frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Ask HN: Has anyone else been struggling with search lately?

27•areoform•1d ago
Doing research is extremely frustrating these days. I feel like either I'm going nuts or search has been nerfed.

My search queries are frequently misinterpreted. Google, bing, duckduckgo have a strong recency bias and don't surface older webpages.

These problems get worse for niche and technical topics. I can't even find existing webpages that I know I've found / read about in the past.

What's going on? Why is the modern search experience so frustrating?

Comments

RJ000•1d ago
Yup. Feels like we're being dissed.

> Whats going... That's trivially easy: The big gorilla engine is a monopoly and it "thinks" this is the way to make get more money.

What methods, algorythms, rational they're playing with - sorry, I got no chops in that lane.

faidit•1d ago
Google search quality was deliberately harmed to boost ad revenue. Forcing you to search multiple times and refine your query means you see more ads and are more likely to click on them. Ads were also obviously prioritized over real search results long ago. The good guys within Google who wanted to preserve search quality lost the internal debate to the ad people. Emails that surfaced in the recent antitrust case strongly indicated this.
rurban•1d ago
No, because I use seek.ninja. The LLM's are also better.
metalman•1d ago
https://seek.ninja/

nice! it works, but the rest of the internet is broken due to scraping and ddos, bot's, dns blocking by isp's and others for indipendent vendors the hurdles are even greater. LLM's are just another thing in a long list of technologies that I have rejected, mostly due to connections with advertising, pushing 60 now, and have never owned a TV, been on line since day 2 when images had to be hand coded, pixel by pixel, and have watched the internet fail to settle into something representitive of humanity and different societies and cultures , and become a fearsome machine to promote power, consumption,inanity,perversion, hate and fear to the unwary or weak, and yes there is a little good stuff surviving, one or two layers down, but it is all embattled and struggling to be seen. The only up side is that due to the algorythmic suppression of dissent, outrage, and legitimate problems and dissatisfaction, those in power have blinded themselves from any ability to build something sustainable, and so hasten a real demand collapse under the pressure of people struggling to provide for there own basic needs. There must be a saturation limit where indivuals and societies begin to toggle over in the search for alternatives, but it is set very high by natural forces, such that phenominon like the waffle iron(and sneeker) riots where people died struggling to get into stores for limited time supper sales, proves how effective and powerfull advertising realy can be, but that the line between a "great promotion" and a riot, and total demand collapse seem to be alomost on top of each other, and locked in some kind of doom loop, that may be central to what happens during civilisational collapse. not good right now, not good at all.

rurban•1d ago
I rather think it's getting better and better. LLM's great, almost AGI already. Big search is unusable, so alternatives will be taking over. But Google services are still free. Much better than when we started with the internet in 1994, 1995.
timothyduong•1d ago
Have you tried Kagi?
Sytten•1d ago
I use Kagi and my search experience as never been better.
smt88•1d ago
I gave up entirely and use LLMs unfortunately
entropyie•1d ago
Search is great, using Kagi. Just bought the family plan, never going back to google. Also FastMail.
nicbou•1d ago
I struggle more than ever to get Google to recognise my query and not a watered down interpretation of it. It was bad before and now it’s even worse. Yesterday I struggled to find the most popular salary tax calculator in our country.

From the other side there is also a massive drop in traffic reported by the entire industry. I am gearing up for a post-Google existence.

andyjohnson0•1d ago
Kagi is still working pretty well for me. I think its partly that, being a paid-for product, the commercial incentives are different. And party that I can customise search results by promoting/demoting/blocking particular sources.

I have to use Google and Bing at work (I'm a developer) and the difference is very noticeable.

n1xis10t•1d ago
I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but what you describe fits with my experience as well. This article describes events since 2015 that also fit with the same thing: https://archive.org/details/search-timeline

Google is supposed to have decent competition, but for some reason it doesn’t.

cdvonstinkpot•17h ago
Here to second Kagi, never going back to Google, etc.
MopAmine•14h ago
idk
keepamovin•14h ago
I found my Google reflex has become my AI reflex. I reach for whatever is nearest.
hulitu•9h ago
> What's going on? Why is the modern search experience so frustrating?

Because 1. They try to be smart asses and fail terribly.

If i search for a specific error message, i mean it. I don't want any crap which contains some of the words or AI generated content.

It is a shame for the whole western world that, one of the best search engines, from a results perspective, is Yandex

Ask HN: Any Microsoft employees/devs here? What's happening to Microsoft?

64•thehamkercat•1d ago•34 comments

Implementing NaN Boxing in a Stack-Based VM

2•tracyspacy•6h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Anyone else seeing porn images in YouTube ad preview images?

4•OhMeadhbh•7h ago•5 comments

Ask HN: Is anyone aware of a LinkedIn mirror like xcancel.com for X?

6•danielfalbo•8h ago•4 comments

Ask HN: How do you do store-and-forward telemetry at the edge?

3•Aydarbek•8h ago•3 comments

Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2026)

166•whoishiring•5d ago•390 comments

Ask HN: How do you use 5–10 minute gaps productively?

38•pea•3d ago•51 comments

Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2026)

349•whoishiring•5d ago•313 comments

My Logitech mouse became unusable, Logi Options+ can't validate certificate

10•enescakir•15h ago•10 comments

RevisionDojo, a YC startup, is running astroturfing campaigns targeting kids?

449•red-polygon•2d ago•85 comments

Git analytics that works across GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket

3•akhnid•1d ago•1 comments

Ask HN: What's a standard way for apps to request text completion as a service?

4•nvader•2d ago•3 comments

Amazon Prime AI overviews can't even get the basics right

43•PyWoody•1d ago•13 comments

Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2026 – Show and tell

11•selmas58•17h ago•10 comments

Ask HN: Has anyone else been struggling with search lately?

27•areoform•1d ago•16 comments

Anyone building software for wearable tech?

15•ssc23•2d ago•14 comments

Ask HN: How do small teams make sure recurring tasks don't slip?

5•batels•1d ago•8 comments

ProjectCLI: The Swiss Army Knife CLI for bootstrapping any project

4•dawitworku•1d ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Reading list for being a better engineer?

43•drekipus•3d ago•15 comments

Private Operating System

6•ariatelco•1d ago•10 comments

I made a lofi page for late night work

17•onmyway133•2d ago•8 comments

Tell HN: Internet Bug Bounty (IBB) on HackerOne Appears Dead, CVEs Unpaid

8•irke882•1d ago•2 comments

Ask HN: What kind of setup do you run for your children?

7•mattwdelong•1d ago•14 comments

What do people usually do with spare Android phones? Any practical use cases?

18•AndroidShare•3d ago•21 comments

Ask HN: What's the future of software testing and QA?

23•sjgeek•3d ago•18 comments

Ask HN: What did you learn in 2025?

19•kiernanmcgowan•4d ago•8 comments

Tell HN: I'm having the worst career winter of my life

98•mariogintili•5d ago•126 comments

Ask HN: Are you missing daily email alerts from HN?

9•unknownhad•2d ago•7 comments

Ask HN: How is your work making the world a better place?

16•AbstractH24•2d ago•17 comments

Ask HN: What's the best talk you've watched?

21•barddoo•1d ago•14 comments