Anyone used Kagi? A subscription search engine

[devise]

Anyone used Kagi?

https://kagi.com/

I'm trying it out currently and been impressed.

A bit hard to pay for a search engine but I'm paying for ChatGPT.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

Anyone used Kagi?

https://kagi.com/

I'm trying it out currently and been impressed.

A bit hard to pay for a search engine but I'm paying for ChatGPT.

Wouldn't have even considered it. When Google annoys me I just use DuckDuckGo etc. Do you have some side by side screenshots showing the differences/advantages? Not really sure they'll survive on a paid model lol.

Their API pricing seems a bit optimistic when you compare it to pricing you can get from scraping API providers that return all the big search engines - though it is cheap ofc compared to like paying Bing or something...

 

[BakerStreet]

Personally, I won't switch from Google since I'd like to see how its results are as I optimize for it. I stick to google for everday shit. Yandex if I want to view stuff that's DMCA'ed on google like pirate streaming.

I thought this shit was dumb and would die but they were bootstrapped since 2018, had 20,000 members at the start of the year, and are at 28,000 members now in 4 months. That's a good acquisition rate. Probably $280,000 MRR. Quite good for a small team. The guy at DuckDuckGo has him and two VAs I heard. $10/month for ad free search? Sounds ok for me. It really is a product that you use every day, so the usage is there. The results were good too!

Their USP is really that it's an ad free search engine. Quite a brazen concept when ad based search engines are quite established. I really wonder if they can succeed. I can see them being quired by Apple and integrated into iCloud. That'd be awesome.

edit:

"Kagi focuses on users, not advertisers: This user-centric approach significantly enhances our ability to highlight high-quality search results. For instance, we effectively mitigate SEO spam by downranking websites reliant on ads or trackers. Since these spam websites predominantly monetize through ads, they become easily detectable. Our consistent strategy of combating ads in all forms prioritizes high-quality web results. from "https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html

Damn. That was smart. Just derank sites that have too many ads and promote sites without ads so that you show better results. They even have an algo to show "hidden gems" from bloggers and so forth. Really innovative.

 

[devise]

As @BakerStreet pointed out they hit 20,000 users in January.

https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k

Wouldn't have even considered it. When Google annoys me I just use DuckDuckGo etc. Do you have some side by side screenshots showing the differences/advantages? Not really sure they'll survive on a paid model lol.

Their API pricing seems a bit optimistic when you compare it to pricing you can get from scraping API providers that return all the big search engines - though it is cheap ofc compared to like paying Bing or something...

 

[Éowyn]

You can follow, lower, boost, and block websites on Kagi Search. However, their index is small, and a single domain can show multiple times for a query.

There's also a Mozilla/Chromium plugin called ublacklist that lets you block websites from Google search results. You can only blacklist (not boost), and it doesn't work on your phone.

Both Ublacklist and Kagi block Quora, Forbes, Pinterest, Rolling Stone, and other annoying corporate content farms. Once you clean them out, it makes it much easier to find interesting websites. Clicking blacklist is pretty satisfying. They're just not mainstream tools.

As @BakerStreet pointed out they hit 20,000 users in January.

https://blog.kagi.com/celebrating-20k

Lol I started using them in Jan too.

 

[devise]

@Éowyn How have you liked Kagi so far?

 

[Éowyn]

@devise

I like it for the discovery of new websites in certain niches and having a list of sites consistently boosted.

Ex: naplab boosted, but generic Cnet/Sports Illustrated deleted
Then, when you boost all the quality sites (subjective), the spam will linger at the back without you doing anything. You can also make a personalized command to search a list of sites. Search by media type: academia, podcasts, forums.

But:
The duplicate domains for a single query get in the way. It's not helping me with my subscription minimalism. The price is reasonable now, but subscription creep is out of control with software.
For discovery and curation in Kagi's current form, you can attain similar results with the blacklist plugin, which is free and works with multiple engines. Maybe try both and see if you like the blacklist plugin better.
The index is still small. When you block all the corporate content farms written by freelancers or AI pretending to have experience with w/e products have the highest commission, there are few options left. Some niches, like recipes, have less of this issue, though. You can just block the bleh foodnetwork, boost the cook you like, and you're good to go!

"Kagi focuses on users, not advertisers: This user-centric approach significantly enhances our ability to highlight high-quality search results. For instance, we effectively mitigate SEO spam by downranking websites reliant on ads or trackers. Since these spam websites predominantly monetize through ads, they become easily detectable. Our consistent strategy of combating ads in all forms prioritizes high-quality web results.

Would be nice to have a support creator button for when you want to support them and let the affiliate link crediting or w/e go through. I might be dreaming.