I’ve Stopped Using Google Search! Why you should consider it too.

☝️ Google search used to be the winner by far, but recent decreases in its trustworthiness and the improved offerings of other search engines make switching a pragmatic choice.

☝️ Google search on the decline
Google Search’s declining quality and annoying ads have led to what many call its “enshitification.” It’s caused me to explore alternatives like Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Kagi, which offer better privacy, fewer ads, and in some cases, completely ad-free experiences.

Chapters
0:00 Stopped Using Google Search
0:55 “Enshitification”
1:30 See Google search at work
4:00 Google is an ad delivery company
4:25 Alternatives
4:30 Bing
6:40 DuckDuckGo
8:20 Kagi
10:05 Other search engines

More Ask Leo!

#askleo #google #search

[spacecaptain]

I'm not so upset about ads at the top as I am about the fake articles and irrelevant search results. I can't find what I"m looking for anymore, even after scrolling past the ads.

[adamswire]

Google started off as a library. Its now a shopping mall.

[-Tris-]

Search something: "100.000.000 results"
scroll down and you see 30 pages 🤔
click trough the pages and it stops at page 12 "no more results" 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

[AKrn]

I'm more concerned with what they don't want to show you than what they do show you. That's another topic.

[patstevens]

Anyone else remember Google's former motto ... "Don't Be Evil"?

[tedwalford]

My gripe: Searches all return something for sale, not information. I almost never would go to Google to shop, but Google treats all searches as shopping. Say I want to learn about the life of an author; I get book ads. Say I want to learn about the history of a country; I get travel ads. Say I want to learn about the financials of a business; I get only ads for their products. Say I'm I student researching latest energy storage technologies; I get ads for batteries and "solar generators." And even where paid ads aren't returned, the searches still first and primarily return links for buying instead of informing. I'm not a shopper, dammit! I just need information.

[ToniCorvera]

The problem is far worse than the sponsored positions. Once you reach the "actual" results, particularly for something like the coffee maker example, they are filled with SEO-optimised bot-generated review sites, link farms and other empty husks of websites.
Stuff that Google used to fight via their algorithm but that, as an article that has made the rounds recently pointed out, no longer does *on purpose* since that means you'll spend more time browsing through their results (and being fed their ads) while trying to find the actual content.

[JacquesSteffen]

My Google search results have become so bad that the top line of "sponsored" results consists of 99% Temu products. 🤬

[Nicksonian]

Duck Duck Go isn’t all that good. Searching on a product term is a bad example. Trying to find information on a specific topic is getting to be impossible. The search engines give you something like what you’re seeking, but based on something more popular that might, but more likely isn’t what you want. Duck is as guilty of not answering a specific question as Google.

[FriedAudio]

I stopped using G search because it no longer likes my VPN. I am NOT going to identify traffic lights, crosswalks, buses, or motorcycles EVERY time I want to perform a simple search. DDG and StartPage are preferred.

[kaseyboles]

This started the moment google started ignoring explicit search terms. When a term is labeled mandatory (in quotes) or forbidden and 8 out of the top ten non-sponsored results do the opposite, then the search engine is broken. I'm was o.k. with it saying i might get more/better results without the limits, but ignoring them is indeed shitty.

[GlennHamblin]

The thing that I hate most about Google is that they no longer support the search term modifiers like - to exclude a particular term from the results or + to ensure that a term is in the results amoung others. This used to help me zero in on the results i wanted and screen out the things that it insists i must see in my results.

[crustyoldmsgtretired]

I'm old enough to remember the internet before google became a verb. It was a bit like the wild west, but at least you weren't constantly forced to look at ads. Also, search results were based on popularity, not what the advertiser paid in.

[GhostSal]

Another major issue with G is they filter their results to align with their own biases.

[lanatrzczka]

Boy did you get the sponsorship cost wrong... Google actually runs it like an auction, where highest bidder (per month) gets first listing. If your company has a commonly searched-for product, just to be the top listing in your COUNTY can easily run $5k per month (and you can still be outbid, even by a competitor in another county). I can't even imagine the monthly bidding for statewide or national. Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. Competitors can bid more and get first listing EVEN IF SOMEONE DIRECTLY SEARCHES FOR YOUR COMPANY NAME. It's basically advertising extortion.

[dave-]

Google search has become advert ridden with very little content matches. As usual greed kills a good product.

[DasHemdchen]

There‘s another problem with Google. Result pages are a cluttered mess of irrelevant information. The more time you spend on a search result frantically reading and scrolling to find that tiny piece of needle in the haystack, Google ranks the page up for the next user.
It would be more appropriate to rank pages based on clarity, not on longevity.

[robertcabuto]

I have noticed that when going to another page, about half of the results were also on the previous page. That continues as you go forward and after seeing the same results over and over, you begin to doubt if you really clicked to go to the next page.

[pipedevnull]

Enshitification is a great term coined by Corey Doctorow.

[edacheson]

Back in the day, Google ads used to be in the right pane, separate from the main search results on the main page. Now, it's more in your face ads, and you'd have to scrape through multiple ads to find what you're looking for.