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DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

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Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#61

Post by zecho »

sounds wrote: post #31
suking wrote: post #11

I'm so sick of these DDG stories. The truth is no one uses them, 99.9999% of people outside SV have never heard of them and currently there is no reason to switch to them.

I don't see DDG taking Google's search crown. But it could happen the way Firefox opened the barn door - then other browsers came to take the crown (Chrome, for example). [1] indicates DDG uses third-party APIs for deep web searches. To me that sounds like how Inktomi was a "search engine API" and neither Inktomi nor Yahoo saw Google coming [2]. Even if DDG doesn't succeed, Google is now at the top of the hill and th…

I don't think DDG needs to take anybody's crown to be successful. It provides a service to a few niches, mainly the tinfoil hat types and to people who mostly use Google as an intermediary to find wikipedia articles or posts on stack overflow and want a low-friction alternative. Or there's me: I mainly prefer the keyboard shortcuts.

Anyway, my point is that 1% of the search market is about half a billion dollars in revenue.

It'll be interesting to see if Gabriel keeps up with the affiliate model or moves toward an in-house ad solution.

Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#62

Post by iosctr »

nsmartt wrote: post #19
suking wrote: post #11

I'm so sick of these DDG stories. The truth is no one uses them, 99.9999% of people outside SV have never heard of them and currently there is no reason to switch to them.

>currently there is no reason to switch to them How so? DDG offers privacy, something that Google and other big search engines do not. That is more than enough reason- especially with growing privacy concerns in the US.

If you just want Google results with privacy, you could try https://startpage.com

Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#63

Post by tferris »

duckduckgouser wrote: post #18
adgar wrote: post #5

I've never seen someone describe a middleman so enthusiastically. Not that there isn't enormous added value in presentation or that duckduckgo has a poor offering at all - but your search result quality will always be limited to that of your partner-competitors' (Bing index in this case). And the more you succeed, the more expensive your partnership grows: see Netflix. Wait a minute. I just remembered the other added…

I think middleman is a bit harsh. DuckDuckGo is providing a service. It isn't something that someone else can easily do themselves.

Which service?

Taking the Bing API, building a frontend, a parser for few shortcuts and get some VCs to blog about me?

Sounds like a project from a 48h hackathon.

Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#64

Post by boyter »

tferris wrote: post #63
duckduckgouser wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think middleman is a bit harsh. DuckDuckGo is providing a service. It isn't something that someone else can easily do themselves.

Which service? Taking the Bing API, building a frontend, a parser for few shortcuts and get some VCs to blog about me? Sounds like a project from a 48h hackathon.

It does, but Gabriel (the guy behind it) described the issue with that approach quite well here, http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/code-icebergs.ht...

Keep in mind quite a few people have done this before, bitcircle, 4hoursearch etc... spring to mind but DDG has actually done some innovations in the space and is still around. The fact that people know it will still be around next year encourages you to at least play with it.

Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#65

Post by rainysunday »

jebblue wrote: post #3

It looks like a cheap knock-off of Google and doesn't give me the hit count for "Ubuntu" (or I missed it). Google gives me over 200 million, Bing over 44 million.

As far as I know DDG uses mainly the BOSS API. When I tested the BOSS API for http://kligl.com I found that the reported result count was consistently lower for BOSS compared with the (still) free Bing API, even though the underlying data is the same. That's probably why it is not reported on DDG. Both only give you the first 1000 results max so it makes no difference in practice.

Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#66

Post by ibotty »

tferris wrote: post #43

What I like about DDG: - Somebody is trying to improve the search engine space which is too long dominated by just one party (which admittedly makes a damn good job) What I don't like: - I don't see any improvements - Don't like their name - Crappy logo - Too long domain name (with some skills and little money, a great 4-letter dot com is a no brainer) - The product is awkward to use: the entire UI is the #1 reason t…

nice summary of shortcomings. but for me the biggest one is missing: highly special search queries (yesterday: about erlang, rebar and obscure release building failures) return virtually no usable results. google was way better.

somehow related, i like that they include links to google below their search results.

Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#67

Post by moollaza »

tferris wrote: post #43

What I like about DDG: - Somebody is trying to improve the search engine space which is too long dominated by just one party (which admittedly makes a damn good job) What I don't like: - I don't see any improvements - Don't like their name - Crappy logo - Too long domain name (with some skills and little money, a great 4-letter dot com is a no brainer) - The product is awkward to use: the entire UI is the #1 reason t…

Regarding the UI, have you looked at the "Settings" page? Most of the UI is fully customizable -- you can change almost all of the colours you see, you can even remove many features such as the icons, sidebar, 0-click box, even the ads!

You can also adjust the layout of your results: alignment, page width, font and font size, underlining of links, etc.

Clearly they've provided a multitude of options, you just need to try them out.

Also, they do allow site search using the same syntax as Google.

Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#68

Post by sp332 »

jebblue wrote: post #3

It looks like a cheap knock-off of Google and doesn't give me the hit count for "Ubuntu" (or I missed it). Google gives me over 200 million, Bing over 44 million.

Google's hit counter is inaccurate, and it still won't show you any results past the top 1000. What are you using it for?

Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#69

Post by Morg »

nsmartt wrote: post #49
there wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for me, the most used !bang function was "!g" to re-run the search on Google. I used DDG daily for months as my default search engine and on about half of all my queries (most of them technical searches), it would give poor enough results that I'd scan the page, re-run the query with "!g " and find a useful result on Google in the first or second listing. I finally admitted to myself that I was wasting…

I haven't had that problem at all. Most of my searches are technical and I rarely have to switch to Google. I would suggest giving it another try every few months if you aren't satisfied with it.

I think that's the main issue for anyone who wants to best google.

I'm not particularly disapointed with google search, and if I try something I don't like, I won't try it again unless a friend tells me it's changed a lot.

That business is clearly one-shot, either v1 is good or you're going to have to fight uphill against a bad rep of your own making.

Re: DuckDuckGo Cooks Google's Goose

#70

Post by sp332 »

jebblue wrote: post #35
Aloisius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google gives me over 200 million, 9 which are useful, Bing over 44 million, 10 which are useful. There, fixed that for you.

You fixed it for you, not for me. DuckDuckGo does not tell me the data pool they are recommending results to me from. That is huge to me.

Aside from ubuntu.com and launchpad.net, what else would you like in your Ubuntu data pool?
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