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A New Google
by
Seth King
https://dcgross.com/a-new-google
[TL;DR: Google has gotten bad; we all know it; ideas for a startup making a better Google.]
I'm currently working on something related.
It's called https://bestlist.com, and we're focusing solely on helping users discover the best of anything.
We just soft launched our beta, and we're currently focused on software and services, but we plan on branching out into other categories soon.
Nice one!!
Thank you!
This is great.
How do you monetize it?
Thank you! Eventually minimal ads that relate to the search query.
There are already a few new alternatives to Google:
yep.com is interesting, but the results are far off
Definitely. My favourite by far is Brave search. They use their own index and I think their vision is spot on. I've tried DuckDuckGo but have never been able to stick with it for more than a few days. I switched to Brave search about five months ago and have no desire to switch back because the results are usually better.
Btw, I have no affiliation with Brave. I just really like their new search engine.
I always end up using !g for all of my Brave searches. :/
I'll spend some time with Brave search, I haven't used much yet
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
Wasn't suggesting it was a reason not to try. Just showing some currently working alternatives.
I think this opens up the door for industry specific versions of google. It would be much easier to index the sites of a single niche, then google can index that index. Kind of how we all go to google to find a programming answer on stackoverflow. Good luck regardless!
The author makes a good point, Google as a search engine is too manipulated. I'm adding reddit or wikipedia to the end of my search most of the time these days.
I wouldn't recommend taking on a giant tho. easier to have a product like this be specific as @AmazonFBAKing mentions (indirectly) below me.
The more options we have the better. It also makes searching more inclusive, especially to those who doesn't like using Google.
it's a great cause, and i will keep an eye on this company
When things get big they get lazy.
I'm all for changing/challenging the status quo.
I think there's something here with raycast... skip the search engine if possible. I started using duckduckgo, and I like it for most searches, but the image index is very bad compared to google.
I mean, I agree there is a scope for alternatives but your example about adding modifiers can also be thought of as a feature.
Think of it this way. If you were building a product from scratch, you could pitch this as a 'better google search' where users can simple add the sites they specifically want searched. :D
I'm working on something that's a bit adjacent to this at https://www.diva.so. In our mind's it's kinda like the next evolution of search since it can 1) search on personal data in a privacy ensuring method and 2) Do a form of predictive contextual search where we automatically send queries and send results based on what you are working on (mainly through the current browser window). Would love any feedback!
In terms of more ideas related to google search I liked the a16z article about "boutique" search
https://future.com/the-future-of-search-is-boutique/
interesting. actually i like google and i think if you know how to handle it, it can still be super strong, even though it just redirects to other websites.. but doesnt every search engine do that?
DG wrote this a few years back now, I do agree generally that it needs fixing but it's a huge challenge. There's a bunch of alternatives but I feel that whilst the results might be 'cleaner' they still struggle to out perform Google. In a way I wonder if yep.com (new, from ahrefs) might be an interesting challenger as they've been crawling the web for ages now, and startpage.com is pretty decent.
yep is really really slow unfortunately
that's a shame. I heard on techcrunch that they've invested like $60m of their own cash reserves in building all their own infrastructure for it- maybe that's a mistake! Though I do see the logic
I've been looking into doing something similar for a while now...
For people who didn't read, seems like Google works by noticing your query and then suggesting sites that can help improve your query results.
For example, if you type in an e-commerce product, it assume you are going to look for reddit or amazon to find it. But it doesn't do this for everything, so there is an opportunity to add association specific to certain niches.