why i stopped using google search in 2024, and what i use instead

seo · 2024-08-15 · 5 min

i used google for everything for fifteen years. not out of loyalty. out of habit. it was the address bar, it was the answer, and for most of that time it was good enough that i never thought about it.

in 2024 i stopped. not as a protest, and not because i think google is evil. i stopped because the results got worse for the kinds of searches i actually do, and because i finally had alternatives that were better for those searches. this is the honest version of that switch, including the places where i still open google first.

the break point

the break point was a specific error message. a rust compiler error with a lifetime and an async block. i pasted it into google and got ten pages of seo content about "rust lifetimes explained", a youtube video, and three ads. the actual answer was on a github issue and a stack overflow thread, both on page two. i found them by adding site:github.com and site:stackoverflow.com.

that was the moment. not because google could not find the answer, but because it chose not to show it first. the page was optimized for a query that looked like mine, not for the problem behind it. i had to outsmart the search engine to do my job.

what i replaced it with

not one thing. a small stack, each part for a different job.

kagi for the searches that matter. it is paid, which is the point. the results are ranked for me, i can raise or lower domains, and there are no ads. it is not free and it is not for everyone, but for work searches it is the closest thing to the old google i have found.

duckduckgo for the quick ones. weather, definitions, a news headline, a conversion. the privacy is a bonus. the speed is the reason. it still falls back to bing for the narrow queries, which is why it is not my only engine. i wrote about that in why duckduckgo still falls back to bing.

brave for the privacy-sensitive ones. medical questions, anything with a personal name, anything i do not want in a profile. the index is independent, the results are decent, and the browser is a reasonable default when i do not want to think about it.

direct search for the ones with a known home. documentation, github, stack overflow, wikipedia, a specific blog. if i know where the answer lives, i go there. this is the biggest change, and it has nothing to do with a search engine. it is a change in habit.

a local searxng instance for the long tail. a private front end that queries several engines and shows me which one returned what. it is maintenance, and i would not recommend it to everyone, but it is useful when i want to see the disagreement between indexes.

where google still wins

maps and local. nothing else is close. if i need to know what is open, how far it is, and what people say about it, i open google maps.

shopping. product listings, prices, availability. the index is the product, and the product is good.

fresh news. for something that happened in the last hour, google is still the fastest way to find the three outlets that have it.

"did you mean". the spelling correction is still the best in the business. when i typo a name, google fixes it before i notice.

very specific error messages with no known home. when i do not know whether the answer is on github, a forum, or a vendor page, google's coverage is still the widest. i use it as a last resort, not a first.

what i learned

the lesson is not "google is bad". the lesson is that a general search engine is optimized for the average query, and my work queries are not average. the more specific the question, the more the average answer fails.

the second lesson is that the alternative is not a different engine. it is a different habit. the biggest improvement came from going directly to the source, not from finding a better list of sources.

if you are thinking about switching, do not start by deleting google. start by noticing which searches make you sigh. those are the ones to move first. the rest can stay.

for the seo side of the same shift, see google changed again in 2024. for the privacy side, see what this site actually sends.