Anecdotally DuckDuckGo seems to have fewer sponsored sites than Google. DDG also makes it easy to block low-quality sites because it adds a data-domain attribute to the root of every search result. I recently started this mini uBlock Origin filter list for that (suggestions welcome!):

    ! Hide low-quality results on DuckDuckGo
    duckduckgo.com##[data-domain="w3schools.com"]
    duckduckgo.com##[data-domain$=".w3schools.com"]
    duckduckgo.com##[data-domain="w3schools.in"]
    duckduckgo.com##[data-domain$=".w3schools.in"]
    duckduckgo.com##[data-domain="download.cnet.com"]
    !! Stack Exchange mirrors
    duckduckgo.com##[data-domain="exceptionshub.com"]
    duckduckgo.com##[data-domain="intellipaat.com"]