Comment by mrweasel

I've used DDG since, 2012, and switched to Ecosia about three years ago. In my experience if DDG or Ecosia can't find something, then neither can Google. In some cases I still check with !g, but Google is now worse than both DDG and Ecosia (which is funny because Ecosia partially uses Google).

It may be related to which type of content you search for, field of work or even how you search, but you're certainly not the only one I've heard complain that they need !g way to often for alternatives to be viable.

Google is very good is you need to buy something though. Their ad system yields rather good results, most of the time. Lately I've noticed that they are more and more serving ads for questionable drop shippers and foreign webshops, rather than brands I trust, so they might also be declining in that department.