u/Nox21125

Made this quick lil video mainly to talk about some of the flaws with Google and propose an alternative, my own search engine. But I posted it here because I wanna know what you guys think about Google's current state.

IMO, the only reason Google isn't dead is because most people don't really understand what's going on behind the results. A lot of people who grew up with Google just see it as the search engine without thinking about the amount of tracking, personalization, ads, SEO manipulation, AI-generated content, and a boat load of other stuff influencing what they actually see.

I don't really use AI Overviews that much, but I find it funny that Google, 2 years ago, said "Look at some of the new ways AI in Search can do the hard work so you don’t have to."

They showed off a bunch of features like simplifying overviews, breaking them down, making meal plans, using Maps, etc.

The way they presented it made it seem like these were things that were being implemented into Search, or were going to be pretty soon.

But if you look at AI Overviews right now, basically all of the features they showed off still aren't there.

At the end of the video, they also said "Features simulated." So they just told 200 thousand people that these were the new ways AI can search, but then never added those features.

The biggest sites just keep getting bigger. A site that already has tons of backlinks, traffic, and authority gets a huge advantage, even when a smaller site might actually have a better answer.

I understand why search engines work this way. Using authority signals helps prevent low-quality pages from ranking, but it also means a lot of smaller, high-quality sites probably never get discovered.

Kagi's Smol Web initiative is an interesting experiment around this. I'm not sure how far search engines should go with boosting smaller websites though.

At what point does giving smaller sites more visibility become worth the tradeoff of potentially worse results?

https://preview.redd.it/aoj7h5ndu7dh1.png?width=1798&format=png&auto=webp&s=5c70ca8345b8d0baac5e5b5252eec4eccc4297db

For the past year, I've been building Slick, an independent search engine focused on privacy, speed, and giving users much more control over how search works.

One thing that's always bothered me about modern search engines is that they expect everyone to search the same way. The ranking algorithm, the layout, and even features like AI overviews are decisions made for you. If you don't like them, there's usually not much you can do.

I wanted to build something different. Like the "Vivaldi" of search.

Instead of trying to beat Google at being Google, I've been focusing on making search customizable. The goal is to let people shape their own search experience instead of forcing everyone into a single way of searching.

Right now, Slick includes things like custom ranking (similar to Kagi), Recipes inspired by Brave Goggles, custom bangs, custom CSS, layout customization, and an index switcher.

The index switcher is probably my favorite feature. It lets you switch between Slick's growing independent index and DuckDuckGo results with a single click. I originally added it because my own index was still growing, but I've ended up liking it because it gives people another choice instead of locking them into a single source of results.

Building a search engine has easily been the hardest project I've worked on. Crawling, indexing, ranking, spam detection, and keeping results relevant are all difficult problems, especially as a solo developer. There's still a long way to go, but it's reached the point where I'm comfortable sharing it and getting feedback.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts on the search experience, UI, performance, or features you'd like to see added.

https://slicksearchhq.com

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Hey r/searchengines, I'm back! Missed me? Probably not.

It's been over 3 months since I announced Slick, my independent search engine focused on privacy, speed, and clean results, and I have a major update.

The goal with Slick has changed a bit since I first started building it, but I've always focused on one thing: building a search experience that adapts to the user, not the other way around.

After months of improving the engine, I've decided Slick is finally ready for a wider public launch with all of the new features I've been working on.

You might (not) be wondering why I'm calling Slick the "world's most customizable" search engine. Over time I've added many settings and controls that let users define their own search experience, and I'm planning to continue expanding customization based on what users actually want.

Some of the features include Custom Ranking (similar to Kagi), Recipes (similar to Brave Goggles), Custom CSS, Custom Bangs, layout adjustments, and most importantly, an Index Switcher.

The Index Switcher lets you switch between Slick's own index and DuckDuckGo results. The DuckDuckGo option can be more prone to rate limiting, which is why I'm planning to move this option to the Brave API in the future.

I added this feature for two reasons: user control, and because Slick's index is still growing.

Slick's index has come a long way, but there is still room to improve. The long-term goal is to continue expanding it and eventually compete with other independent indexes like Brave, Ecosia, and Mojeek.

The link is below if you want to try it out and explore all of what Slick has to offer. I'd especially love feedback on search quality, ranking, and anything that feels missing. If you enjoy Slick and want to follow the launch, the Product Hunt page is now live.

Website: https://slicksearchhq.com
Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/products/slick-7
Overview video:

https://reddit.com/link/1usa9cw/video/5e3tvco9uach1/player

I've been thinking about customizability in search engines lately. Google has good results but is full of ads and tracking. Other engines like Startpage are private but have minimal customization options. Kagi is probably the only commercial search engine that has lots of customization features, "giving users control".

I'm curious how much people actually care about customizability in one. Customizability such as tweaking filters, shortcuts, result layouts, custom ranking, etc.

For me it's pretty high, maybe an 9 out of 10. Good results, speed, and privacy come first of course, but if I don't like a feature and can't remove it (cough... AI overviews) then its a dealbreaker for me.

How much do you care? 1-10 and why? What tweaks would make you switch? Ever left one because it was too locked down?

Appreciate any thoughts.

I've been thinking about customizability in search engines lately. Google has good results but is full of ads and tracking. Other engines like Startpage are private but have minimal customization options. Kagi is probably the only commercial search engine that has lots of customization features, "giving users control".

I'm curious how much people actually care about customizability in one. Customizability such as tweaking filters, shortcuts, result layouts, custom ranking, etc.

For me it's pretty high, maybe an 9 out of 10. Good results, speed, and privacy come first of course, but if I don't like a feature and can't remove it (cough... AI overviews) then its a dealbreaker for me.

How much do you care? 1-10 and why? What tweaks would make you switch? Ever left one because it was too locked down?

Appreciate any thoughts.

Custom bang manager in Slick. Accessible through the settings button in the top right corner of the homepage.

One of my favorite features from DuckDuckGo has always been !Bangs. The only issue I had with them though was customizability. DuckDuckGo doesn’t really have an easy built-in way to add your own bangs.

I tried finding workarounds using browser keyword shortcuts and other tools/sites, but all of it felt too tedious or slower than it should be.

So while working on my search engine project, Slick, I ended up building a custom bang system directly into it.

Since the bang mappings are resolved locally instead of being fetched from a server, they’re noticeably faster than regular bang redirects. Even the normal bangs that aren't local feel slightly faster than DuckDuckGo’s.

So even if my search engine doesn’t always bring up the best results, the bangs kind of make up for it.

I also wrote a short blog post explaining how the system works: https://blog.slicksearchhq.com/post/custom-bangs-and-custom-ranking-in-slick

Slick: https://slicksearchhq.com/

Custom bang manager in Slick. Accessible through the settings button in the top right corner of the homepage.

DuckDuckGo Bangs are a really useful feature that comes with DuckDuckGo's search engine. One issue I always had with them though was customizability. DuckDuckGo doesn't really have an easy way to add your own bangs.

I tried finding workarounds using other sites or even just built in browser keyword shortcuts, but all of that felt too tedious or slow.

So while working on my search engine project, Slick, I ended up building a custom bang system into it.

Since the bang mappings are resolved locally instead of being fetched from a server, they are noticeably faster than regular bang redirects. Even the regular bangs are slightly faster than DuckDuckGo's.

So even if my search engine doesn't always bring up the best results, the bangs kind of make up for it.

I also wrote a short blog post explaining how the system works:
https://blog.slicksearchhq.com/post/custom-bangs-and-custom-ranking-in-slick

Slick:
https://slicksearchhq.com/

oh and !d is for duckduckgo btw.

I published a ranking progress update for Slick, the private search engine I’ve been working on.

One thing that became obvious while building ranking is how different query types fail in completely different ways.

Navigational queries usually fail because the engine understands the topic, but picks the wrong page on the right domain.

Definitional queries fail because token overlap can overpower actual intent.

Broad explainer queries fail because multiple pages look semantically correct even when they are answering slightly different questions.

The ranking system started as a single-stage score, then moved toward hybrid retrieval + reranking. Current ranking uses lexical and dense recall with fusion, followed by cross-encoder reranking and heuristic blending.

Some examples from the benchmark suite:

• apple now consistently returns the homepage instead of product/search pages
• stackoverflow no longer ranks dataset mirrors above the official site
• what is artificial intelligence shifted away from biography-style matches toward direct explanations

There are still obvious weak spots:

• locale/subdomain selection (facebook, twitter)
• semantic drift on explainer queries
• weak local search without geo/user signals
• comparison queries like react vs vue

I also published frozen benchmark dumps and ranking comparisons across versions instead of only showing final results.

Full write-up:
https://blog.slicksearchhq.com/post/slick-ranking-progress-update-fri-may-15-2026

Benchmark repo:
https://github.com/SlickSearch/Slick-Statistics

I thought the hardest part of building a search engine would be ranking.

After working on one, I think crawling is actually harder.

Ranking only works if your data is good. When you start crawling, a lot of what you find is low-quality or repetitive. If that ends up in your index, ranking does not really fix the problem.

So crawling becomes less about "collect pages" and more about decisions like:

• what to include
• what to ignore
• what to prioritize

For a smaller search engine, this matters even more because you don't have the luxury of indexing everything and sorting it later.

Curious how other people think about this: crawling or ranking?

Full write-up: https://blog.slicksearchhq.com/post/the-hardest-part-of-search-isnt-ranking-its-crawling