I’ve had this happen more often recently. An hour, or multiple hours, isn’t unexpected anymore with search engines (not just Google, but Google is the worst offender).
It’s incredibly frustrating.
My job & hobbies involves research 20-30 hours a week, over the last 15+ years. It’s been a gradual decline in quality and usability since 2016 or so. I started complaining about it on forums and reddit, and not many people noticed, or thought the same. Only in the last 5 years or so have I seen others take notice, and even make articles about it.
It’s a real thing, and those of us that do a lot of research for real information that isn’t just today’s news feel it first.
Search engines like Kagi are a light at the end of the tunnel, they tends to actually work.