For search I'm increasing just using Claude + web search tool, it's better than Google has been in years. I have my own local ollama-powered RAG setup as well which isn't as good but may serve alright if/when Anthropic starts with ad insertions.

DuckDuckGo has also been my goto for years, but it is also getting swamped with SEO-rigged spam sites.

2 days ago I was making multiple searches looking for the websites of specific hotels and spa facilities, and none of them showed up in the first 4 pages of results, even when searching by exact name.

Out of desperation I switched back to Google, and, surprisingly, it was willing to give me what I was looking for on the first page. (But not as first result, of course..)

I find it to be more reliably useful than the other non-Google alternatives I’ve tried. I find its “PDFs Only” filter to be awfully handy too. Proudly not a bot, but I freely admit that, because I pay for it and our incentives seem aligned, I’m biased toward giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Always open to new horizons, though—are there non-Google search products that you find to consistently work better?

Definitely not a bot (you can check my comment history) and I can recommend Kagi.

I share the same sentiment. I know many people praise Kagi, and I respect the effort behind it too. I tried it for three months and realized it was not for me. Google works just fine for my needs.

Haha… no bot here. Been using Kagi for years now. Not sure what you‘re searching for. My own tests, admittedly early, found no instances, where Google gave better results.

Holding an opinion like “everyone apart from me is a shill or an idiot” is not an attractive quality in a human.

Happy user of kagi for several years. This is the opposite of my experience. Your comment strikes me as dishonest.

I searched for that exact phrase out of curiosity because I haven’t used Google in years… and it’s even worse than you say.

I got an AI summary that takes up half the screen, which doesn’t even give the right answer, then 5 YouTube videos with thumbnails and extra crud (most not even related to the question but just mention “ArduPilot” somewhere on the title), then half a page of “Other people searched for..”

Then about 3 “screens” down the page I get the ArduPilot homepage and then a bunch of embedded Reddit/Facebook discussions about ArduPilot in general, none about setting up GPS.

Google has *completely* lost the plot.

It seems to differ extremely by account or region?

I have to say AI summaries work pretty well for me on Google and my overall subjective sense is the results have been getting better the past 1-2 years.

Here's what I get for your exact search and it looks pretty reasonable?

https://postimg.cc/6y8p3XH7

My search results were the opposite: 1. an AI summary 2. a link to the documentation 3. 4 videos that seem legit 4. a bunch more web links

So you're not talking about AI generated videos but just regular videos by hobbyists that you think are crap?

Can I ask why you’re still using Google to search at this point?