[willvarfar]

I desperately want the kind of success we used to have searching on google back over a decade ago. Relevant results. A few annoying ads started appearing with paid placement, but we all ignored them.

Nowadays google search results are so cluttered with paid promotion that the genuine content creating websites and blogs are drowned. So we turn to AI not because it's better than the old straightforward search, but because it is better and currently less ad-laden than the current search?

[BizarroLand]

And because of Googles search system, almost every result comes from a content farm or some other page that has "optimized for google search" i.e., filled their pages with so much pointless dreck that finding the information you came for becomes nearly impossible.

LLMs that are trained off of that dreck give you the answer you were looking for (sometimes, when they don't make it up).

And they've gotten to the point where they do so more quickly than trying to find it yourself in many cases, but I would much rather websites and search results being faithful stewards of the functions they are intended for and to get the information from the tap rather than having an AI butler deliver it to me.

[thesuitonym]

Ads are coming to AI, too. At the risk of sounding like a shill, Kagi offers a better search experience than even Google back in the day.

[EA-3167]

Part of the issue is the search tech itself, but part of the issue is how the web has been warped by SEO. Search and what was being discovered weren’t always in such an adversarial relationship.

For me though the closest I can get to the good old days is Kagi. Not a sponsor.

[willvarfar]

It's also that Google brought Doubleclick and that completely flipped their incentives. Now they get money sending you to the content farms and what is good for their business isn't necessarily aligned with what is good for you...?

[soundworlds]

Try Kagi - it is literally the search experience you are talking about. I've been using it for 6 months, and will use it for majority of searches. The only time I need AI "search" is for follow-up questions.