Yeah, Google search is useless now. I've switched to ddg , and it's much better. Just not having all those sponsored links helps a lot .

Maybe a searx instance would be even better, but I haven't found one that works consistently for me.

Kagi is paid service, but the results are so good!

edit: fix typo

Google has gotten really bad with the sponsored links. Not only are they only identified with a small "ad sponsored" disclaimer that is easy to miss on a phone screen but I've run into sponsored results that are blatant scams that I've had to report to google. Seemingly no effort on their part to screen these before they let them get posted.

I've also had to resort to altering my search engine results to always filter out quora and pinterest because they have gamed SEO so badly that they choke my results with garbage. Both demand you open accounts to see much (nope) and quora is a cesspool of bad answers and trolls.

Looking for product reviews is a real struggle. I'll see the same review plastered across a bunch of sketchy websites at the top of my results. They look like they only exist for manufacturers to post paid reviews.

While Web search has gotten worse, Youtube has gotten pretty good at finding niche content with a few dozens views. In general it seems most user generated content these days is on Youtube as video, not on the Web as text. The typical Web SOC spam doesn't really exist on Youtube outside of a few crypto scams here and there.

SearX because Kagi is hailcorporate

As long as they keep getting money out of it. and with record numbers year over year. they have no incentive to change course. Google has a monopoly over search engine that affords them the unique position of not giving a dime about user satisfaction. the users are trapped anyway!

I used to be an enthusiastic gargler of Google's balls but they enshittified just like everything else.

I’ve been using brave search since their early days. They used to suck, but I pushed my feelings aside and just kept trying. Now, brave out performs google on a lot of search results. Sometimes, you have to add a bit more context to your query, but it is worth staying private and not dealing with all the SEO garbage. If the results don’t fit your need, just leave feedback and it will probably be addressed soon.

Not related to the article, totally anecdotal, and n=1, but it seems Google Maps has really dropped the ball as well.

I switched to using startpage.com recently based on a comment I read on Lemmy and I've been generally pretty pleased with the results. Just one more google service I can stop relying on.