Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Anyone building (or in this case, buying) a search engine takes a fight they cannot meaningfully make impact.

1. Privacy is a feature, not a platform. If the search engine cannot deliver better results than google or bing (a tall order) then there is no reason to use it no matter how private.

2. Google has a 20+ year head start and billions invested. You will not catch up playing the same game (eg - broad search). Google, for all its faults, is amazing technology. If you try to be a general search engine and compete I do not see a win.

3. Find another strategy, like BETTER search results within a niche. Curated by subject matter experts and enthusiasts.

4. Source your search results from trustworthy data sources. SEO has ruined search. Google setup the rules and the Black/Grey/Whitehat practitioners out-smartted them every step of the way. It is full of crappy data sources.

5. Curation, not scale is the key here. I don't see a win for Brave.



You said it yourself that SEO has ruined search. That’s a HUGE advantage for a smaller search engine. The seo people aren’t going to spend their time targeting a small search engine. And they definitely won’t target it at the risk of hurting their Google rankings


Exactly -- SEO is a non-starter if I get to curate what goes into the index in the first place. And for transparency-sake I would want to see what sites are indexed, as well as if any of them are "boosted" in rankings.




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: