DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year • Hacker News Board

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#121

Post by AdamSC1 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

forgetsusername wrote: post #90

bsbechtel wrote: post #55

Most of the comments here are complaining that, while people like the idea of DDG, the search results are poor. Two comments regarding that: 1) the only way DDG is going to improve search results is by you using it regularly. Using it regularly drives not only revenue, allowing them to hire additional developers, but it also drives feedback to help DDG improve search results. 2) I suspect that the difference in searc…

> the only way DDG is going to improve search results is by you using it regularly. For what company or product is that not the case? Unfortunately, most people (myself included) aren't interested in integrating inferior products into our lives with the hope that "one day" they might be as good. I decided to default to DDG last year to see how it was, and because my online privacy is worth something. I found the resu…

Hi forgetsusername,

The results have come along way over the past year, and we've also added a feedback tool that lets you share with us when you feel an answer was lacking.

If you are interested in trying us again sometime I know we'd love to hear the feedback as we aim to provide a great search experience without sacrificing your privacy.

We also have our "!Bangs" (https://duckduckgo.com/bang) which allow you to re-direct your search directly to over 7000 providers including sites like Amazon, Twitter, Stack overflow and even Google. In those cases you find a result lacking you can quickly forward the search to another provider without manually navigating or switching your default. We understand there will be times you want to search other sites and so we make that easy to do. (Although we do hope to continue to lower the need for that in the future).

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#122

Post by panglott » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:53 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #43

I'm trying to use DuckDuckGo, but for now the local search results are really, really poor. I can't blame them much though, because Yahoo and Bing suck as well. But then Bing's index is in fact the only competition Google has and DuckDuckGo cannot improve as long as they depend on Bing. One favorite example that I've been using for feedback is when I'm searching for "restaurante" (the Romanian word for "restaurants")…

Thanks, it's hard for me to understand why people complain about DDG's search results, which are generally fine for me (in the US), without elaborating on specific kinds of problems they have.

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#123

Post by r3bl » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:53 PM UTC

sgt wrote: post #35

funkyy wrote: post #12

In all honesty, despite me knowing about DDG for reaaaaalllly long time, I still tend to forget their name. "something duck" is how non-tech people reference it. Cant you really name it something easy to remember and (ouch) Google like Duckgo? Or Ducker? Or anything else that can be pronounced by anyone within one breath?

If you google 'duck' it should be in the top 5. For me it was the 3rd one, the 1st and 2nd being wiki-type articles.

I just tried it, it was right under image results and Wikipedia article about ducks. So, it should be the second result (I've tried the same thing on StartPage and got the same result).

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#124

Post by AdamSC1 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:55 PM UTC

dpcan wrote: post #119

I feel like the search results are getting better. EDIT: Complaint #1 removed. I can change the THEME in DDG to get blue links. Awesome. #2 Complaint is that I dislike the font-weight changes on search sites. I don't need my search words bolded. I know what I searched for, I trust that those words are in the search results, you don't need to show them to me. It's actually the SUPPORTING words around my keywords that…

Hi dpcan,

Thanks for the feedback! Did you know you can change themes from the settings menu? You can then save them as a non-personalized cookie, anonymously to the cloud via a unique passphrase, or via a URL. The bookmarklet tool in the settings menu will build out a URL with any settings group so you can save, share and use your settings without anything local.

For example here are the settings I use: https://duckduckgo.com/?kae=d&k5=-1&kaj=m&kd=1

Dark theme, metric system measurements, prompt for video play, prevent redirect.

If you are a blue links fan you can try: https://duckduckgo.com/?kae=c

That's our 'contrast' theme which pops out a bit more.

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#125

Post by JayNeely » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:57 PM UTC

I started using DDG this year. I've found the main thing that drives me back to Google (and frequently) is searching for anything where freshness of results matters; that's where I'm seeing the biggest difference in quality of results.

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#126

Post by AdamSC1 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 1:58 PM UTC

pixard wrote: post #44

sundarurfriend wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. It used to be that 90% of my searches ended up repeated with !g to go to google, but nowadys I'd guess that's like 30%, and even among those, half the time google's answer quality ends up the same. The only cases where Google is predictably and consistenly superior are 1. error/diagnostic messages: DDG still sucks at precision search,…

I last tried DDG a few years ago and couldn't get anything done at all as the results were simply not what I needed (PHP / Laravel / WordPress development). Your comment made me try it again today and after several hours of using it I can definitely say it has vastly improved in results for my particular use case. While a few hours are obviously not a huge metric it's still satisfying enough so I have switched it to…

Thanks for your feedback pixard, glad to hear you've seen the improvements. While you're right a few hours does not a huge metric make, it's also awesome to hear that the changes were that noticeable.

We've added a new feedback tool in the bottom right of the results page, we encourage you to let us know when results aren't up to snuff (or when we really nail it!)

Also be sure to check out the bangs (https://duckduckgo.com/bang) and settings which can be saved to the cloud or via URL using the bookmarklet tool button (https://duckduckgo.com/settings). Those are some favorite features of a lot of our long time users that we feel really add to the experience.

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#127

Post by AdamSC1 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:02 PM UTC

temp wrote: post #46

sundarurfriend wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. It used to be that 90% of my searches ended up repeated with !g to go to google, but nowadys I'd guess that's like 30%, and even among those, half the time google's answer quality ends up the same. The only cases where Google is predictably and consistenly superior are 1. error/diagnostic messages: DDG still sucks at precision search,…

>FWIW, DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. Unfortunately, I can't say the same. As someone from a smaller and non-English-speaking country, I doubt there'll ever be an effort to improve their results for my language and considering that even Bing does an absolutely terrible job at it, Google is my only choice for when doing local searches. It's like all search engines apart fr…

Hi Temp,

Can you share the region/language you're using and a few sample queries? Feel free to email me at adam@duckduckgo.com if you don't want to share them publicly. We're always looking to improve, and get an understanding of where we're lacking.

We know in this industry there are a lot of challenges surrounding localization and so concrete examples really help!

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#128

Post by AdamSC1 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:05 PM UTC

stinos wrote: post #42

sundarurfriend wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. It used to be that 90% of my searches ended up repeated with !g to go to google, but nowadys I'd guess that's like 30%, and even among those, half the time google's answer quality ends up the same. The only cases where Google is predictably and consistenly superior are 1. error/diagnostic messages: DDG still sucks at precision search,…

DDG search in my experience has gotten vastly better in the past year or so. Had the exact same impression. There are numerous threads on HN involving DDG in the last couple of years and in more than one of them I complained about the results, but slowly yet steadily there are always less reasons to complain it seems. DDG does not yet find everything as quick as I'd want it to but when my go-to would be !g in the pas…

Hey Stinos,

Thanks for the feedback - part of the changes you've noticed are simply due to the fact that we do read threads like this, and we do encourage users to send/share their feedback and examples of where we haven't hit the mark for them; and then actively try and improve that experience.

We've recently streamlined this process by adding a feedback tool on the bottom right of the results page. If you feel we don't quite show the results/experience you were expecting (or if we really really nail it) then we encourage you to share that feedback with us! You can opt-in to how much detail you provide, and as always we don't collect, store and share personally identifiable details.

Thanks for your continued support!

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#129

Post by yclatewin2015 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:05 PM UTC

In all honesty, I don't care if they (google) track me. I just want to find the right information as fast as possible.

Re: DuckDuckGo grew more than 70% this year

#130

Post by AdamSC1 » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 2:08 PM UTC

will_pseudonym wrote: post #14

muddi900 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use DDG because of custom search 'bangs'. I have gotten rid of a whole bookmark sub folder of custom keyword searches. When I want google, which is less and less often, I just add a '!g' to my search. I doubt DDG will ever catchup to the Big G, but It works.

Is that similar to Chrome's "search engines"? They work really well, and I tend to use google's "site:" filter to search sites that have awful search capabilities.

The "!Bang" feature allows you to redirect your searches. For example:

"!w Sam Altman' would instantly return you to the wikipedia page on Sam Altman.

And, "!Amazon shoes" would instantly return you to the Amazon search result page for shoes.

We've got over 7500 !Bangs currently and users can request to add them for any site https://duckduckgo.com/bang - just like our community efforts in 'Instant Answers' on our duckduckhack.com platform, this community driven experience allows you to get involved and shape a search experience you want to see.