Well that makes sense, but I wanted to push against the result that the OP seems to take away from their test, which was that Marginalia seems to work well for the common user.
I have a suggestion for the “About” section at the top of Marginalia’s landing page. I think it would read better like this:
> This is an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of [instead] of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed.
Showing one thing “in favor of” another seems contradictory in this case.