Concerns regarding the amount of "rage-bait" content in Kagi search results

Nexty

This is something I've noticed ever since I started using Kagi (about 2 years ago).

If you search for any broad topics, the first page of results almost always includes something in the ballpark of "rage-bait." An article discussing something controversial, a rant blog post that is or was topical, and sometimes a straight-up crash out. Kagi seems to almost always want to surface something negative when your search query is vague.

I think it's great that Kagi tends towards surfacing more small web content, but I'm concerned that almost all of it falls into the category of negativity and being bombastic.

I don't really want to call out certain posts specifically, but here are some examples:

"Nintendo" used to give me a top result of a blog post from 2018 ranting about how much they hate the Nintendo Switch.
Any big tech company (Apple, Google, Amazon) usually yields a blog post or news article from as early as 2010 of someone ranting about this or that controversy from the year it was posted.
Technology-related topics (a web framework, a programming language, a piece of software) always include a post of someone trying to convince you "this thing is bad and you should never use it."
Searching "half-life" once gave me a forum post of someone crashing out over a geopolitical issue that happened the day prior.

It doesn't even have to be a super-recent event, as long as it was something controversial or negative. If it's an article getting "mad," Kagi loves to surface it.

The one I find the most hilarious is when I once searched "iPad," and a top result was some blog post crashing out about how much they hated people talking about them (with a healthy dose of swearing). The blog post was dated before the first iPad even came out. Is this really what I wanted to find when just searching the word "iPad"? 😆

Now I can see some value in the search working like this. If I'm looking up a broad term, I might want something topical and opinionated rather than just the Wikipedia article and home pages. It still feels like it wants to show me content that's always more negative, likely because on most platforms that's the content that would get the most attention and therefore bubble to the top of search results. Comparing Google results side by side, I don't tend to see the problem there as much. You could say Google gives me more "boring" results unless I specify, but at least it's not trying to send me rage-bait content to get mad over whenever possible.

I'm curious if other people notice the same types of results too. I do still enjoy using Kagi and it's my daily driver search engine, but the amount of negative search results it wants to surface always bugs me.

RoxyRoxyRoxy

I haven't noticed anything like this myself, curious if others have. I can say we definitely don't have some kind of negativity bias/filter haha. If I had to guess, there's simply just an outsized amount of negativity on the internet, and results just reflect that bias.

jstolarek

I've also been using Kagi for slightly over two years now and I don't think I have ever experienced anything like this. Sure, not all search results are perfect, and Kagi still doesn't filter out all the garbage perfectly, but I don't think I ever had these kinds of rage-bait results. Can you provide example queries that return such results now?

Anonymous12

This is not something I’ve observed, either.

JackFruit

I usually get whatever I am searching for within the first 2 indexed searches and I just go into that webpage, since that will be what I am looking for. But I do understand what OP means, as after scrolling down 3rd or 4th search result, these kind of articles show up. I have attached my search examples for "apple" and "amazon" and some anti- blog will spring up in 3rd or 4th result usually. I think this is what irks them ? Do not know if these results are country specific.
Only very generic searches tend to surface these kinds of articles, if you add context to your searches, it seems to be working as intended.

Kindly note that I have not tweaked any settings (lowering/increasing ranks of sites) and my account is relatively new.

Anonymous12

@JackFruit I would say these kinds of results are desired as they are “small web” blogs and things. Whether they are “rage bait” is really up to the individual I suppose.

jstolarek

I checked again by doing several searches for various companies (Apple, Amazon, Nintendo, Google, Kagi). Results for some of these searches include Small Web blog posts, and indeed some of them are negative in tone (who would've thought?). Then again, one about Kagi is a positive one :-) But more importantly, what I am seeing is that all the small web posts are new - 2-3 weeks old - so indeed it looks like Kagi is simply promoting small web results, which I think is great. I certainly couldn't replicate what the OP reported, i.e. getting news or blog posts dating back several years.

blahblahblahkagi

I honestly see it as a good thing, because it’s less sanitized. While it might be more “rage-bait” to you, it looks like to me there is genuine criticism in these results. I want to see more then just Redditors and major news outlets spreading their opinions which Kagi lets us see.