Google's non US/EN results MUST be absolute shit. That's the only take-away I've ever been able to get out of comments like this.

I don't know if it's the language piece, the geography and routing, maybe something else in the backend user profile... Idk

There is no other search engine that seems to come remotely close for me for actually showing me what I'm looking for, and on the first page. I've tried dozens probably over the years based on random comments from people, but never find anything else close to the results quality Google search gives me.

I wish I knew for sure what the difference is! Maybe query verbage, search modifiers, etc?

Maybe Google search is like an LLM - if you’re asking for a code reference it works, but if you’re asking for something else (music theory?) it just doesn’t?

Point is maybe it depends on topic maybe?

These days I use a couple different search sources both paid and free and it’s been that way for a couple years.