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DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

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Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#261

Post by carlosjobim »

ninalanyon wrote: post #243
al_borland wrote: post #5

My friends who previously had no interest in technology and never talked about it, are suddenly following tech news closely all because they hate AI being pushed so hard. One was just messaging me this morning about alternatives to Google search and maps. He ended up downloading DuckDuckGo. If Google isn’t carefully they’re going to push people away from their golden goose.

> downloading DuckDuckGo. What for? Just use the website via your favourite browser.

What for? Just tap the icon to open the app.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#262

Post by watwut »

WarmWash wrote: post #180
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"a hard push to improve search for everyday people" Citation needed. A hard push to change their search offering, sure. To improve it? Well, if by improve you mean 'require more interaction and viewing of more adverts on average before leaving' ...

Again, if you have been on HN since 2009, you are likely on the far fringe of Google's user demographics, which at this point is pretty much "The average human being on Earth". I would bet all of my money that you never once did a Google search (pre-LLM mania, but maybe even after) that looked like "What kind of clothing is best for when you are going hiking around the lake, so my feet don't get so cold?" Sadly, this…

I find that weird assumption. Why would you expect HN people not do such searches? They worked for years.

And you frequently ended up finding a discussion forum with around that question and relevant discussion under it.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#263

Post by bborud »

Let’s be honest: ai mode is less shit than the ads that, for some searches, all but replace all legitimate content.

But it is still shit compared to a search engine. Which Google no longer is.

There’s a real opening for actual search engines now.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#264

Post by jm4 »

qsort wrote: post #20

I truly don't get Google's move. I'm sure the model is fine, but it's not Google Search, and when I want Search I want Search. If I wanted to ask an AI, why can't I ask the one from my subscription... that I'm already paying for... that's actually good... that can also search the web? I assume it's a play to test the waters for how the ad market is going to work, because as a product I really can't see why I would ev…

They probably lose a ton of traffic to AI or anticipate that happening. This is a way to keep people on Google search.

Like you, I use both search and AI separately. Even casual, nontechnical users are starting to work like that. Including AI with traditional search results will keep a lot of users from jumping ship in the first place and will help win back users from ChatGPT.

I know a lot of people hate AI - at a minimum, there’s a vocal minority - but the reality is AI is eating search like nothing we’ve ever seen.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#266

Post by Legend2440 »

gbalduzzi wrote: post #234
Legend2440 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI mode isn't for queries, it's for questions. You ask it direct, specific things like 'how do I do in ' and it provides a fast answer. People have many more questions in their life than they do queries.

In programming forums like Hacker News people are incredibly detached from the average experience with technology, sometimes it is buffling. Most non technical people I know asked questions to Google even before the AI overview. Instead of looking for the answer in seo-bloated articles, they find it in the overview. I think google should improve in detecting the kind of query when I need a link that I don't remember,…

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1497/

If programmers and engineers are saying "why would anyone want that?", odds are the product will be a gigantic success.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#267

Post by aembleton »

wiether wrote: post #252
osigurdson wrote: post #28

I actually like AI mode in Google. My main reason is if I just have a quick question it seems a lot quicker than logging into ChatGPT/Claude as I can just type it in the address bar. Of course DDG / others can do the exact same thing as they already have an AI mode. Maybe you can even set up ChatGPT as a search engine - not sure. The key for this use case is speed - it has to be nearly instant.

People already talked about the Kagi Quick Answer feature with the question mark. But if you still want ChatGPT/Claude, then you simply create a custom bang and associate it with something like ` https://chatgpt.com/?q=%s ` So now in your address bar you type "how to center a div !gpt" and it will start a session with your query

If you use Firefox, then you can add chatgpt as a search engine with keyword gpt. Then you can type "gpt how to centre a div" into your address bar and get the same thing without routing it through Kagi, or needing Kagi.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#269

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dpkirchner wrote: post #126
jeltz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same thing as when they pushed for AMP. They wanted to prevent traffic from leaving google.com then too.

In that case at least they could point out that end users got better results with AMP than they do with news sites w/o ad blockers. The AI results are just wrong so often I don't really get it.

> The AI results are just wrong so often I don't really get it

They believe they won’t be wrong for long.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#270

Post by burnte »

gruez wrote: post #151
burnte wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a multifold problem and they've chosen bad solutions. 1. To protect ad revenue they make search results worse to increase the number of searches by making people refine their searches. This made people upset because search result quality went down. 2. "AI everywhere!" put them in a panic, so they shoved am LLM into results, hoping it could pick through bad results and give good data to the user. 3. LLMs…

>1. To protect ad revenue they make search results worse to increase the number of searches by making people refine their searches. This made people upset because search result quality went down. Why would this work? Were yahoo and askjeeves sandbagging their results too just so they can get more clicks?

> Why would this work?

Humans are predictable and hate change. For a short while it DOES work, people are used to great results, assume they're not using the the best keywords, and they'll reformulate their searches. For a while. After a while of all searches being not as good as they used to be, people start looking for other alternatives, which is why DDG is seeing an uptick.

It's called enshittification. It's easier than improving a product.

> Were yahoo and askjeeves sandbagging their results too just so they can get more clicks?

No idea.

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