With ad monetization, search engines have an incentive for you to click on ads. This makes it less likely that you find the highest quality information for your needs.
In what ways is your experience degraded? You may click on an ad result at the top of the page, while the more useful result is somewhere down below. You may become constantly frustrated by having to scroll past ads that are dominating huge portions of search result pages.
But the problem goes beyond whether or not ads are present at the top of the page. Ad-monetized search engines may hesitate to present organic, non-ad-based results in ways that are easy for you to digest -- doing so might make it less likely that you click on an ad result! For example, if you're doing a shopping query, say for "best air purifiers", the search engine may hesitate to show you an easy-to-use UI with expert reviews, price history, and different possible air purifier feature sets. Showing such a "flashy UI" will make it less likely that you engage with ad results.
At Neeva, we're trying to bring you the highest quality information for your needs, no longer held back by ads. We want to present this information to you in easily digestible and transparent ways. And we want to give you more control over your search results with personalization.
I think it's just another monetization model and another competitor overall in the space.
If you like the privacy of DDG but really don't like ads, you can pay Neeva a monthly fee for a similar experience.
Doesn't have to be winner-take-all - there's enough space in the market for both models to do well, and more competition will keep each of them honest in their value props to users.
Another interesting difference (that I personally find to be one of the best features in Neeva) is the ability to connect apps. You can then search not only the public web, but also private data from your Slack, Github, Gdrive, Jira (etc) accounts. We're hard at work adding more integrations in the near future as well.
Is there plans for students? (I guess you might not have any inputs on the pricing model)
Students (especially CSstudents) being exposed to this ahead will probably help them in and these are the kind of demographics that would pay for a search engine.
In what ways is your experience degraded? You may click on an ad result at the top of the page, while the more useful result is somewhere down below. You may become constantly frustrated by having to scroll past ads that are dominating huge portions of search result pages.
But the problem goes beyond whether or not ads are present at the top of the page. Ad-monetized search engines may hesitate to present organic, non-ad-based results in ways that are easy for you to digest -- doing so might make it less likely that you click on an ad result! For example, if you're doing a shopping query, say for "best air purifiers", the search engine may hesitate to show you an easy-to-use UI with expert reviews, price history, and different possible air purifier feature sets. Showing such a "flashy UI" will make it less likely that you engage with ad results.
At Neeva, we're trying to bring you the highest quality information for your needs, no longer held back by ads. We want to present this information to you in easily digestible and transparent ways. And we want to give you more control over your search results with personalization.
Disclaimer: I'm a Neeva engineer.