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Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

chicagotribune.com

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Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#31

Post by shawn-butler »

barrkel wrote: post #16
cpg wrote: post #9

I have been a happy DDG user for more than two years and it's one of the best things I have done in a while. It works well, and it's great for productivity. So, that Google does not take it extra easy on them is not surprising. However, as Google matures, they will realize they need an AMD to their Intel. Something that poses little business threat, yet diffuses the antitrust threat. ... Watch.

I set DDG as my default search in Firefox; the results were abysmal. It felt like being transported back to altavista.digital.com, wading through middling irrelevant links searching for info. I got fed up with having to put !g into every query to get a good result, I ended up switching to DuckDuckGoog instead (and this is my current search provider).

This http://duckduckgo.com/feedback.html is a good place to place intelligent, constructive feedback.

The web community (that is, all of us) really, really needs an alternative to Google. I don't care whether you love or hate them. We desperately need an alternative.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#32

Post by [deleted] »

rodion_89 wrote: post #6
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #2

From the article: "In an interview on Wednesday, [Gabriel] Weinberg said it is difficult to make his DuckDuckGo the default search site in Google's Chrome web browser, and that Google disadvantages his company in the Android mobile operating system as well. .... "It's one-click to get onto Firefox and it's five steps on Chrome and people generally fail," he said. The Google spokeswoman said popular search alternative…

I'm curious, how many clicks is it to replace Bing as the default in IE? Isn't it impossible for DDG to become the default in Safari? Not saying they're wrong to point it out, but rather that they should be consistent in pointing fingers if they do.

[deleted]

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#33

Post by greglindahl »

CaveTech wrote: post #14
cpg wrote: post #9

I have been a happy DDG user for more than two years and it's one of the best things I have done in a while. It works well, and it's great for productivity. So, that Google does not take it extra easy on them is not surprising. However, as Google matures, they will realize they need an AMD to their Intel. Something that poses little business threat, yet diffuses the antitrust threat. ... Watch.

Bing already occupies that position.

When Google testifies before Congress, they tend to mention "Bing and Blekko" or "Bing and DuckDuckGo". Since Bing is losing a lot of money every quarter, and is owned by a pretty big company (M$), it's useful to have smaller, newer competitors around.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#34

Post by kennywinker »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #17
rodion_89 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, how many clicks is it to replace Bing as the default in IE? Isn't it impossible for DDG to become the default in Safari? Not saying they're wrong to point it out, but rather that they should be consistent in pointing fingers if they do.

There's a DDG extension available for Safari, which will make DDG the default search provider. https://extensions.apple.com/#search-extensions (it takes just one click to install and activate)

That adds a silly pop up button in the menu bar, and doesn't integrate with the unified search/url bar.

I'm using SafariKeywordSearch http://safarikeywordsearch.aurlien.net which means when I type "d ip address" it uses duckduckgo instead of Google.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#35

Post by amitamb »

bdonlan wrote: post #21
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #2

From the article: "In an interview on Wednesday, [Gabriel] Weinberg said it is difficult to make his DuckDuckGo the default search site in Google's Chrome web browser, and that Google disadvantages his company in the Android mobile operating system as well. .... "It's one-click to get onto Firefox and it's five steps on Chrome and people generally fail," he said. The Google spokeswoman said popular search alternative…

I counted three clicks on Chrome: 1. Right-click on search bar when on duckduckgo.com 2. Click edit search engines 3. Next to DuckDuckGo (it's autodetected the first time you visit the site), click 'make default'. It's more clicks than firefox if you do it via the extension, but google's stance on blocking third-party extensions by default makes sense when you consider the threat of malicious extensions, and how most…

Search Provider is not an extension it is just a setting in your browser so I am not buying the argument that is is for security purposes.

Also, these three steps are not intuitive i.e. you can't ask user to click a button on your website to initiate the change. While on Firefox, clicking on a button, a prompt gets shown to make your search engine default one. Even in case of Firefox, user has to explicitly click on check-box to make your search engine default.

Try here http://www.verticalset.com/

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#36

Post by nixcraft »

I used to recommend DDG, but stopped doing so. DDG also blocked us for some unknown reasons. For examples, all of the following search terms I see results in Google, Yahoo/Bing in first top 5 positions for nixCraft, but not in duckduckgo:

"bash for loop" "linux remove directory" "grep command"

It appears that we are facing some sort of ban in DDG. I have already sent an email to DDG and now I am waiting for a reply.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#37

Post by ck2 »

joenathan wrote: post #28
ck2 wrote: post #19

Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear: It does not do any of it's own indexing. It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions of dollars behind them. The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

According to DuckDuckGo's FAQ you are wrong http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s... The DuckDuckBot crawls and indexes the web. http://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.html

I suspect it's trivial at best.

Every test search I've ever done on DDG shows near identical results to Bing.

I'd like to see a search that uses it's own data, examples?

Gigablast was the last serious third-party backend that had a chance for independent data. It's like old-school Google.

Gabriel should try to buy Gigablast and merge it with DDG so he has his own independent dataset.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#38

Post by amitamb »

ck2 wrote: post #19

Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear: It does not do any of it's own indexing. It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions of dollars behind them. The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

But they are using legitimate means to provide search results. And feed(/API) providers are not shutting them out.

Same argument can be made about Google, they do not produce their own data just copy webpages from content providers. If content providers decide to block them from indexing their websites, Google would be irrelevant.

Re: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out

#39

Post by bradly »

ck2 wrote: post #19

Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear: It does not do any of it's own indexing. It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions of dollars behind them. The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

I've asked Gabriel specifically and he said that they use their own crawler/indexer.
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