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Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?

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Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?

#221

Post by arrakis2021 »

keyme wrote: post #196

The internet is too different now to what Google (or any SE) was designed to index. Too much of the up-to-date high value information is posted onto semi-public channels. Like facebook groups, instagram posts, telegram channels, etc. At the same time, too much of the publicly available websites are becoming clickbait and mindless marketing drivel. Just try to research anything slightly obscure that has to be up-to-da…

This. Whenever I search anything informative, I append “Reddit” to the phrase to get the top Reddit threads about the topic. Everything else in the SERPS is usually SEO trash

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?

#223

Post by Sujan »

technobabbler wrote: post #213
keyme wrote: post #196

The internet is too different now to what Google (or any SE) was designed to index. Too much of the up-to-date high value information is posted onto semi-public channels. Like facebook groups, instagram posts, telegram channels, etc. At the same time, too much of the publicly available websites are becoming clickbait and mindless marketing drivel. Just try to research anything slightly obscure that has to be up-to-da…

You know, if that were the only roadblock, I wish someone would take the top 10,000 Google queries and just manually curate them. Hire different interest groups -- outdoors, travel, cuisine, etc. -- and manually find the best hits buried deep in some subreddit. No fancy algorithms, just old-fashioned librarian-style research, but constantly updated with the latest findings and queries. Would happily pay for that... e…

The top 10.000 queries at Google are probably 99% brands, pop culture or current news things, one word or name only, that you would not care for at all. Have a look at the top 20: https://www.statista.com/statistics/265825/number-of-searche...

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?

#224

Post by jasode »

technobabbler wrote: post #213
keyme wrote: post #196

The internet is too different now to what Google (or any SE) was designed to index. Too much of the up-to-date high value information is posted onto semi-public channels. Like facebook groups, instagram posts, telegram channels, etc. At the same time, too much of the publicly available websites are becoming clickbait and mindless marketing drivel. Just try to research anything slightly obscure that has to be up-to-da…

You know, if that were the only roadblock, I wish someone would take the top 10,000 Google queries and just manually curate them. Hire different interest groups -- outdoors, travel, cuisine, etc. -- and manually find the best hits buried deep in some subreddit. No fancy algorithms, just old-fashioned librarian-style research, but constantly updated with the latest findings and queries. Would happily pay for that... e…

>, I wish someone would take the top 10,000 Google queries and just manually curate them. Hire different interest groups -- outdoors, travel, cuisine, etc. -- and manually find the best hits buried deep in some subreddit. No fancy algorithms, just old-fashioned librarian-style research, but constantly updated with the latest findings and queries.

It's not exactly your specifications but 2007 Mahalo attempted something like that and they shut down after a few years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahalo.com

The website is no longer there so you have to use Wayback Machine or image search to see what the landing page for Mahalo search UI looked like : https://www.google.com/search?q=%22mahalo.com%22+search&tbm=...

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?

#225

Post by Method-X »

Brave Search [1] is the best alternative I’ve come across so far. They have this concept called “Goggles” [2] on their roadmap, which I think has incredible potential to disrupt the status quo.

[1] https://search.brave.com

[2] https://brave.com/static-assets/files/goggles.pdf

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?

#228

Post by schleck8 »

Method-X wrote: post #225

Brave Search [1] is the best alternative I’ve come across so far. They have this concept called “Goggles” [2] on their roadmap, which I think has incredible potential to disrupt the status quo. [1] https://search.brave.com [2] https://brave.com/static-assets/files/goggles.pdf

Brave Search is really impressive indeed.

There is also Kagi

https://kagi.com

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?

#229

Post by chx »

arrakis2021 wrote: post #221
keyme wrote: post #196

The internet is too different now to what Google (or any SE) was designed to index. Too much of the up-to-date high value information is posted onto semi-public channels. Like facebook groups, instagram posts, telegram channels, etc. At the same time, too much of the publicly available websites are becoming clickbait and mindless marketing drivel. Just try to research anything slightly obscure that has to be up-to-da…

This. Whenever I search anything informative, I append “Reddit” to the phrase to get the top Reddit threads about the topic. Everything else in the SERPS is usually SEO trash

Try https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hypersearch/feojag... then.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there a Google competitor emerging?

#230

Post by Method-X »

mgkimsal wrote: post #142
jasode wrote: post #14

>, what would a competitor need to defy Google? One thing a competitor needs is a new and innovative technical algorithm . Back in 1998, Google's PageRank was an innovative algorithm that calculated relevance based on counting back links instead of parsing the word counts in embedded HTML text like other search engines. This created a noticeable improvement in quality of results. Nobody seems to have The Next Big Ide…

"next big idea" is probably "selectable algorithms". Create 3-5 different search algorithms, with names and understandable characteristics, then let me choose which one when searching. You may have some algorithm that prioritizes recency, or rapid changes, or more interaction, and others that prioritize longevity, citations/links, others that prioritize that type of information - prioritize regional or noteworthy eve…

This is what Brave Search calls “Goggles” [1].

[1] https://brave.com/static-assets/files/goggles.pdf

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