Google executives acknowledged this month they need to do a better job surfacing user-generated content after the recent Reddit blackouts.
Google executives acknowledged this month they need to do a better job surfacing user-generated content after the recent Reddit blackouts.
Comparing the pricing on a “search value” basis is compelling, but I’ll be damned if I can’t find concrete details on what they actually do differently. Just looks like a lot of marketing-speak.
E.g., do they have humans reviewing the results? Or is it just LLM crap? Because if it’s more AI bullshit, they can fuck right off to where the Titanic and Titan lay.
Just seeing this for the first time also, but one of the features they list is it looks like you can “block or boost” domains in your search results. I miss when Google let you block domains for results, so this would be a killer feature for me. I don’t mind paying, but just the pricing seems a bit odd. I could see myself paying $5 per month for unlimited searches, not sure if 300 or 1000 is enough, $25 per month for unlimited is crazy.
Does boolean not do that for you? E.g., “-domain.com?”
After using a search engine with this functionality, I quickly realised how many domains I never wanted to see again, and how many I valued. Google has been promoting garbage domains for so many years now because they pay better than the quality sites. The algorithm goes both ways, as in, “show me more,” and, “show me less.” To make the bad ones disappear, you’d need a notepad next to your Google window with a list of dozens of domains you don’t like to append to every query you make. Unfortunately Google doesn’t offer you the ability to positively bias domains because they’d earn less. So you’ll still see the first few pages of garbage, depending on your search.
Comparing search engines is not easy. I went down the rabbit hole and concluded Kagi is the best right now. A search engine has one primary function. Everything else is icing. That is to find the best result as fast as possible. As their incentive is to find you the best result, not the result which pays Google the most. I find relevant results more often, and much less spam. That’s the value proposition.
They also have great features like the ability to block and rank domains, and a kind of filter feature which focuses on certain kinds of information you’re looking for.
As for ranking, no search engine uses humans to rank results. There are billions more pages going online every day. It would take the entire world’s population working on nothing but that to accomplish. So the magic is in the algorithm and how data sources are combined. As above, Kagi’s motivation is to provide good results, and I think they’re succeeding. I’m sure Google could provide amazing results to us, but that’s not profitable. Of course, humans review the algorithms and test them and improve them, and Kagi appears very good at this.
FYI they have a $5 tier which includes 300 searches a month, and this is enough to cover most users. You might be surprised if you actually track your habits over time. You could start on that tier and upgrade if it’s insufficient.
Google is the reason recipe websites are notoriously bad. They try so hard to keep you on the website long enough for ads to work and for Google to think you like staying at that website and so on.
So that’s why we have 20 paragraphs of life stories before each recipe with 10 add shoved in between them, 6 adds on the left and on the right of the page, ads at the top, and so on. You spend so long trying to find the recipe, it’s a win for all the ads that you’re staying on.
And it’s a shame because obviously the smaller blogs don’t WANT to do that but they have to in order to have any chance to compete with major conglomerate corporate recipe websites.
I don’t know if I’m ready for kagi yet… But it’s tempting and definitely something I’m considering.
It is SHOCKINGLY bad to search for recipes now. To the degree I don’t even bother or I use ChatGPT now. Google is going to have their lunch eaten by others if this keeps up.