undefined | Better HN

0 pointsjodrellblank2y ago0 comments

I have been using DDG for a few years, and most of the time end up doing !g to go to Google and get good answers. Nothing specific comes to mind right now, but the pattern is like this:

me: Who's that guy with a big hat?

DDG: showing results for bug hat IN UNITED KINGDOM: 1) Daily Mail woman wearing ladybird hat absolutely destroys woke liberal you won't believe. 2) Best hair cuts for guys who wear hats - generic-seo-spamsite.com. 3) Who's who in the world of business 2023 update. 4) Don't be "that guy"! tips for dating.

me: !g

Google: He's Crocodile Dundee.

me: how the heck did you know that.

Google isn't always that good, but DDG is all too often that bad. It's bad in a very Bing-way with search results that kinda touch on the right words but are low relevance and high SEO/spam. (And adamant that whatever I'm searching for - cat pictures, cities in California, Caesar Salad recipes, prices of things in America, I must want the results from UNITED KINGDOM because that's where I am. Which, incidentally, is a frustration of Google maps: "I wonder whats in California? Google maps, let me see the world..." "THIS IS YOUR HOUSE, THIS IS A ZOOMED IN MAP OF WHERE YOU LIVE, I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE". "Calm down, I know what things look like round here, I live here. I wanted to look somewhere else, like, obviously?").

0 comments

theshrike792y ago

Google works better than DDG with natural language questions like that

But if you're like me and never evolved from the oldschool search engines and still use the same format of listing key words, DDG is better than or equal to Google.

cptskippy2y ago

Well in some cases, like searching for an error message when troubleshooting, Google's NLP is a hindrance because it will alter or change your query in attempts to provide results.

So for example if I search for "Error 12345: Something bad happened", Google might remove the "12345" because it increases the number of results. They take the stance that more is better.

lolinder2y ago

I know it probably gets tiring to hear it on every thread about search, but Kagi gets just as good results for that hat query, and tends to do better than Google on more serious work. Pinning and blocking domains is a huge deal—it's got a great list of blocked domains natively, and after just a little bit of customization my SEO spam has basically disappeared.

JopV2y ago

Google Maps is for finding your way around where you are. Google Earth is for seeing the world.

I like the combined approach of Apple Maps.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse