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Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

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Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#181

Post by tomrod »

nolist_policy wrote: post #164
eitland wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats exactly what I am talking about. Kagi is kind of like Google in 2009, seriously good coverage, good ranking ... but also: - more modern - more features (summarizer, bangs like in DDG, FastGPT and probably a few I forgot) - blocklists for websites (and also options to pin, raise and lower) - with actual support: report a bug and you get an answer from a real engineer, a follow up when it is fixed and a shout out…

Is it only me or do these constant Kagi ads on HN sound fishy?

I took a screenshot years ago where 10/14 of the viewable top headlines on my screen where positive Google discussion. From an advertising perspective it was all earned marketing (satisfied customers speaking highly).

While these situations could be a pg-style astroturf submarine, or they could be satisfied customers (the best kind of advertising), I wouldn't necessarily say fishy (you can look at the satisfied users' previous contributions to make that judgment yourself! :)).

Personally, I've not used Kagi, but I hear positive things from people I trust that use it. So I'll likely try it in the future.

Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#182

Post by xnx »

linsomniac wrote: post #163
vouaobrasil wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I did! I used to use Yahoo search where the results were more hand-curated and people did not create websties for intensive commercial purposes with useless SEO fluff like it is today.

I have been thinking a lot about Yahoo (pre yahoo-search, largely) lately. I don't fully understand how we lost the curated catalog, especially considering the success of Wikipedia. The latter demonstrates users willingness to curate knowledge bases... We have "awesome" lists, but I rarely seem to use them.

Yahoo directory was largely pay-to-play and very affected by proto-SEOs trying to game the system for direct traffic or PageRank value. Collaborative directories like dmoz.org suffered the same fate before shutting down.

Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#183

Post by glitchc »

breakfastduck wrote: post #175
amelius wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that Kagi won't become as bad as Google at some point?

We don't, but a model where a user pays for a service rather than being free and ad supported is significantly less likely to enact user unfriendly changes. If the way you make money is by convincing people to pay, you are highly incentivised to make the product good, especially where there are many other free competitors who are ad supported.

Tell that to cable companies, sports broadcasts and now streaming services. The one incontrovertible fact of modern society is that ads eat everything else. No other revenue source compares.

Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#184

Post by spacebanana7 »

amelius wrote: post #171
eitland wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user of Kagi and search.marginalia.nu I can tell you: Quite a bit. So much that now that I have what "everyone" asked Google for for years - that is blacklists - I hardly use them. Why? Because with Kagi I get much better results out of the box. I am fairly sure Googlers will tell me there are multiple safeguards to prevent the inclusion of Google ads from affecting ranking, to which I just have to say that the…

How do you know that Kagi won't become as bad as Google at some point?

Also it’s unlikely Kagi will ever become big enough for SEO people to specifically target with manipulative content.

Even if they got 100 million active paying users it’d still be a tiny fraction of overall search traffic.

Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#185

Post by stuffoverflow »

beeboobaa3 wrote: post #167
eitland wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user of Kagi and search.marginalia.nu I can tell you: Quite a bit. So much that now that I have what "everyone" asked Google for for years - that is blacklists - I hardly use them. Why? Because with Kagi I get much better results out of the box. I am fairly sure Googlers will tell me there are multiple safeguards to prevent the inclusion of Google ads from affecting ranking, to which I just have to say that the…

Is kagi good for finding things like old forum posts (not reddit)? I know some of those sites are still up but google seems to ignore them.

In my experience kagi is decent, definitely gives more forum results than google. I've found yandex to be the best at finding all kinds of forum /discussion sites.

Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#186

Post by elorant »

eitland wrote: post #151
abhijat wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to Kagi in June last year. I just realized I tried it initially because I wanted to try out blocking sites in search results, and I have only ever needed to block three domains.

Thats exactly what I am talking about. Kagi is kind of like Google in 2009, seriously good coverage, good ranking ... but also: - more modern - more features (summarizer, bangs like in DDG, FastGPT and probably a few I forgot) - blocklists for websites (and also options to pin, raise and lower) - with actual support: report a bug and you get an answer from a real engineer, a follow up when it is fixed and a shout out…

I use FastGPT quite often although I’m not a subscriber to Kagi itself. For me it’s everything an AI search engine should be. Here is your answer, and here are a bunch of links to research further. Something that works without making the web obsolete. Not like the walled off garden of OpenAi which often hallucinates links, or Google’s “I through everything at the wall to find what sticks” effort.

Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#187

Post by karma_pharmer »

eitland wrote: post #136
vouaobrasil wrote: post #127

Sometimes I wonder how much better the internet would be hits on Google weren't directly tied to revenue from Google itself through its ad program. I am certain Google has made the internet and the world a worse place to live.

As a user of Kagi and search.marginalia.nu I can tell you: Quite a bit. So much that now that I have what "everyone" asked Google for for years - that is blacklists - I hardly use them. Why? Because with Kagi I get much better results out of the box. I am fairly sure Googlers will tell me there are multiple safeguards to prevent the inclusion of Google ads from affecting ranking, to which I just have to say that the…

Kagi is simply reselling google search results.

Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#188

Post by mozman »

esperent wrote: post #179
eitland wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user of Kagi and search.marginalia.nu I can tell you: Quite a bit. So much that now that I have what "everyone" asked Google for for years - that is blacklists - I hardly use them. Why? Because with Kagi I get much better results out of the box. I am fairly sure Googlers will tell me there are multiple safeguards to prevent the inclusion of Google ads from affecting ranking, to which I just have to say that the…

Kagi is worth the money, but it isn't magic. It's about as good as Google was ~five years ago, before they made all the search operators stop work. There's also a whole bunch of things it's worse at that Google - especially local search and shopping. Plus I still get plenty of blogspam and AI generated crap from Kagi.

The search operators makes big difference in result quality, I also don’t like how Google now returns zero results for something obscure. In the past I could find something peripheral and eventually get to what I was looking for.

Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#189

Post by danielheath »

nolist_policy wrote: post #164
eitland wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats exactly what I am talking about. Kagi is kind of like Google in 2009, seriously good coverage, good ranking ... but also: - more modern - more features (summarizer, bangs like in DDG, FastGPT and probably a few I forgot) - blocklists for websites (and also options to pin, raise and lower) - with actual support: report a bug and you get an answer from a real engineer, a follow up when it is fixed and a shout out…

Is it only me or do these constant Kagi ads on HN sound fishy?

It’s not surprising that folks who pay for a service when there’s a free alternative are pretty serious fans.

Re: Anonymous Source Shared Leaked Google Search API Documents

#190

Post by karma_pharmer »

glitchc wrote: post #183
breakfastduck wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't, but a model where a user pays for a service rather than being free and ad supported is significantly less likely to enact user unfriendly changes. If the way you make money is by convincing people to pay, you are highly incentivised to make the product good, especially where there are many other free competitors who are ad supported.

Tell that to cable companies, sports broadcasts and now streaming services. The one incontrovertible fact of modern society is that ads eat everything else. No other revenue source compares.

ads eat everything else

Well duh. Because it's the only value you're allowed to collect from retail customers without having to deal with either chargebacks or kyc.

We've deliberately made every other form of micropayment infeasible. It shouldn't be surprising that the only one left is insanely popular.

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