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Comment by baja_blast | Hacker News Reader

Lately I have found Google to be a less reliable search engine when compared to a few years ago. Whether I am trying to find an old meme, a piece of research or even googling errors it seems like the results are never what I am looking for. And it's not just SEO spamming since things like software errors are not something people try and game. It used to be I would paste in an error and I would get a Git Issues result for exactly what I was looking for, but now I just go to GitHub or Stack Overflow directly.

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I've been finding ChatGPT to be more reliable at pointing me in the right direction than either Google or Bing in a lot of cases lately. And don't even get me started on how YouTube search is beyond useless

Yeah I have noticed youtube search is bad - the only time it gives me what I want is if I search for something I have watched previously - Discovery is totally useless.

I think there are two use cases for search engine, to find an answer and to find a site. ChatGPT is good for the former and useless for the latter. Google is okay at the former and good at the latter (but getting worse). Big advantage of Google is that there are sources for more detail.

For example, I'm looking at sleeping pads for camping. If I type "sleeping pad" in ChatGPT, it tells me what a sleeping pad is. If I type it into Google, it lists products, places to buy them, and some reviews. If I type "best sleeping pads", ChatGPT gives me a list but without details or sources. If I type into Google, I get a list of reviews which I have to read but has context.

I get the differences in how they work. To that, I think your example is too simple and conclusions far too hasty on ChatGPT's capabilities. It is far from useless when it comes to finding relevant websites

Following your example, I queried it with "Where can I buy a sleeping pad online?" and it listed several options, starting with specific ones (Amazon, REI, Backcountry), then got more generalized (Camping and Outdoor Gear Websites, Specialized Brands, Large Retailers, Online Marketplaces). I told it to list the websites of the specialized brands and it gave me links to four retailers (thermarest.com, bigagnes.com, seatosummitusa.com, and nemoequipment.com)

It also seems that search results are extremely limited. 5(?) years ago you would get pages of stuff that is tangentially related. Now it's 2 pages that seem carefully curated, but that's exactly the problem - you get a curated list, rather than a search of the whole web.

I've switched to Kagi + Yandex. Together they provide all the results I seek.

They've manipulated the search results too much.

I have to go to Bing. BING to get better search results. How embarrassing.

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