I'm curious: what is your use-case for a search engine that justifies Kagi over free search engines? Are you not finding your results on page one, first try, with other engines?
I grew up in the 90s, in the fourth grade we spent a whole week learning how to effectively use search engines and what research even is. So I have some pretty solid opinions on what makes a functional search engine.
A good search engine shows you the results for exactly the query you entered. A good search engine does not discard your entire query to show you what it thinks you meant.
A good search engine supports and respects modifiers and advanced queries: AND, OR, NOT, quoted strings, plus and minus. It gives you advanced parameters like publish/retreival date, categories, origin.
If there are no results for your exact, specific query, a good search engine shows you zero results. A good search engine does not waste your time with literally infinite fake results tangentially related to what the engine decided you meant instead of honoring your query.
I gleefully pay for Kagi because it's a good search engine. It does all the things a good search engine should do. It does not do the things that bad search engines do. Kagi has put great effort into designing a search engine that maximises your ability to find the thing you're looking for.
Because I pay Kagi with cold hard cash, I do not have to instead pay Kagi by consuming thousands of fake "sponsored" search results. I enter a query, and Kagi gives me precisely the results for that query and nothing more. It's really that simple. I pay for Kagi because it's a good search engine, and most other search engines are not good.
Google isn't even a search engine anymore. It's a heuristic ad delivery mechanism that happens to also surface indexed web content. Your query is a suggestion and is usually disregarded completely and replaced with a more lucrative query. Google hasn't supported advanced search in over a decade. No plus or minus or quoted strings make any difference.
I heartily encourage you to learn about search engines and try one. I doubt very strongly that you've ever used a proper search engine. You've most likely only engaged with heuristic ad machines before. Try a search engine, you'll never want to go back.
For what it's worth I find about the same things using Kagi as I do using DuckDuckGo. But with Kagi I get to pay for the service I use and that's their funding model and that's very healthy so I want to support that.
I'm also REALLY happy to see that you can actively disable not just adds but also suggestions to install tools/apps and newsletter requests. Thank you!
This is constantly the case, anytime I Google something more obscure than the front page of a top 50 website.
Even when Google gets it right (often they don't) I have to wade through a bunch of AI slop and countless ads. After that, it's dozens of SEO referral link sites trying to sell me garbage.
Kagi gives me better results by default, no ads, and I can customize results by prioritizing or blocking different domains. Very much worth the small price.
A good search engine shows you the results for exactly the query you entered. A good search engine does not discard your entire query to show you what it thinks you meant.
A good search engine supports and respects modifiers and advanced queries: AND, OR, NOT, quoted strings, plus and minus. It gives you advanced parameters like publish/retreival date, categories, origin.
If there are no results for your exact, specific query, a good search engine shows you zero results. A good search engine does not waste your time with literally infinite fake results tangentially related to what the engine decided you meant instead of honoring your query.
I gleefully pay for Kagi because it's a good search engine. It does all the things a good search engine should do. It does not do the things that bad search engines do. Kagi has put great effort into designing a search engine that maximises your ability to find the thing you're looking for.
Because I pay Kagi with cold hard cash, I do not have to instead pay Kagi by consuming thousands of fake "sponsored" search results. I enter a query, and Kagi gives me precisely the results for that query and nothing more. It's really that simple. I pay for Kagi because it's a good search engine, and most other search engines are not good.
Google isn't even a search engine anymore. It's a heuristic ad delivery mechanism that happens to also surface indexed web content. Your query is a suggestion and is usually disregarded completely and replaced with a more lucrative query. Google hasn't supported advanced search in over a decade. No plus or minus or quoted strings make any difference.
I heartily encourage you to learn about search engines and try one. I doubt very strongly that you've ever used a proper search engine. You've most likely only engaged with heuristic ad machines before. Try a search engine, you'll never want to go back.