[tastyminerals2]

Kagi once returned nothing for one of my searches. I didn't anticipate that and decided to go to Bing. Bing returned many results but none of them was relevant. This is what any decent search engine should do -- return nothing, if you query is bad or too specific.

[chefandy]

I used to get no results all the time, and it was very useful! Unfortunately, that seems to be happening less frequently for me. In verbatim mode with personalized results off, I noticed Kagi not respecting quotes for phrases. Google will ignore my search parameters intended to reduce results for free, so... :-/

[bluish29]

If you have specific examples, I think kagi team would like to hear about, I would suggest that you open post them in support website [1] and I'm sure they will look into the details.

[1] https://kagifeedback.org/

[wpm]

Yeah more and more Kagi seems to be trying to give me the same trash results Google did while ignoring parts of my search parameters.

I have never asked for or even wanted "personalized" results, because on Kagi and everywhere else, personalized is shorthand for "very very poor guesses". It's very frustrating.

[J_Shelby_J]

Noooooo, you’re breaking my heart.

[wofo]

As a recent paid user of Kagi, this is one of the things I love!

[stavros]

Why? I have a higher chance of finding what I want if it returns something than if it returns nothing.

[ulrikrasmussen]

Not if there literally is nothing that matches your query. There is a tendency for services to be scared of ever returning nothing, and instead they will return things that they think are related to your query but really aren't.

Example: If you search for a specific movie title on Netflix but they don't have it, then they will give you a list of movies that they think are similar to the one you searched for. That is because their database actually knows about the movie and therefore can find links to other vaguely related stuff, e.g. movies made by the same director, with a similar theme, etc. But if I search for a specific title, then none of this is what I want, and I don't want to spend the extra 10-20 seconds scrolling through the list to realize that they actually don't have what I want. This is clearly a search experience which is optimized for maximizing engagement rather than user experience because a small minority will end up watching something from the garbage results while the majority will waste their time and be burdened by extra cognitive load. Shareholders are happy, users suffer.

[eitland]

No. It is the single most important reason why I pay for Kagi.

It seems to me "everyone" think it is always about privacy or features or something.

But the main thing that keeps me on Kagi is the results. They seem to have most relevant results and few irrelevant results and if I decide to be specific using doublequotes I get no irrelevant results wrt that word. (And if you find one it is a bug and will be dealt with.)

I have lost enough hours of my life clicking through Google or Bing results that maybe has something relevant to my search.

Edit: I have been beating this drum since matt_cutts was in Google and used to frequent HN and so I think it is relatively clear that Google does not care about the quality of the search results.

[elaus]

If nothing is returned, I can reword my query instead of reading through pages of irrelevant search results.

[Etheryte]

Returning random unrelated garbage does not mean you have a higher chance of finding what you're looking for, it just means you're going to waste time sifting through useless noise.

[bayindirh]

A decent library returns nothing if you ask something absurd. A decent professor nudges you to the correct path if you're wrong on your reasoning.

A decent search engine should do the same, be able to tell that you're doing something wrong, and do better if you want some answers.

If we balk at AI when it hallucinates, we should balk at search engines when they hallucinate, too.

Kagi does the correct thing, IMHO.

[noitpmeder]

No data is better than bad data

[frereubu]

You also have a higher chance of wasting a great deal of time combing through useless results when no clear answer exists for your query.

[Zambyte]

You have a higher chance of finding something. I think you actually have a lower chance of finding what you want if it returns irrelevant results, because then you have to spend time manually evaluate and decide that the results are irrelevant before making another query.

[declaredapple]

> if you query is bad or too specific.

Then it should suggest a better one and then evaluate the query anyway.

> This is what any decent search engine should do -- return nothing

WHY?! That's the opposite of it's job!

I have an account with a username that is spelled very similarly to a real word. Google will suggest searching for the real word instead. If you do that though, you'll never find the username!

I'm tired of people saying the computer should not do what I tell it to. It's like children who won't even attempt a multiple choice test because they aren't 100% sure

[PenguinCoder]

> Then it should suggest a better one and then evaluate the query anyway.

No the hell not. It should do what I tell it to. For a search engine that is to show me what it has about the query I input. If that is nothing, that's what it should show. It should not show me entirely unrelated results, ads, or what it "think" I meant. Not its job.

[rsoto]

I feel like you're arguing against yourself.

[mrweasel]

>> if you query is bad or too specific.

> Then it should suggest a better one and then evaluate the query anyway.

Google does this, and they suck at it, unless you just spelled a word wrong. Do a niche or very specific query, for which Google has no answer and it will, without fail, remove the most relevant keyword and give you a bunch of junk results.

[Zambyte]

> I'm tired of people saying the computer should not do what I tell it to.

Like search for things you did not search for...?

[kemotep]

Have you never copied and pasted an error code into Google and have it return zero or only 1 or 2 results?

It’s terrible but far better than getting 100’s of irrelevant results because Google decided two words out of 10 in your query were the only ones that matter.

[tastyminerals2]

You are confusing search and text generation.

[datadrivenangel]

Google will still do this if you search a gnarly enough string. I do prefer the Kagi interface though.

[tauntz]

> This is what any decent search engine should do -- return nothing, if you query is bad or too specific.

Yes but there's a >0% chance that you'll click on a potentially sponsored link (or a non-sponsored link to a page that itself contains ads) when you instead see a bunch of unrelated results. It makes financial sense to show random results vs not showing anything.

[miyuru]

Do they charge for empty searches? If they charge for it, I agree at least something should be returned.

[vlz]

Why? If it isn't relevant, you gain nothing. The information that nothing was found might even be better for you than "something".

[megamalloc]

I strongly disagree on this. If a search with no results costs them about the same amount of compute as one with results, then satisfying that requirement would give them a commercial incentive to lie to you about whether they have any good results for you, and to waste your time scrolling through bad results. Your time doing so is almost certainly worth more than what the search itself cost you.