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Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

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Re: Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

#21

Post by philwelch »

jacquesm wrote: post #6
silkodyssey wrote: post #2

I am current taking the search engine for a spin and it has made a great first impression. I particularly like that instead of paging the search results it displays the results on demand using ajax. I prefer this interface because with less effort I see more results. I've found that with Google I tend to not to move past the first page and by doing that I probably miss out on information that may have been useful to…

Google will not do that because it would cost them a fortune in missed ad impressions and clicks. The big question is how Gabriel will scale DDG with the design decisions already made. It's quite possible that DDG can get to profitability with the layout the way it is today, maybe not as profitable as google but I don't think that would matter much. Making a step back in income is a lot harder than foregoing a certai…

Can't they just load up more ads with the additional search results at the bottom?

Re: Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

#23

Post by epi0Bauqu »

It's not perfect yet, but I'd really like to get there: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/hack-hack-go.htm...

Here's what's coming:

--Stack Overflow, man pages & programming documentation in 0-click.

--More programming !bangs; I've already added a bunch but would love more suggestions: http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html

--More goodies; I've added a lot recently (color codes, regexp, more advanced math to wolfram alpha, today unicode); again, suggestions welcome: http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html

Re: Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

#24

Post by bouncingsoul »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #23

It's not perfect yet, but I'd really like to get there: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/hack-hack-go.htm... Here's what's coming: --Stack Overflow, man pages & programming documentation in 0-click. --More programming !bangs; I've already added a bunch but would love more suggestions: http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html --More goodies; I've added a lot recently (color codes, regexp, more advanced math to wolfr…

I use !bangs a lot, but I wish they worked at the end of your search terms instead of just at the beginning.

I often don't think about the specifics of what I want until I've started typing, then I realize, "Oh, I actually want the wikipedia page of this." So I have to Ctrl-A to the beginning and type !w [space].

It's not a big hassle, but it'd be great if I could skip that step.

Re: Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

#25

Post by MikeCapone »

I like DDG, but the last time I used it I had to fall back to Google to find an answer to my question. I was trying to find the date at which the central bank of Canada was going to make its next rate announcement. I knew it was June, used the most obvious keywords, but didn't find a good answer with DDG. With Google it was in the top 10.

Not a huge problem. It works most times when I use it. But it's not quite Google yet.

Re: Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

#26

Post by meese_ »

jacquesm wrote: post #10
nkurz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google will not do that because it would cost them a fortune in missed ad impressions and clicks. This seems unnecessarily constraining. They already allow you change your preferences to see 100 results per search instead of the default. How does this fit with your logic? Certainly Google is very concerned with click-through on ads, but I'm not sure they'd be losing much if they allowed continuous scrolling. What per…

> They already allow you change your preferences to see 100 results per search instead of the default. How does this fit with your logic? That nobody except for a few geeks do it. Just like the 'I feel lucky' button. > Certainly Google is very concerned with click-through on ads, but I'm not sure they'd be losing much if they allowed continuous scrolling. What percentage of their revenue do you think they derive from…

> > They already allow you change your preferences to see 100 results per search instead of the default. How does this fit with your logic?

> That nobody except for a few geeks do it. Just like the 'I feel lucky' button.

Why don't they offer this as an option then, by the same logic?

Re: Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

#27

Post by epi0Bauqu »

bouncingsoul wrote: post #24
epi0Bauqu wrote: post #23

It's not perfect yet, but I'd really like to get there: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/hack-hack-go.htm... Here's what's coming: --Stack Overflow, man pages & programming documentation in 0-click. --More programming !bangs; I've already added a bunch but would love more suggestions: http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html --More goodies; I've added a lot recently (color codes, regexp, more advanced math to wolfr…

I use !bangs a lot, but I wish they worked at the end of your search terms instead of just at the beginning. I often don't think about the specifics of what I want until I've started typing, then I realize, "Oh, I actually want the wikipedia page of this." So I have to Ctrl-A to the beginning and type !w [space]. It's not a big hassle, but it'd be great if I could skip that step.

Easy fix--will do tomorrow as it's getting late :)

Re: Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

#28

Post by jacquesm »

meese_ wrote: post #26
jacquesm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They already allow you change your preferences to see 100 results per search instead of the default. How does this fit with your logic? That nobody except for a few geeks do it. Just like the 'I feel lucky' button. > Certainly Google is very concerned with click-through on ads, but I'm not sure they'd be losing much if they allowed continuous scrolling. What percentage of their revenue do you think they derive from…

> > They already allow you change your preferences to see 100 results per search instead of the default. How does this fit with your logic? > That nobody except for a few geeks do it. Just like the 'I feel lucky' button. Why don't they offer this as an option then, by the same logic?

They've talked about that at some length, it is a relic from the early days and even if it costs them money (60 million bucks annually iirc) they feel they should keep it not to upset the users that have gotten used to it being there and occasionally using it.

edit: so much for my memory, it costs them almost twice that, 110 million per year, source:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Im-feeling-lucky-button-costs-Google...

Re: Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

#29

Post by BoppreH »

When I first heard about DDG it was because of it's privacy. I couldn't care less for that.

Now, saying that it is good for programming questions made me set it as the default search engine without even testing.

Zero-click info is amazing for quick doc checks, the auto-extending page is sweet and actually displaying the page link and favicon is a lot more informative.

Two things though:

- It's slow. Maybe because I'm in South America, or the server is not that good, but speed is essential for a search engine.

- Special characters are not always handled correctly. A* work perfectly, but the situation is inverted when it comes to "@". Google's results for @override (http://www.google.com/search?q=@override) are better than DDG's (http://duckduckgo.com/?q=@override).

Re: Duck Duck Go = Perfect search engine for programmers

#30

Post by ecaradec »

As a win32 programmer, I always try things like createwindowex and I expect to get msdn as it is the most informative page. I can get it on DDG (doesn't even, show up ). It's the first result on google, even if I mistype it like createwindowe or createwindoaexaze. But may be I'm a dinosaur.
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