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.

  • Kayn@dormi.zone
    334·
    5 months ago

    I’m really happy with Kagi. The fact that I can blacklist certain domains from showing up in search results is chef’s kiss.

    Back when I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo, I found myself occasionally using the !g bang to fall back to Google results. So far I haven’t felt the need once in Kagi.

    • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
      12·
      5 months ago

      This is like the 18th time I’ve seen people on Lemmy say good things about kagi, so I just bit the bullet. I like ecosia but I still end up going back to google for some searches, so I’ll see how kagi does for me.

      • cosmic_slate@dmv.socialEnglish
        91·
        5 months ago

        I’ve been using it for months and maybe popped back over to Google only a handful of times.

        DDG is okay but it’s miserable in comparison. I haven’t tried Ecosia long enough to form a proper opinion but my first impressions weren’t great.

        The only people who actively rail against it seem to be the standard group of Fediverse who are… a bit too online 😉

        • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
          9·
          5 months ago

          Yeah, since posting that i’ve been searching random niche things I’ve attempted with other search engines (like info on obscure instruments and foreign fashion subcultures) and yeah, Kagi is by and large the most useful I’ve tried. I search for something and it’s not just pages of the most normie websites talking about things semi-adjacent to what I searched for, and not an advert in sight! I think I’m in love.

    • Subverb@lemmy.world
      91·
      5 months ago

      I’m also very happy with kagi. I get search results with no fluff to sort through or scroll past every time I search. It’s such a breath of fresh air.

      Kagi is also doing some interesting things with search and many, many things that let you customize how the results are presented to you.

      Also, intesrtingly, kagi is growing rapidly and as yet they have spent literally zero dollars on advertisements. Purely word of mouth.

    • Atemu@lemmy.ml
      2·
      5 months ago

      I’ve felt the need a couple times but Google results were always worse.