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DuckDuckGo Traffic

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Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic

#191
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft could decide to terminate their access to Bing APIs at any time resulting in DDG’s immediately losing most of their users. DDG does not have their own crawler or index.

DuckDuckGo do have their own crawler (DuckDuckBot), and they augment their results with other search providers other than Bing, including Yandex.

https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...

They seem to only use their crawler for Instant Answer type results while all their "traditional links" come from "a variety of partners, including Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing".

Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DuckDuckGo uses Bing underneath so the company whom you should really be complaining to is MSFT.

if i search for in ddg and then do "!b " (the !bang for a bing search), I don't get the same results.

Try "what is my ip" and notice that both DDG and Bing show the same cached IP address for Microsoft Bingbot in the snippets.

Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic

#193
I use DDG a lot and that may be (partially?) because of the privacy thing but the auto-complete is basically useless.

Otherwise it's getting better and better. I have replaced the Google search bar on Android by the DDG one and I notice less and less the difference in quality, while I love searching anything without the feeling it will affect my Google profile account.

Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the comparison against google is all that interesting because it is such an extreme outlier. How about comparing against the second most popular search engine? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine#Market_share If I am reading this correctly, ddg has about one fifth as much marketshare as the second place, which is quite impressive.

Why would that be interesting, they have no market share? Bing has less than 3%, it operates at a loss. Not even MS cares about it and they just keep it around as a part of the technological suite that they have in order to convince the government that they are not a tech monopoly, even though everyone know they are. All big guys do this trick in one way or another. For that reason I don't think one should compare DD…

Option 1: No other search engine besides google is even worth discussing. Discussion over, have a nice day. Boring.

Option 2: Out of all the search engines competing with google, how is ddg positioned? Why is bing only 5 times its size considering it has MS's might behind it? How important is Baidu?

Option 2 undoubtedly makes for more interesting discussion. Also, if Bing is only a distraction/hobby for MS, then alternative options become even more important.

Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic

#196
post #14

Bang commands[0] really sealed DDG for me. I know Firefox had install-your-own search plugins forever, but the total lack of friction of typing “!yt badgerbadgerbadger” to get specifically YouTube results was fantastic. !g (search on Google) also makes it far easier to switch. Don’t like the results? Prefix !g and try again. My other favorites: !sr [name of subreddit] - much faster than “reddit.com/r/[name]” !r - Red…

Kelly porn

Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic

#197
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and now there's a neat new upstart to come along DuckDuckGo is 12 years old. They're far away from being a new upstart. To put that into perspective, AltaVista's prime years only lasted six or seven years (~1996-2002; sold off in 2003). DDG is now one of the oldest independent search engines in Internet history. Their very long-term, very slow, grinding upwards is one of the most amazing aspects of what they're acc…

Microsoft could decide to terminate their access to Bing APIs at any time resulting in DDG’s immediately losing most of their users. DDG does not have their own crawler or index.

Or they could do what Microsoft typically does, and just buy them out. Embrace, extend, extinguish.

Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic

#198
post #14

Bang commands[0] really sealed DDG for me. I know Firefox had install-your-own search plugins forever, but the total lack of friction of typing “!yt badgerbadgerbadger” to get specifically YouTube results was fantastic. !g (search on Google) also makes it far easier to switch. Don’t like the results? Prefix !g and try again. My other favorites: !sr [name of subreddit] - much faster than “reddit.com/r/[name]” !r - Red…

This is an offshoot discussion and I have nothing against DDG or bang commands -- just presenting another side of convenient searches. > I know Firefox had install-your-own search plugins forever, but the total lack of friction of typing “!yt badgerbadgerbadger” to get specifically YouTube results was fantastic. I find "use your own search" to be much less friction than going through DDG since it takes me right to re…

The advantage to me is that I sometimes use a new browser and lose these settings. Also for defining my own, I seriously haven't found a search that isn't already in DDG. Maybe back in the old days when you wanted a search box from a specific forum (though the site: operator usually works better imvho).

I was totally with you on Opera in 2002, however :) All the way until they dumped their own engine and lost many of their unique features. It was still kinda fun to use last time I installed it though. But it also feels just like Chromium with some stuff tacked on.

Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic

#199
post #3

Over the past 5 years I’ve tried DDG several times. Each time except the last I wanted to stick with it but the results simply didn’t stand up to what I’d see on Google. About 6 months ago (a year? I can’t remember) I switched and haven’t looked back. Now, when I look at google, the results actually look less relevant. As well, the ads on Google have become very obnoxious. I don’t feel like I’m being served the best…

Same, I don't think DDG's results have improved, but googles results have defiantly went down the drain.

Re: DuckDuckGo Traffic

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the behavior your are talking about. I tried in Google Chrome and could not figure it out. In Chrome's address bar, you type the name of a site (say reddit.com), then tab, then some keywords, and that does a google search for your keywords inside reddit.com?

On chrome://settings/searchEngines you can see all the search engines and their search queries listed. In the keyword column, you can also see the associated keyword. This means if you wanted to search in npmjs.com, then type npmjs.com and then a space in the omnibar. Ofcourse, if you wanted to make it shorter, you can edit the keyword in the same page to say `npm`, then you can search by using npm followed by a spac…

I've used that in Firebird/Firefox for over ten years. If I remember correctly it's configured by adding a keyword to a bookmark and adding a placeholder within the bookmark URI.
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