I suspect that this is the direct result of AI generated content just overwhelming any real content.
I tried ddg, google, bing, quant, and none of them really help me find information I want these days.
Perplexity seems to work but I don’t like the idea of AI giving me “facts” since they are mostly based on other AI posts
ETA: someone suggested SearXNG and after using it a bit it seems to be much better compared to ddg and the rest.
under the google search field is a row of buttons. one of them, usually far right, is “search tools”. sometimes you have to scroll the button row to reach it. it has a verbatim switch that makes google not replace your search terms with what it thinks most people mean when entering that