What Happens When You Ditch Google?
Duck Duck Go, Blekko, Wolfram Alpha and a Better Search Engine
I am a casual user of Facebook. I check in occasionally so I can have an informed conversation with my wife about the days happenings among our friends and acquaintances. But the experience kind of drives me crazy.
What made me so mad was the Top Stories feature of the News Feed. Why was I getting the same stories over and over? Why was I not seeing the updates from certain friends but never missed the updates from a small number of friends. Sometimes I felt I was in a “Groundhog Day” scenario I couldn’t get out of. Then I discovered that I could switch off of the Top Stories preference to the Most Recent one. Ah, that was better. I felt like I was having a more organic experience with Facebook instead of a force feed/over personalized one that didn’t satisfy at all.
I am afraid that my search engine experience, primarily with Google, is treating me the same way. Personalization, location, notifications, and search engine optimization is creating a search engine experience that seems less and less authentic everyday. The search I did on a topic three months ago doesn’t look the same today. That could be due to the natural update of new information but the experience seems so different that I feel like something else is going on behind the scenes. Is SEO jiggling with my results to steer me in a certain direction? Is my location setting off triggers for a certain kind of information? And we won’t even get into the ubiquitous “Elsewhere on the Web” feature that is nothing more than click bait for purposes I dread to learn about.
If Google is leaving you feeling icky, what other options are out there for accurate, relevant, and helpful search results? I could mention Bing here but many people have gone down that road and I would like to point out some search engines that many people have never heard of.
Duck Duck Go — I hadn’t heard of this search engine until the NSA hoopla last summer. Thousands began to flock to DDG because it was touted as a search engine that allowed the user to be anonymous. In other words, your search activity occurs in a vacuum with none of your previous searches and web activity affecting your current results. Also, your previous activity isn’t being fed to a laboratory where mad scientists are plotting how to get you to buy Vibram Five Fingers. The user experience isn’t really that much different than Bing or Google but you have the confidence that no tracking is taking place.
Blekko — Now this one feels different. I first encountered Blekko at a conference where they pushed their “slash the web” philosophy. I am a librarian who does searches all day but I found this slash technique to be confusing and too much work. Plus, you seemed to have to have some kind of expertise with a subject to make the slash work for you. I wrote it off as a nice try but one that will never last. Then I tried it a few months ago and was pleasantly surprised. Gone were the slashes and the forced labor of the user and in its place were well organized and appropriate categories for each topic searched. The value is in the organization as you come away from a topic with a sense of its multifaceted nature and the variety of ways to access the information. You don’t have to hope that Google is having a good search day and that the first two pages of results are what you need. Blekko groups your topic in the most appropriate categories.
Wolfram Alpha — This knowledge “engine” is better explained by trying it out. The search box page is a wonderland for information junkies.
If you are looking for the origins and background on a topic, go someplace else, but it you need specific data and facts, Wolfram Alpha is a goldmine. So much of the proper handling of information requires having the right data and Wolfram Alpha stands out as providing useful data in a variety of areas.
