[spamdotlol]

Google isn't even a competitor in the search space anymore. They've been completely unusable for a decade.

[iamacyborg]

A cursory glance at their market share in the search space clearly says that’s not true.

For a big site I help run, we’re getting about 8.2x the impressions on Google compared to Bing.

[eitland]

To interpret GP charitably I think they mean that Google is there not because they are a good search engine these days but because of inertia.

For you as a site owner, Google is the best: it delivers the impressions.

For a user who wants to search, Google has gone downhill since around 2009 and the only thing that confuse me is why DDG - who initially felt better - chose to run after Google down the path of insisting to give me results for things I didn't ask for.

(The usual answer is: "It is so much harder than in 2009 and SEO is so crazy these days, that nobody can do it, not even Google", to which I have to point out that even marginalia - run by one Swede - manages to do it in the niches it prioritizes.)

[rurp]

> the only thing that confuse me is why DDG - who initially felt better - chose to run after Google down the path of insisting to give me results for things I didn't ask for.

I have the same frustration. The killer feature that got me to switch from Google to DDG was that DDG would reliably return results for the search query I entered, long after Google had stopped doing so. Now that they've taken the same path the benefit is much less. Although I suspect this is more due to a change on the part of Bing than a conscious decision from DDG.

[wslh]

It remains a competitor as long as it continues to capture attention (eye-balls), even if its usability has diminished.

[Gualdrapo]

It remains a conmpetitor as long as it continues to be the default search engine in at least two of the most important mainsteam web browsers.

[wslh]

I believe your answer is a subset of what I just said?