Kagi has quickly grown into something of a household name within tech circles. From Hacker News and Lobsters to Reddit, the search provider seems to attract near-universal praise. Whenever the topic of search engines comes up, there’s an almost ritual rush to be the first to recommend Kagi, often followed by a chorus of replies echoing the endorsement.
one detail that’s often glossed over is that Kagi primarily functions as a middleman between you and other search engines, like Google. In other words, it’s what we call a metasearch engine.
Yeah, I’ve known this. I’m… ajdlfjk about it.
What it can do, however, is make content less visible or harder to find, based on the criteria it uses to filter and rank results from its sources.
Aaaand this is kinda the secret sauce. While the starting material is what you get in other places, Kagi allows you to improve it with your own rankings and filters on top. For example, every time I find an AI slop review website, I immediately downrank it in my results. I also uprank trusted sites. This at least tilts the scales in my favor when searching, instead of accepting what Google wants me to see.
But, yeah, I agree Kagi is not discovering new material not known to Google, but it does have a higher chance of surfacing it.
it’s not fundamentally different from what other search providers are already doing.
I haven’t compared search engine features in a bit. Maybe it’s time.
Yeah, I’ve known this. I’m… ajdlfjk about it.
Aaaand this is kinda the secret sauce. While the starting material is what you get in other places, Kagi allows you to improve it with your own rankings and filters on top. For example, every time I find an AI slop review website, I immediately downrank it in my results. I also uprank trusted sites. This at least tilts the scales in my favor when searching, instead of accepting what Google wants me to see.
But, yeah, I agree Kagi is not discovering new material not known to Google, but it does have a higher chance of surfacing it.
I haven’t compared search engine features in a bit. Maybe it’s time.
OK, I will.