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Google isn't the top choice because it is the best. It's because it has the most brand awareness. It doesn't always land me on the best result by any means. I'm sorry but that statement really grated me the wrong way. There are many more times when I land on the right site based on a search within DDG where google failed terribly. Google didn't sucked because AltaVista sucked. What sort of analysis is this?

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I have found (and know several who agree with me) that Google search quality seems to have taken a dive in recent times. It's almost like instead of just searching, it makes assumptions about my purpose for searching and funnels results according to that assumption. If one of my search terms aligns with a current film, it assumes I want show times. If I search for a city, it assumes that I want to book travel there. Ditto for essentially every search I do.

If it guesses my purpose correctly, it feels almost like magic. But it's wrong more often than not.

However, let's not be revisionist. Back in the day, Google was light-years ahead of anything else I had used.

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