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DuckDuckGo Hits 14M Searches in a Single Day

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Re: DuckDuckGo Hits 14M Searches in a Single Day

#101

Post by akiselev »

adanto6840 wrote: post #94
panic wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would DuckDuckGo need to exit? Are they losing money?

A quick Google search indicates that they've taken on ~$3M in funding. Depending on their revenues & expenses, that may mean that their investors aren't clamoring for quick returns. But at some point most investors do want to see a ROI/exit.

Not if it's a vanity investment (I don't know if there's a better term for it). If some VCs know that their fund will ride on one or two unicorns (or network effects like in YC's case) and that the rest of the investments will fail or barrly return 1-5x, once it's clear what the unicorn is there's a little room for investments that aren't expected to have a financial ROI. Perhaps the investment gets the investors a foot in the door for future ventures by the team or into a field where they might not have deal flow, or they might just want the extra "street cred" and publicity. YC regularly gives slots with funding to nonprofits now, which by definition can't have a financial ROI.

Re: DuckDuckGo Hits 14M Searches in a Single Day

#102

Post by sambe »

tfigment wrote: post #44
ximeng wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could still identify searches where there's room for improvement even without comparing with Google results.

I may be wrong but the reason is again privacy (and probably cost). If they tracked your queries and tied them back to you for future then they need to store your information or enough to tie to you and what you clicked on and the history to improve things. These all become things that they can be subpoenaed for which is anti-privacy. Don't believe for a second that governments are not already banging at the door for…

Why would they want to tie them back to you? The suggestion is: "these search terms returned unsatisfactory results".

Re: DuckDuckGo Hits 14M Searches in a Single Day

#106

Post by bogomipz »

zokula wrote: post #93
bogomipz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious why you recommend everyone else switch since you say "The results are passable." That's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Agreed just use Startpage.com for better results and privacy than you can get from DDG.

Wow this is great. I had no idea this existed. Thanks for the tip!

Re: DuckDuckGo Hits 14M Searches in a Single Day

#107

Post by MaxLeiter »

hrjet wrote: post #69
AdamSC1 wrote: post #12

For the team here at DuckDuckGo, we were excited not only to hit 14M searches in a single day but to also cross the threshold of 10B total private searches served. Of which 4B were from last year alone. We wrote a post covering it in our newly launched blog: https://spreadprivacy.com/10-billion-fc7808c91343 It is always an amazing and humbling moment when we hit a new milestone in our metrics. Our team is so incredib…

From a privacy point of view, it would be awesome if you stabilise the NoJS version of your search page: https://duckduckgo.com/html/ * The above landing page doesn't work (typing a query and pressing enter returns me back to the same page). * Even if I manually enter a search URL like this https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=test it doesn't fully work (page navigation and requerying is broken).

Interesting, it works fine for me. What browser are you using?

Re: DuckDuckGo Hits 14M Searches in a Single Day

#108

Post by skinnymuch »

tfigment wrote: post #44
ximeng wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could still identify searches where there's room for improvement even without comparing with Google results.

I may be wrong but the reason is again privacy (and probably cost). If they tracked your queries and tied them back to you for future then they need to store your information or enough to tie to you and what you clicked on and the history to improve things. These all become things that they can be subpoenaed for which is anti-privacy. Don't believe for a second that governments are not already banging at the door for…

So don't tie them back to the user. Seems like a simple solution.

Re: DuckDuckGo Hits 14M Searches in a Single Day

#109

Post by jackcosgrove »

panic wrote: post #87
WhitneyLand wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG is a great success story, I wish the whole team the best. I wonder how an exit will play out though. A big factor with DDG is user trust - that seems to limit the list potential buyers to the few that could credibly maintain that trust. Then there is the IPO route, but that has it's own challenges. You could argue that up until now DDG has had no competition because Google doesn't think it's worth raising its han…

Why would DuckDuckGo need to exit? Are they losing money?

Money can corrupt, but so can poverty.

There is a financial sweet spot where the contributors to DuckDuckGo are fat and happy and there aren't greedy investors wanting to monetize all that trust.

Google has already occupied the greedy investor niche. DDG has carved out a niche where, I fear, the greatest threat is a lack of money for the people building and maintaining DDG. If they feel underappreciated, they may start to monetize that trust. The DDG team should be rewarded for their hard work.

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