. Look up vanilla, get chocolate etc etc. It's under the guise of "well HAVE you CONSIDERED" - no, and based on my search result I'll consider for my fucking self, thank you. Never had this with DDG. Until that's fixed - and you know this won't be "fixed" - I do not see how results could possibly be worse for most people on DDG.

• That said, sometimes the first couple results are muddled from what I'd see on Google. It won't get a phrase that has two meanings and buckle down on a particular interpretation, so I need to clarify with another keyword - eg looking up part numbers for my BMW that breaks all the time. Hasn't really bothered me that much.

• The thing I do switch back to Google for is restaurant or location results and info. I find it doesn't give me stuff like a Call button with the right number all the time, or menu image results. My wife has Celiac, so maximum info about a restaurant menu or the review search it Google pulls from Maps for "gluten" is really important and DDG just doesn't have as powerful of a dynamic type of search result. When I DO want sponsored results - mainly shopping or to glance at prices between Amazon/Wal-Mart/Lowes/etc, eBay prices for old media, local results of things in stock - it's not as powerful.

Generally I'm finding it's good enough for like 99% of my searches, and it's worth it to not get irate at Google trying to deliberately misdirect me. Fuck that.

My privacy is worth it, (and yours is too) and the more you use it, the more you learn the ins and outs. It will likely never be as good as google 10 years ago but google is also not as good as google 10 years ago.

I've been using DDG for a year or more now and maybe 1 in 50 searches I'll need to switch to google. And only about half of those google searches get me anywhere near what I'm looking for. But at least DDG makes it easy to just add the command !g to the start of the search to query google instead.

I tried the kagi demo but so far haven't had any better results. Likely if what I'm searching for isn't on any engine then it's probably long faded from the net.

For info purposes: DDG is essentially Bing. That's where the bulk of their results come from. They tack on some of their own stuff and have long promised to do their own crawling and indexing but at the end of the day they're still mostly Bing.

This is relevant to the thread because Bing is unlikely to ever be as good as Google. Microsoft has always been great at cloning other software and marketing it, they've never been good at building the best of anything.

Which isn't to say that DDG isn't a good choice for privacy reasons. As others have said, though, Kagi seems to be the clear winner among Google alternatives on everything but cost.

I switched to Kagi. It seems pretty good. The quick answer feature is nice because it summarizes many pages at once.

Also pretty sure DDG is just Anonymous Bing (they get the majority of their results forwarded from Bing).

I’m trying to figure out how to use the web without “traditional” search engines. They have the impossible task of sifting through a mountain of internet waste that is constantly growing and the little shit results are getting smarter at tricking the search engine. I can get good results by searching, refining the search based on a good result and then searching again. I may add reddit to the search if I think someone may have had the same problem.

Google Maps is good for reviews and recent photos of places. YouTube has repair guides, Reddit is a good source, but you have to use a search engine to get good results. Twitter can get you links to news as it happens. ChatGPT takes care of a lot of questions nowadays, at most answers well but at a minimum provides a better starting point for resources.

Maybe if there was a search engine only for forum boards, that may be a way to remove the bloat. Or maybe it’s time to always limit the search to a list of trusted domains because most websites are trash.

I know my points are anecdotal to yours, but I share your frustration. DuckDuckGo also was offline for me a few times so I had to switch to Google/Bing.

I have a similar experience, when trying to use DDG I found myself switching to Google often.

Now I use DDG for trivial searches (which are most of them), and I pay for the cheapest Kagi plan for anything not very straightforward. Sometimes I still use Google, in particular when looking for something very local, or to find where to buy something.

I use DDG myself, and I would agree that it is generally inferior to Google. That said, it's good enough for maybe 90% of the queries I make. If it's not good enough, I simply add "!g" to the end of the query, and off I am to Google.

But I agree with the general premise of your message. Telling people to use DDG without telling them that is misleading at best, and not useful to anyone.

I think one reason for your experience might be that search results on both Google and DuckDuckGo are heavily dependant on the person making the searches. Google personalises results if you let it, and at least based on my personal experience DDG stumbles more often with searches that are done using smaller languages, or that target products or services in regions that use those languages. So, for instance, DDG's results may look much better for someone who has always blocked Google from following them online, while DDG's results may look much worse for someone who searches for things that DDG isn't particularly good at finding.

Another reason why you might be seeing people talk about the quality of these search engines in a way that doesn't align with your perceived reality may be that neither Google Search nor DuckDuckGo are entirely stable products, but ones that evolve and change over time. Most people probably aren't comparing search results on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis, so when they are saying that one search engine is better than the other, they aren't necessarily telling you what the situation is now, but rather what it was when they last checked, which may well have been a year or two ago when they made a decision about what search engine to use.

My own observations were that Google's results started to get quite bad sometime in the mid-to-late-2010s, and for a few years I tried to find a working alternative without much success, until DDG's search results got better sometime around 2020. I was actually reasonably happy with DDG for a year or so, but then its results suddenly started to get much worse again, at which point I tried to return to Google, saw that it was a bit better than I remembered it to be but still bad enough to make me miserable, looked around some more, and finally came across another search engine that I have been quite happily using ever since. My point being: had you asked me ten years ago which was better, Google or DDG, I would have said Google, a few years after that DDG, then perhaps again Google, and nowadays... well, I would probably say DDG, but my opinion shouldn't really count since I haven't used either for over two years.

I’ve also found that DDG can be a bit less than ideal when searching for specific things and have been looking around for a few other options. I have not tried Kagi which a lot of people seem to really like.

I have tried Startpage and find it works quite well for my searching. It tends to give you the most literal interpretation of your query which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what you’re looking for.

I've been using DuckDuckGo (DDG) more since 2015. Initially, the results weren't that great, so I would use the "!g" bang to go to Google. However, I rarely use that anymore.

Nowadays, you have plenty of options for web searching. You can use tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity. DDG has significantly improved compared to a few years ago. Additionally, you can filter out a lot of the unnecessary results from Google by adding "&udm=14" to the URL, or even set up a redirect.

For those interested in more control, you can self-host or use instances of SearXNG, which I find to be like searching on steroids. You can also integrate it with AI tools like OpenWeb-UI, Perplexica, or LibreChat.

I've been using DDG as my default for several years now and, honestly, it's good enough for me to suit that purpose. The only time I will resort to Google is when I specifically need some local results as DDG still sucks at that, however, nowadays I often find just sticking ", ireland" or "ie" at the end will get the job done there.

Looks like I might be going against the tide when I say I generally agree. Maybe it's because I search for fandom- and media-related stuff more than the average person, but DDG tends to be kind of dodgy for me.

The most recent (and bizarre) example: just last night I wanted to look up the character Kyros from One Piece. I typed in "One Piece Kyros", and the top result was the OP wiki's page on the Riku family. Then videos, then his page on MyAnimeList, then an article from Sportskeeda, and then... the wiki's article on Episode 675? Kyros's page on the OP wiki just doesn't show up on the first page of the search results at all. Or the second. Honestly I have no clue what's up with that, because that doesn't happen with any other One Piece characters I've looked up.

Fandom results are the easiest example for me to mention, but I'm used to adding the "!g" bang because Google does bring up more relevant results. There have been multiple cases where I was trying to jog my memory about some event or information, and DDG just never brought it up no matter how I organized the search terms. As soon as I'd add the !g bang though, it would be in the top five results, if not the top result. I don't have any specific examples off the top of my head, but it happens fairly often.

On the one hand, I find google with something like ublock a lot more tolerable.

On the other hand, while I can't cite specific examples, I certainly felt much the same about DDG for some period of time. I use Kagi now, and would probably go back to duck duck go if I had to, but it certainly isn't as smooth as some seem to think it is. Or maybe it just depends on what you're looking for and how.

I feel like I've had the exact opposite experience since switching about 2 months ago. I still go to Google map for location based searches, but for general searches DDG has been pretty spot on for me. I switched my default search engine on my devices to DDG after finding myself consistently making 3-4 queries on Google because so much bloat was turning up in my Google searches. I have had much better luck finding what I'm looking for on my first search with DDG than with Google. I've had to add a Google search on a rare occasion, but at least in the way I form queries, DDG has been much better at turning up what I want on the first search. And if not, I was doing multiple modified searches with Google anyway for all most every search before, so I'm still coming out ahead.

Like you, I have noticed it's not as good at incorporating adjacent and relevant tangential keyword information in the results, but adding a couple of my own keywords and doing a second search hasn't felt burdensome lately because Google's results have felt like 100% ads and not a true answer on my first search

I agree with this post and I have moved away from stock google and now use searxng. It is very easy to set up (have a hostname, run docker container) basically for free with the free allocation on the oracle cloud infrastructure.

Just thought i would mention it as it is a pretty good solution for me and wasn't posted at the time of writing.

I've actually moved away from DDG lately, to Brave. There was a period a few weeks ago where I just wasn't getting the results I expected to and after a quick comparison, Brave seemed better. The Discussions feature is nice and it's good to still be able to use !bangs. I know some people will say it's just the same as browser search shortcuts/aliases but these don't need configuration!

That said, I'm not sure on the AI features (at least you can turn them off) and I don't trust them as much (I'd never use the browser). I'd never go back to Google though - it looks horrible to use now, to an extent actively dangerous, and I haven't used it on my own devices except by mistake for probably 7 years now.

I use Startpage and haven't had to resort to google searching for years really. It was a bit rough in the beginning, but they have slowly been adding things like the convenient calculators for conversion and arithmetic. Might be worth a look. Disclaimer: I have never used DDG, so I don't really have a basis for comparison.

I have tested lots of alternative search engines over the last few years. Today I am quite satisfied with the results offered by qwant

Also, as an internet user you can use some of the geopolitical struggles to your advantage and go to the russian search engine Yandex for things that might be cordoned off by the intellectual property mafia in the US. Yandex reverse image search function is great.

Duckduckgo has bought into the whole 'disinformation' phenomenon and becomes an overt tool of political bias itself. It is my understanding that in a democratic system it is up to the citizens themselves to decide what is dis- or misinformation. I can sift my own disinformation thank you very much: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-ways-looking-disinformation

I tried a bunch of those alternatives and i'm still more comfortable sticking with Google.