Kagi is very good and I’m happy to be paying for it, but you were right in your second paragraph. It’s not all google. Signal to noise in the web has gone way off. We need to throw out this Internet, it’s gone bad
Comment on Has google stopped working for finding anything?
FlatFootFox@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The signal to noise ratio has seemed particularly out of wack with Google lately. The amount of blog spam SEO nonsense that crops up into the top 4 results has been pretty noticeable.
I’m not sure it’s entirely a Google thing. Reddit’s decline has made it harder to find quick answers for, “My washing machine’s making this weird string of beeps?” Niche hobbies moving from forums to Discord chats means, “How do I safely remove a keycap without damaging the switch?” is becoming a pinned message in a server you have to hear about via word of mouth. Basically any technology troubleshooting topic has moved from a blog post / forum to a YouTube video. And a 10 minute long one at that. Gotta hit those higher ad tiers.
For what it’s worth, I’m starting the new year off giving Kagi a try. It’s a startup trying to make a paid search engine work. You get 100 free searches to give it a try. After that it’s $5/mo for 300 searches, or $10/mo for unlimited. I’m not sure I’ll sign up for it just yet, but it seems pretty nice. No ads, custom components for things like Stack Overflow and Reddit, and some other nice touches for people who care about search. Their image search actually has a “View Image” link in addition to the “View Page” link. It’s hard to quantify how “good” a search result is, but I’ve been pretty impressed with it so far.
xantoxis@lemmy.world 5 months ago
send_me_your_ink@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
Story time! There is series by Tad Williams called “otherland” - it’s a rift in the standard stuck in vr story.
Anywho. There is a group of hackers, weirdos and nerds who did not like the corporate vr experience and built their own (treehouse). In all honesty it’s an expansion of the tor project.
But it’s what I hope for. A place to end up in the web that’s not saturated to hell and back by corporate interests, and you need to know someone for the ladder to be let down and you to be let in.
Hjalamanger@feddit.nu 5 months ago
For me the fediverse has become that “alternative web” but of course it has its limits… But I’m too young to judge, google has been crap as long as I can remember. Regarding the alternative web, I could imagine a community run search engine operating on an alow list basis inorder to keep any capitalist crap out.
Also I’ll have to read that book (:
send_me_your_ink@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
Do read it. But also keep in mind the time the books where published.
Honestly I think the fedverse (or it’s successors) will adopt some of the components of tor (or it’s successors) and merge into something new.
thegreatgarbo@lemmy.world 5 months ago
google has been crap as long as I can remember.
Eh what’s that sonny? I member when the term “Google” meant sumpin! *Stomps off angrily waving his cane *
NotAFakeHumanoid@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I just started book 2 in the series, and so far I’m loving it, it feels so topical at the moment. Plus I really like Tad’s writing. This series is the first I’ve read of his, but I’m deff gonna grab more of his work.
send_me_your_ink@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
Fair warning. For me book 3 was a bit of a slog, but seeing everything come together in book 4 was worth it.
governorkeagan@lemdro.id 5 months ago
I’m about 60% through the first book, I can’t get enough of it!
Cinner@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s a machine learning epidemic. Now that blogspam can be automated in a way that Google can’t even look for without penalizing a ton of sites because people write in a similar style to ML tools, search is basically fucked in its current form. Back to human hand curated webrings.
Scrollone@feddit.it 5 months ago
Yandex.com is where you’ll find movies.
And porn. Google has recently became completely useless on that.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 5 months ago
Based Google
chocolateo@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yeah but it’s owned by Russia
Cinner@lemmy.world 5 months ago
And?
chocolateo@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I don’t want the KGB knowing what I’m doing any more than Google
BrerChicken@lemmy.world 5 months ago
My washing machine’s making this weird string of beeps?
Oh I got this. You have to put it into diagnostic mode, and then it will flash lights at you, giving you the error codes in binary. I’m not kidding!
For more info you can lift up the top of the machine by unscrewing some screws on the back. There are lots of screws on the back, but only three or four of them attach the top. If you lift the top up you can push the drum back and then slide your hand into the space between the drum and the frame. There’s a ziplock bag in there with the service manual, and it’ll tell you how to spin the knob to enter diagnostic mode. On my Maytag I have to spin the knob R, R, L, R, not to quick, not too slow.
I was blown away when I learned this all. I was having a problem with my clothes not drying, but still the components seemed to be working. I was getting a specific error about one component, but when I tested it it was fine. In my case the problem was where the wires from that component plugged into the control board–it was just slightly loose! So I pushed it in and everything is nominal.
FlatFootFox@lemmy.world 5 months ago
You’re my new favorite person in this comment section.
jennwiththesea@lemmy.world 5 months ago
And this post, being on Lemmy, will be indexable by search engines!
Lemminary@lemmy.world 5 months ago
A literal ad. Goddamn.
mean_bean279@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Could their comment be a highly thoughtful and extrapolation on the current state of affairs regarding search engines and the rise of free to use products where the consumer is the product? Or is the comment just an ad because obviously anything mentioning a brand is immediately an ad with no other thought put into it.
Buddy, companies trying to build up user base aren’t exactly going to push for it in comment sections of a small pocket of the internet. They’ll spend their ad dollars on targeted FB and Reddit ads or buy airtime on new shows to talk about the dangers of data privacy and how Google is selling you out.
Try Brawndo next time you’re looking to water your plants. Brawndo, it’s what plants crave.
brbposting@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
This is tough.
1: Kagi is getting some play in Lemmy comments recently.
2: Lemmings are often technology evangelists, making Lemmy a good place to astroturf for very specific products.
3: Companies are better than ever at properly seeding account comment histories to prevent suspicion.
We should all be appropriately skeptical, though somewhat polite can’t hurt either since there’s never proof of anything and I’ve sounded like an ad before.
Baines@lemmy.world 5 months ago
who honestly pays for a fucking search engine
reads hard like astro turfing
Nastybutler@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Welcome to Costco. I love you
mean_bean279@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I just ordered a giant thing of cologne from Costco the other day and when it came in I opened the box and said “I love you Costco” as I did it. I looked at my wife and told her Idiocracy was right. I mean, it always has been, but I’m glad Costco loves me too.
For reference, this is not an ad for Costco, or Idiocracy. Although you should totally watch the movie and membership does have its perks. Plus $1.50 hotdogs.
burliman@lemmy.world 5 months ago
So far I am really like kagi. Makes sense to pay for something you use every day, without which the extensive resources on the internet would be basically useless.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I have a feeling it’s not unrelated to the billions-in-false-charges-for-ads-slash-youtube-ad-debacle.
Tl;dr: google made a billion dollars charging for ads no one saw and then discovered that happened. To avoid being sued they panicked and ensured ads were seen, which had lovely knock-on effects for most of the interwebz.
Remember “anti-trust” laws? Yeah me neither.
ultranaut@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I started using Kagi a few months ago and have been really happy with it. It’s completely replaced Google search for me. I think it’s saved me a lot of time and helped me avoid a bunch of advertising I otherwise would have been exposed to. Not being incentivized by advertising money like Google is really makes a difference I think. With Kagi you are the actual customer and search is the actual product, with Google search you are the product and the customer is whoever paid Google to insert advertising into your search results.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 5 months ago
Having to join an entire discord server to just find out or download one thing is really, really painful
crsu@lemmy.world 5 months ago
That’s because everyone thinks they need to post all of their information to discord to get validation instead of maintaining open web accessible blogs that can be archived
Lath@kbin.social 5 months ago
Maybe paid search engines was the end goal all along...
Enkers@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Someone has to pay for it one way or another. It’s just a matter if you want to pay with money or your personal data being supplied to advertisers.
Nastybutler@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yep. If something is “free” for the user, then the user is the product
Enkers@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Well, if it’s from a for profit corporation, anyways, that’s typically the case. Either that or they’re trying to onboard you for an upsell down the line.
TWeaK@lemm.ee 5 months ago
It is entirely a google thing. Reddit might’ve helped google hide its limp as it was declining, but it’s google that encouraged websites to write blog spam for SEO, by their very creation of their SEO algorithm. Google has indirectly shaped the internet in this manner.
I remember crunching the numbers with Kagi a couple months ago and most of their plans aren’t worth it, not unless you actually use it at the specified amount. However maybe the packages have changed now, I remember it being something like $5 for 300, $10 for 700 and $27 for unlimited.
It also doesn’t block you when you run out of free searches when you have a package, instead they charge you like 2c per search. So you have to carefully feather your usage to maintain the value - don’t use it enough and the cost per use is high, use it over your limit and the cost per use is high. Frankly, I don’t want all that hassle, particularly with something I’m paying for.
With your new numbers, the $5 package is 1.67c per search, and you’d need to more than 600 searches for the $10 package to beat that rate. However, assuming 2c per search after your 300 in the $5 package, you would hit $10 after 550 searches. So, if the 2c per search is correct, you should upgrade to the $10 unlimited plan only if you’re doing more than 550 searches.
FlatFootFox@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I think they realized their price structure was confusing/annoying towards the end of last year. Now it’s just $5/mo for 300 searches or $10/mo for unlimited. (There’s also still an expensive $25/mo plan for early access to some of their LLM experiments apparently?) You got me curious and I couldn’t find any mention of per-search overage billing. This feature request thread from 2022 just makes it sound like Kagi search gets shut off.
I bouncing hard off of Kagi when they had the original pricing structure you described. Bringing back aughts era SMS overages or just mentally having to count searches doesn’t exactly found like a fun time. I’m going to give the $5 plan a try this month to see how far that gets me. $10/mo is still a tough sell for Internet search. If I really find it substantially better, I might convince my spouse into trying the two seat $14/mo unlimited “Duo” plan for a while.
hahattpro@lemmy.world 5 months ago
are you Kagi seeder ?
antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
The last part of your post sounds like an ad straight out of those overlong YT videos.
FlatFootFox@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Have Brands™ started astroturfing Lemmy yet?
I’m not completely sold on Kagi yet. I’m still in the trial period right now. But paid services can be a tough sell online. I figured I’d be up front about the costs rather than wait for the inevitable “$10 a month for search!?” comment.
ericisshort@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I haven’t seen any obvious astroturfing yet, but your last paragraph really did have the vibe of a smoothly transitioned paid promotion. Not saying it was, but even the comments that you haven’t fully bought into it made it feel even more like one of the more honest paid promotions.
berkeleyblue@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I read this same sentiment two days ago; Google doesn’t work for me.
Not sure what they are on about. I can find things I‘m looking for on Google in under a Minute 9 out of 10 times and I tend to use it quite heavily tbh…
9bananas@lemmy.world 5 months ago
if you’re searching for something general, like, i dunno “dishwasher cleaner” or something, it spits out usable results.
but as soon as a query becomes technical in nature, like troubleshooting IT problems, it’s a straight up nightmare.
the reason it’s so bad at searching for anything very specific is their attempt to “figure out what you really mean”:
and google does that by… ignoring what you typed and changing your search prompt behind the scenes without telling you and without any options to change it.
and putting it in quotes rarely improves searches anymore, only spits out more garbage.
point is: google is basically dead for any specific searches and only really works for searches that amount to “i want to buy thing. show me thing.”
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yes, they have
bravemonkey@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
I signed up for Kagi after the trial. I’m very subscription adverse, but this one was something I don’t mind paying for.
Illuminostro@lemmy.world 5 months ago
That’s because it is.
Steve@communick.news 5 months ago
It’s great that DDG doesn’t track a users searches. It really is.
But at the end of the day, it’s still just an ad platform being used by companies to sell you things.
And here you are complaining about someone explaining an alternative ad-free search. Just think about that for a moment.
ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Also, if we’re being frank, DDG’s results are damn near useless half the time.
_pete_@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Hard disagree with that, DDG searches are accurate about 90% of the time that I use it (which as a web dev is quite a lot) if they aren’t hitting Google with the same term rarely wields any better results.
ahornsirup@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
It also doesn’t allow you to actually exclude keywords. Which can be utterly infuriating if you’re looking for a specific entry in a franchise or a lesser used definition of something.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s just handing your search off to Bing, and Microsoft just does what it does.
Steve@communick.news 5 months ago
DDG pays Bing to use their API. DDG makes money by placing ads in the results.