A search engine that optimizes for good content instead of SEO-spam and ads would be a very welcome addition. Google seems to have given up on fighting malicious/spammy SEO (I'd expect them to identify and downrank spammy tricks like what the recipe websites do).
I'm in favour of competition for Google, but I can't be the only one who genuinely has no issue using Google? I see people complaining on HN quite a lot but genuinely the only thing I have - in years - struggled to find was the correct eBPF documentation but even then it only took a bit of nudging.
I think there are types of searches it does very poorly on, but also different people have different expectations. In my experience, if something is a product for sale, the first several pages are always places to buy it, which is never what I’m looking for, I already have online shops I like and saw the item there, or am searching from inside a store. I want reviews, forum experience, or even just pictures. for example, actual pictures of a bike rack installed on a bike like mine, not just the manufacturer’s steel floating in a white void pics.
In addition, google has become very aggressive with disregarding words. So a search like (a fake example, not tried the search, not a real place) Jim’s tasty pizza Albuquerque 90s where I’m searching for where a restaurant I remember as a child was located, and has maybe 5 real results from a local history Wordpress blog 15 years ago and Facebook posts, Google will just drop everything specific and give you results for Albuquerque pizza, and then mainly show ads for national chains up top. So I need quotes in the search pretty much always.
If you go into the advanced search options you can tell Google to explicitly search on what you type. I use it so often for the reasons you point out (because nowadays in their infinite wisdom they will helpfully ignore quotes too) it occurs to me I should either find an extension or script to just have it enabled by default.
I use Google and Google Maps plenty, though I'm one of the ones who might complain about their [lack of] privacy practices.
I use it for certain types of searches, and not others. I'm conscious of the fact that what I'm typing and searching, and subsequently clicking through will be piled on to the stack Google thinks is me. So it's usually tech searches, real estate/apartments, street view (property or exploring).
Health matters, personal matters, etc I tend to keep out of their search box.
Though more and more I tend to do a lot of cross-searching if privacy is not a concern.
Google is fine for me (I use it as fallback when DDG fails) for technical results but for anything else it's pretty bad (recipes are a typical example). It's not just the fault of Google to be honest - the internet itself has turned into a cesspool - however Google would be in the best position to curate that and discourage that behavior by penalizing the offenders' ranking.
Google ads don’t affect what search ranks. Those are two different entities. And google realllllly wants to get rid of search spam. But it’s insanely profitable to rank, so people try really hard and often beat google.
It's debatable whether Google Ads affect Google search ranking (it's impossible to prove either way considering how many factors affect ranking), but regardless of whether they currently influence rankings, there might be reluctance to change that due to Google's business model.
Google's job as a search engine is to provide relevant and quality content. Ads are spam and noise, so if Google does want to provide quality content they should be penalizing ads just like they would penalize keyword spam and similar unpleasant SEO tactics. Given their business model however it is not in their best interests to do so, so it's very unlikely that Google will do it.
Another company that does not make their money on advertising has a better chance of doing this.
> Ads do get penalized for being a bad fit: they get a lower quality score and cost more.
My point is that as a user, ads, regardless of how "good" they are, are not what I am looking for when I click on a search result (I am talking about website ads and not ads on the results page itself) and thus a search engine that downranks pages with ads in favor of those without them would be beneficial for me.
It would be against Google's interest to implement that (as they'd also be fighting against their own ad network) but a different company not involved in the advertising business (and making high enough margins on other products) has a higher chance of delivering this successfully.
