Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT • Hacker News Board

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#31

Post by Renaud » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:23 AM UTC

kristopolous wrote: post #24

endisneigh wrote: post #5

I reckon these days search is pretty difficult and everyone knows how to game it. I recommend using a search engine that lets you effectively change which sites are shown. You can do this with Kagi, or with Google's Programmable Search Engines - I'm sure there are more too. In particular I block Youtube, not because they aren't sometimes correct, but because I don't want videos polluting the regular results - it just…

I'm a big fan of the non commercial site search engines because of the gaming aspect. If you're not generating revenue from the clicks the game mostly goes away. I'm not saying people aren't entitled to make some money, but it clearly incentivizes user hostile behavior. Maybe make it an option because legitimate sites like journalism also use this model.

Subscription model like Kagi seems to work pretty well against gaming the results.

Their only remaining incentive is to be good enough that people keep paying for the service.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#32

Post by kristofferR » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:23 AM UTC

Osiris wrote: post #26

I have recently started using kagi after seeing a recommendation here. From what I understand, it aggregates results from multiple sources rather than having their own indexer. The results aren’t really any better, but the lack of ads and videos in the results makes for a cleaner experience. I also haven’t yet taken advantage of the extra features to block certain websites from results. Personally, I pay the $5 mostl…

Kagi is awesome, so much better experience than Google!

Start using bangs, lenses and customized results ASAP, that makes a big difference.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#33

Post by dpkirchner » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:24 AM UTC

toomim wrote: post #16

Do search engines censor political topics these days? If you search "truthsocial" on ddg, the truthsocial.com website is the first hit. But if you search "trump truthsocial", it doesn't give you trump's truthsocial page, and doesn't even give you truthsocial.com within the first few pages of search results. Since ddg uses bing, does anyone know what is happening here at bing? It looks like google results are similar.

I doubt you're seeing censorship. If you search for "truthsocial trump" on ddg, you'll see his profile, for better or worse.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#34

Post by optshun » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:26 AM UTC

jeffreyw128 wrote: post #10

The issue with traditional search engines is that keyword-first algorithms are extremely gameable. Try https://search.metaphor.systems - it's fully neural embeddings-based search. No keywords, only an embedding of what the actual content of a webpage is. So in the mentioned example of searching for Youtube downloaders, with Metaphor you'll get only Youtube downloaders ( https://search.metaphor.systems/search?q=This%2…

This is excellent!

Definitely excited to see how it holds up to daily use.

So far it gave me exactly what I wanted at the top for all of my test queries that were well formed.

As for asking “ignorant” questions both your service and the goog failed where phind gave me an actionable starting point (after a prodding follow up question: https://www.phind.com/search?cache=hmul4znpn7y4ei6qa64fosmc )

“max-height like css property for top and left”

Unsure if this sort of thing is even a goal of your project, but you won over a new user.

Wish you and your team all the best.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#35

Post by croes » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:26 AM UTC

jeffreyw128 wrote: post #10

The issue with traditional search engines is that keyword-first algorithms are extremely gameable. Try https://search.metaphor.systems - it's fully neural embeddings-based search. No keywords, only an embedding of what the actual content of a webpage is. So in the mentioned example of searching for Youtube downloaders, with Metaphor you'll get only Youtube downloaders ( https://search.metaphor.systems/search?q=This%2…

Just wait until the content farms adapt

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#36

Post by elcook4000 » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:29 AM UTC

I have found appending site:edu remarkably improves google results.

For both the tire question and with respect to a youtube dowloader, the first results were on the nose with the addition of site:edu on Google.

Why this is needed and whether a noncommercial, information rich web portal should exist are questions for another thread.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#37

Post by fantasybroker » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:29 AM UTC

I am not sure what the intention of this post is. In my handpicked results Kagi far outperforms Marginalia.

#1 "Gordon ramsey" (misspelled "Gordon Ramsay"). Marginalia shows "The Life I Imagine: are my cheeks red?". Kagi corrects to Gordon Ramsay and shows relevant results.

#2 "Ukraine war". Marginalia shows an article about the Russian Orthodox church and a Substack post about the war. Kagi shows Wikipedia, Al Jazeera, etc up-to-date summaries about the war.

#3 "Dildo". Top post on Marginalia is "Students for Concealed Carry Embraces UT Dildos | Students for Concealed Carry". Top posts on Kagi are Wikipedia (read) and Amazon (buy).

> How is Marginalia, a search engine built by a single person, so good?

Because it's not good?

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#38

Post by ysavir » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:31 AM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #5

I reckon these days search is pretty difficult and everyone knows how to game it. I recommend using a search engine that lets you effectively change which sites are shown. You can do this with Kagi, or with Google's Programmable Search Engines - I'm sure there are more too. In particular I block Youtube, not because they aren't sometimes correct, but because I don't want videos polluting the regular results - it just…

> In particular I block Youtube, not because they aren't sometimes correct, but because I don't want videos polluting the regular results - it just takes too long to get info from videos.

Funnily enough, lately I've been prioritizing YT videos more when searching. So many sites now are just regurgitated SEO farms with minimal quality, and easy to see why: it's minimal effort to produce and cheap to host. But making a video takes time and effort, so has a much higher barrier to use as a click farm.

More than once when traditional search failed me, I went to YT and found some video from 2009 clearly and eloquently explaining what I'm looking for in detail, and without any distractions because the person authoring the video clearly didn't specialize in the media format or show interest in experimenting.

I've found it to also be a better source when looking a product to buy. Want to know which fan to get? Turns out there's a channel from a dedicated guy who keeps finding ways to test different fans and their utility and with multiple videos demonstrating his approach and findings. The mainstream channels aren't all that useful, but there's a ton of "old web" style videos (some even recent) passionately providing details for almost anything you'd think to search. And they're a gold mine.

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#39

Post by flenserboy » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:32 AM UTC

marginalia_nu wrote: post #30

flenserboy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The return of something like Yahoo Directory would be most welcome. There is great utility in having more than one approach into a data space. That we have been stuck with essentially one way in for over a decade means that there is a great deal out there which would be great to access but which has been rendered invisible.

https://ooh.directory/

Nice. Thanks!

Re: Compare Google, Bing, Marginalia, Kagi, Mwmbl, and ChatGPT

#40

Post by aworks » Sun, Dec 31, 2023, 3:33 AM UTC

The appendix describing the individual search results is both entertaining and scary e.g.

"Two of the top three hits are how to install the extension and the rest of the top hits are how to remove this badware. Many of the removal links are themselves scams that install other badware."