What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo? • Hacker News Board

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#121

Post by eddie-spaghetti » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

philipswood wrote: post #106

Nebbers wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Went to try it for a week to see if it was viable. Haven't looked back and have never needed to go to Google's search engine for a year now. Best feature is by far the Stack Overflow 'instant answers'!

When a DDG search has results that seem unsatisfactory then just do a follow up Google bang with !g Often with technical searches the DDG results seem better.

That probably helps them improve. If I were at DDG I would look at these queries and try to improve the results to match Google.

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#122

Post by efdee » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 7:02 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #119

stephengillie wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CPM should be updated to CPK. The M in CPM is the Roman numeral for 1000. It's an archaic term, and should be replaced with the SI unit for 1000. Though coining the phrase "kilo-impression" would be a stretch.

Technically the M in CPM is "Mille", the French word for thousand. The origin of the term is from traditional print publishing.

100 per cent correct.

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#123

Post by aylmao » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #2

> In fact, search advertisers buy search ads by bidding on keywords, not people. It makes intuitive sense, too. If you search for ‘car’, you are more likely to respond to a car ad than something you searched for last week. This keyword-based advertising is our primary business model. The rest of the post is a rant about user tracking.

> The rest of the post is a rant about user tracking.

Almost. There's also:

> "The only other way we’ve found so far, which currently accounts for a much smaller portion of our revenue, is non-tracking affiliate partnerships with Amazon and eBay.

> "When you visit those sites through DuckDuckGo, including when using !bangs, and subsequently make a purchase, we receive a small commission. This mechanism operates anonymously and there is no personally identifiable information exchanged between us and Amazon or eBay.

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#124

Post by bowlich » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #20

dpcan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a problem with this model however. When the highest bidder wins, consumers and advertisers can lose, big. I understand how DDG has to say this is the best and smartest way to do things because they have to live with their promise of not creeping on their visitors - so they can't use the same analytics that someone like Google has. It's just marketing. But the ads that go to the top should be the most…

That's not how this model works. There are three general models of online advertising: - CPM: you pay per impression (ie how often the ad is seen) - CPC: cost per click. You only pay when the user clicks. - CPA: you only pay when the user clicks and does something (eg buys something) Display advertising (putting ads on third-party websites eg AdSense) is primarily CPM. Search advertising is primarily CPC (or at least…

It seems that what you are describing though would tend over time to result in a search engine that is principally geared towards returning commercial results rather than amateur/hobbyist results since the interests of search/potential advertisers are always going to be in closer alignment then hobbyists who will almost never be running an ad campaign.

This has been my main criticism of Google's direction the last 15 years or so. Seems like search results use to populate handsomely with personal sites and blogs run by hobbyists uninterested in extracting a dollar from the visitor. If the search results could return either (a) a link to a book sold on Amazon or (b) some Phd's site discussing the topic it seems likely that (a) wins and (b) gets buried somewhere on page 2.

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#125

Post by piyush_soni » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

losvedir wrote: post #118

> Alarmingly, Google now deploys hidden trackers on 76% of websites across the web to monitor your behavior Is this referring to Google Analytics? If so, I feel like "Google deploys" isn't quite fair compared to "Google's tracker is deployed " or something to that effect. But in any case, the phrasing is confusing enough to me to post here, since I want to know if it means something other than GA, which I understand…

This is the CEO of DDG deliberately spreading FUD to innocent people on platforms like Quora in my book. And he's a regular visitor there hijacking many threads promoting his business. I reported his out of place promotional answers once or twice, saying if the CEO of a company is spamming, will it not count as a spam (as opposed to normal people)? Quora didn't remove the answer, for some reason. This one is of course a slightly relevant answer here, but again with his usual dose of competitor bashing and spreading FUD that is a little out of taste for me personally.

Also, may be he's speaking it just for the sake of promotion and doesn't take it too seriously himself, but the quality of search results can definitely be greatly improved when you know more about a person than just their search keywords (or even their country). If he actually believes what he says on Quora, I won't place my bet on his business doing too great in the future.

1. The first example (what he writes in his answer) - when I type "dishwasher" in DDG, every shopping website it lists on the first page is from USA, and I don't even live in the same continent. Even when I enable my country results through the button shown on top of the page, the shopping websites are not even the top ones in my country. When I type that in Google, it lists not only the top e-sellers in the country, the most popular local stores in my area as well. What will the advertisers achieve when they don't even know which place I live in? Who will sell me that dishwasher?

2. When I type Zoo, it's pretty damn clear I want to search a zoo in my area. DDG's results even when country is enabled are plain stupid. Write in Google, and it tells me exactly what I want to know.

3. When I type 'Jaguar' in the search box, all top link results are of the Jaguar car, but all the top image results are the Jaguar animal. Google is much more consistent here.

I can give tens of examples of why personalization of search results is not that bad an idea for the value it adds. Of course, there are very important negative side effects to it, and that's why we have DDG. But I would have respected his opinion much more had he acknowledged that personalization of search results adds a great value, but also has other consequences, like any balanced personal who can see both sides of a coin.

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#126

Post by weberc2 » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

utopcell wrote: post #34

andy_ppp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rant seems extremely strong - how about we go with well thought through set of opinions that the CEO of Duck Duck Go is rigorously applying to his product. I personally found his argument so persuasive I intend to set everything to DuckDuckGo again now.

Quora is not a forum for product placement. The CEO ad was not answering the question.

The amount of misinformation I see on Quora is staggering; product placement like this is better than the average content, to be honest.

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#127

Post by ge0rg » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

technimad wrote: post #120

the_duke wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have it as my primary search engine now too, but I find myself constantly using !g because the results suck.

When I moved to DDG, it took me more than a week to tune my searches for it. I was completely trained to the google interpreter and ddg works different. Now I use slightly different phrases, or ordering and it is great. I only use !g for very specific technical searches, like obscure errors.

Do you have some hints on effectively using DDG, based on that experience?

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#128

Post by isaiahg » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 7:36 PM UTC

thelittleone wrote: post #21

andy_ppp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rant seems extremely strong - how about we go with well thought through set of opinions that the CEO of Duck Duck Go is rigorously applying to his product. I personally found his argument so persuasive I intend to set everything to DuckDuckGo again now.

I made the switch to DDG about 12 months ago for all devices. It has been an entirely positive experience.

Been full DDG almost as long and now I can't go back. It gives me much better results than google does.

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#129

Post by powerslacker » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #126

utopcell wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quora is not a forum for product placement. The CEO ad was not answering the question.

The amount of misinformation I see on Quora is staggering; product placement like this is better than the average content, to be honest.

It wasn't always this way. Quora's user base expanded heavily and the quality of content suffered. When the community was smaller questions and answers were more informative. Its slowly becoming a glorified Yahoo answers.

Re: What is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo?

#130

Post by we_love_slon » Sun, Oct 28, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC

blackhaz wrote: post #70

I'll probably be downvoted to hell, but I have to say this. I'm Ukrainian, so I have bias against anything related to Russian government, especially services pretending to be improving my privacy. So, my question is, what is DuckDuckGo's relationship to Yandex, a company fully controlled by Russian government and having track record sharing personal information with Russian security services?

Yandex is a public company. How is it affiliated to Russian government exactly?