It is becoming near impossible to find relevant information from search engines. Duckduckgo, SearXNG, Bing, Google, and so many more mainstream engines have a significantly high noise to signal ratio, and it is getting worse.

Here are a collection of the best search engines I know, please add more to the list.

If no more high quality search engines exist, would it be possible to host your own?

EDIT: Some new discoveries. The addon uBlacklist and filters can block super SEO sites from appearing in search.

  • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
    45·
    1 year ago

    Technically the best one was Altavista.

    But they are long gone because they came from the old academic & idealistic internet and they never learned to survive in that internet where money rules.

    • Deceptichum@kbin.social
      21·
      1 year ago

      From a very old memory, Google blew AltaVista out of the water no?

      I mean we all switched for a reason and it wasn’t the cute logo.

    • cll7793@lemmy.world
      OPEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      Altavista was ahead of their time. The modern internet desperately needs a technical search engine.

    • Dave@lemmy.world
      374·
      1 year ago

      DDG is ok for most searches, but they have definitely hit a plateau. Programming search results are quite poor, for instance.

      I’ve started paying for kagi. Their results are just way better at this point.

    • sir_reginald@lemmy.world
      103·
      1 year ago

      It is as useless. After all, it’s just Bing. But if the results are good enough for you, then why bother finding something else.

    • cll7793@lemmy.world
      OPEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Hmm, I did notice a sudden severe drop in quality recently. Perhaps they are A/B testing something.

      • ares35@kbin.social
        8·
        1 year ago

        ddg has been going downhill for awhile now. they changed something significant a couple years back that just made results, especially after the first half-page, absolute shit.

    • overcast5348@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      It’s not as bad as Google yet, but I find myself getting terrible or no results quite a few times.

      Ex: if I’m looking for a niche blog post from example.com, just entering the keywords doesn’t return the right result, if anything at all. I have to add “site:example.com” and the right link shows up on top.

      It’s kinda amusing when this happens, but I keep using ddg anyway because bing and Google had the same issue for the same keywords when I ran into the issue.

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
      42·
      1 year ago

      Ddg cannot filter out results. If you don’t want pages containing the term, term you add -term to your search and those results should not be included.

      Ddg doesn’t do this. I did a brief test of many search engines, and only google and mojeek filtered results correctly.

      Edit: yadex seems to have working filtering.

      • amio@kbin.social
        12·
        1 year ago

        Google doesn’t do that properly anymore, either, much like the “literal search” (quotes) - used to work, now it’s a crap shoot.

  • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
    171·
    1 year ago

    Yandex was way better for searches in russian sources, but it came to shit just like google and also excludes whatever russian government don’t like at that point. I searched for some software in it multiple timea and the first link was some noname, probably malware site. It also promotes it’s own malware like browser with questionable russian security sertificates and their own Alexa. I’d honestly not include it in any list.

    I like DDG and don’t switch from it that much. I’ve also heard Kagi as paid search engine is good, but I’ve never tried it.

  • Krucian@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    I self host a searxng instance and I find the combination of bing, duckduckgo and qwant as the source engines to return decent results. You can use a public instance and choose those engines in settings.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
      4·
      1 year ago

      I’m specifically looking to replace DDG, they have really dropped in quality lately and are very clearly going back on their word for not having you in a bubble with specific to you results.

    • cll7793@lemmy.world
      OPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I found public instances often have issues connecting to many search engines at once, will look into self hosting it. Thanks!

  • chirospasm@lemmy.ml
    2011·
    1 year ago

    Even though there’s a small monthly cost, the results have been consistent for Kagi. But consistency meets only half of my needs for search: I also want to make decisions quickly from what I find within the contents. If I were to to go to a link, wait for it to load, scroll the content, etc. – does that listed forum post have the answer I am looking for? Does this news article cover the nuances I have been tracking and would like to read more of? Kagi offers an AI-based summarize feature that helps. And that’s been meeting the other half of my needs, as well.

    EDIT, an opinion: Search services may well be eventually replaced by small, niche LLMs trained to perform summerization tasks, such as Consensus, which I have used for work research, and Perplexity.ai. The AI summarize feature of Kagi is why I see the service as more useful than straight indexes, even when self-hosted. Kagi is a stepping stone toward this for me, and why I recommend it.

  • Crafter72@lemmy.world
    9·
    1 year ago

    For everyone who uses searxng, is it great for day to day browsing? Do I require to host my own instance or the setup is as easy as requiring to add “searxng” option on my browser app?

    I’m interested to move away from google as it becomes shitty everyday and loses its effectiveness for advanced query (based on my own result compared during 2013 up to pre covid). Bing have weird result on my region so cannot use it, ddg only for occasional use.

    Thanks!

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
    9·
    1 year ago

    Is “super SEO sites” a catch all term for those 99% filler websites that have a tomato soup recipe (in theory) but actually start out with, “Historical evidence seems to suggest that the tomato was first cultivated in the territory that would eventually become Guam back in 1464…”

    I’ve wondered if we had a common reference term for those? I wish it didn’t have a positive connotation though…

    • Inucune@lemmy.world
      4·
      1 year ago

      Those plus sites that are lists of buzz words that have nothing to do with the actual site.

  • m_randall@sh.itjust.works
    2116·
    1 year ago

    Come on over to Kagi! You do have to pay but I use a search engine dozens of times per day so I’m not too bothered by it.

    • cll7793@lemmy.world
      OPEnglish
      93·
      1 year ago

      I’ve heard a lot of great things about Kagi, though the search limit and subscription is a little off-putting. A self-hosted Kagi would be amazing though!

      • m_randall@sh.itjust.works
        63·
        1 year ago

        They now have unlimited searches for $10/mo. That’s what got me to try it out.

        You are correct though. I really do not like having all of my search history tied to my credit card (and then me). What helps me justify that is that instead of me being the product like google, by paying I’ve become the customer. Hopefully that incentivizes keeping them on the up and up.

        I did come across searnxg in this thread. It looks like that can be self hosted so I’m gonna give that a try as well.

          • Z4rK@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            1 year ago

            Yeah, you may be fine with the $5 plan, but that’s the lowest tier available.

            Afaik they are not really running a profit yet, just expanding, so that’s an eye opener to how expensive it is to run a search business and how much value Google and others estimate they get from your personal information.

            For now though their user base seems fairly much leaning towards business users that can defend this expense as part of becoming more effective professionally. Hopefully over time they’ll grow large enough to provide cheaper plans for regular persons while staying privacy focused and ad free.

    • MikeT@lemm.ee
      12·
      1 year ago

      I’ve been slowly pivoting toward Perplexity.AI as the search engine. It basically does what I do, search + find the resources and summarize it but it is automatic with Perplexity.AI.

      I rather pay them 20$ because that is saving me time a lot (and time is money in my case). Kagi’s search is okay but I can get nearly the same by using ublocklist on Bing or DDG for my use case.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
    63·
    1 year ago

    I mostly use bing now. I like that it can answer complex queries and provides sources.

    Don’t have much trouble not finding things.

    • zeluko@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      Its nice when you are deep in Microsoft already from your company and get BingChat Enterprise included anyways.
      Its slower than OpenAI GPT4 at times and its alot more restricted, but it gets the job done mostly.
      You need to hack the UI to make it nice, unlock longer inputs, disable search tool at-will, disable synthetic streaming responses (consistent token speed, but takes longer overall)

      Simple query via DDG, complex stuff and ChatBot stuff via BingChat Enterprise.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        1 year ago

        I thought the AI assistant was free? I just downloaded the bang app and I just use the AI assistant whenever I search for anything now.

        I don’t use any sort of enterprise, or full disclosure know what any of the other things you said are, any of those options or parameters.

        But bing’s really impressed me lately, haha, so I still use it.

        Actually on my desktop, I just use the regular Bing search, which I do now find superior to Google for just finding quick accurate answers for basic stuff.

        It’s still crazy to me a year later after switching all my default search engines to Bing after using Google for so long, but Google search is just such trash now, it’s insane.

        • zeluko@kbin.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          It is free, but the Enterprise version doesnt store anything (not even usage statitistics) and runs on separate systems (allegedly) aswell as having no limits.

    • TonyOstrich@lemmy.world
      6·
      1 year ago

      Why pay? I think the answer is pretty easy. If one doesn’t want to self host. Running any kind of web based service costs the person running it money. Google obviously makes money off of a user doing searches via adds and data collection. I would actually have no issue paying for certain Google services if it meant that as a paying customer they would not double dip and try and profit off the data they are collecting on me.

      This is all coming from a person who has a server rack in my basement and multiple PCs scattered throughout my home, so I am no stranger to self hosting.

      • laverabe@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I would actually have no issue paying for certain Google services

        Excuse me sir, do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Richard Stallman?

      • aldalire@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        People have spare pc’s or laptops they can sacrifice as a SearxNG instance. I too have a homelab & i have not paid a single penny to have a hobby SearxNG instance on my old hackbook pro that I share with friends.

        I feel like, the internet is more than just paying your way for services. It’s about creating and sharing services and decentralization. If Kagi takes off then we have another evil Google that wants to profit at the cost of users, but its name is Kagi. It might be an impractical answer, and it does take some work to create a better internet. End of philosophical rant about the true spirit of the internet