I understand that creating a search engine from scratch is very hard, but is there any engine that moderately succeeded? (in the Western world I mean)
It reminds me of how wild and unfiltered the internet was back in 2007. However, I wouldn't recommend it to "casual" users. Using Yandex requires a bit more common sense than Google, because malicious domains show up every now & then. For power users (99.99% of HN), this isn't a problem.
With all things considered, it's totally worth it. I never realized how censored Google Search was until I stepped away. As a grown ass man, I don't want anyone telling me what I "cant see" or attempting to define what's "acceptable" - The freedom to choose is intoxicating almost.
That said, the 10 blue links are becoming less and less important for most users. It is very important if you are searching for some obscure piece of information.
But the vast majority of queries can be broadly categorized as:
1. navigational queries - I'm trying to get to a site and I don't want/know to type the address, so queries such as "fb", "yt" or "bank of america"
2. trending news queries - something is in the news right now and you want to find articles
3. shopping queries - looking for products and doing product research
4. local queries - I want to find the details of that sushi place I like nearby
5. more niche experiences around various events
If you take a look at what Google and Bing are trying to do right now, they are moving away from what was customarily a search engine and more towards being a portal for you to consume all the content directly on their site (stuff like AMP is a good example).
While this is bad for the user on many levels, it does reduce the problem space for companies wanting to create a new search experience.
So the real question is, what are you searching for? if you are looking for a single search engine that can answer all of the above then you only have 2 options (in the US) If you are looking for a search experience that focuses on specific verticals there are many options.
One service I am interested in is Neeva Search https://neeva.co/ which sounds like they are building a more modern search experience which better fits with what users are doing today
6: Factual knowledge / information
I find myself quite regularly searching for factual information related to gadgets / devices / machines etc. that I want to find out about. For example; 'Is car AAA easier to find spares for than car BBB?', 'is camera AAA better constructed than camera BBB?', 'what are the things to look out for when buying a second hand CCC?
Increasingly, I find that, no matter how I couch the search terms, I end up getting given pages of results which are sites, trying to sell me the thing I referenced in the search. I'm lucky if I find the relevant info in the first page of results. Often it'll be on some discussion forum which crops up way down the list.
I wish there was some way to tell a search engine "I'm not interested in sites selling the thing I'm asking about. I just want information" so that the actual nuggets of genuine info would receive a higher priority.
Yes, I'm looking for a general purpose search engine. Do you think that satisfying most of the above is beyond the reach of a start up?
I agree that Neeva is interesting, I just heard of it recently.