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I have experienced this, too. I know there are articles on a topic and then both G. and DDG give poor results-- Or structured results. And I have not seen any articles that address this shift. Our users may not realize this..or even remember that it was once otherwise. Excellent topic that needs exploration and--if I get time--some examples. Or perhaps others here have examples.

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Jun 9, 2022·edited Jun 9, 2022Author

This is the type of topic our profession used to discuss but doesn't seem to anymore.

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I know. We did once but the focus on book banning has overpowered observations about search engine results. I think we could have both.

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I wonder if a new "Patriot Act" came along-- would the profession fight it?

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Good question. I have been unable to get anyone interested in the Censorship Industrial Complex:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4XyIA3XqS8

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I've been using Brave and DDG as my primary search engines for personal use for quite some time though I don't think they are any better at search then Google. In some cases, they are worse, but the privacy trade-offs count here. One thing that I had never considered was using boredom as a criteria, but you're absolutely right, Google results are boring. Content farms are so good at SEO that the algorithm and it's stewards can't compete.

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I use Brave for privacy reasons as well if I am doing something beyond searching for directions or looking up the weather, but you are right, I don't find the results all that great and they are probably worse than Google. Back in the day Google used to offer up a lot more interesting links, it seems to me.

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