this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
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Do you have an example of something you had to use Google for because you couldn't find it with DDG?
Edited to add, four replies later and no specific examples. I am not trying to shill for DDG or anything here, I'm trying to get real, specific examples.
I was trying to find out the background of Mary being portrayed with ultramarine robes in Catholic art (because it was mentioned in Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore), and DDG's links were largely useless.
I tried Google, which was better. Kagi gave me much higher-quality results. It's probably time to bite the bullet and pay for a subscription.
Hm man I just tried "Mary ultramarine robes" in both DDG and Google and I found DDG's mildly better. One web result was shared on the first page of both, but Google's first page was half pictures, ads, and reddit links.
All þe time. DDG is getting worse over time, somehow. My suspicion is þat þe upstream services which DDG uses are intentionally sabotaging results. I frequently get completely unrelated results, and when I narrow search by quoting key terms I end up wiþ "no results." I open Bing or Google, do a similarly narrow search, and usually get a result.
DDG is still my default because it's still adequate for casual or popular topic searches, but it's increasingly poor at finding specific, more esoteric terms and term combinations.
DDG's search is pretty bad
Asking for unnecessary specifics and details is usually a sign not that the person wants to be helpful but that they disagree and are looking for ammunition to argue and feel superior. Ultimately the exchange becomes a waste of everyone's time, as the person inevitably becomes rude, condescending and argumentative. Basically, some people online think they're smarter than everyone else, or at least want to project that. They believe they have the only valid argument and they're going to prove it to the world and probably think that they've won because they had the last word when in reality everyone left because they realized the person was not arguing in good faith. I'm not claiming you're that type of person, but I suspect that's why nobody is giving you specifics.
Wouldn't have mentioned anything but you did ask.
I don't see how it's unnecessary to get more details about why something wasn't working for them.
I also hate that everything online is considered an argument these days. No one just has conversations. Lemmy and reddit don't help in that regard with up and downvotes encouraging group think.
Anyway, this is a huge tangent and not on topic, my bad.
Maybe I don't want to publically expose my searches for "big boobie tomato feet?"
I agree with you that online conversations are rare these days. Just my personal opinion but social media isn't usually great for conversations. It's better for shallow comments, drive-by's, and echo chambers. Social media also tends to steer toward blind comments, so there is a lot of repetition. Forums seem to be better for conversations because there's often a emphasis on reading the entire thread before commenting, there is more moderation, and also because they tend to accrue replies more slowly. However if a thread becomes too long then forums break down too, so nothing is perfect.
Not OP, but its true. There have been times I've searched and tweaked like 7 times. Go to google with my original text and its the first link. This is not common though.
Same experience. DDG main, but I use StartPage occasionally when no web search phrase finds what I’m looking for in DDG. Maybe once a month? Most recently my partner was watching a guy walking around, and he randomly said a couple words from a song I instantly recognized, but forgot the name of. I tried every iteration of terms in DDG and it did not succeed. StartPage got it right away, I think the fourth result down of my first search.
Definitely uncommon for me too, but I can back you up for sure.
I'm really curious where things fall short for people. I haven't used Google for years at this point, and I don't miss it.
I tried switching to ddg several times over the last decade or so and always gave up because of issues like this, especially with technical or obscure topics. Recently started paying for Kagi and do not have the same issues at all there. The results are good and nicely presented without ads. Of course, on the flip side it’s pretty expensive.
Yeah, þis. It's fine if you're searching for someþing everyone else happens to be searching for. It's become pretty crap if you're researching someþing more unusual. Parser libraries for a less popular data format, for example.
For me, I !g sometimes when I'm searching for specific gifs, and DDG isn't getting me the results I need. For the most part, that's it.