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Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#141

Post by nickpsecurity »

low_battery wrote: post #137
nickpsecurity wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meta-search is a type of search engine that goes way back. They avoid the cost of maintaining a full, search service by sending the query to all kinds of other search engines, running some analysis on their results, and presenting a condensed form to the user optionally with value adds. DuckDuckGo's value add is privacy. Here's some others to give you an idea for what they do: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/1…

Basically DDG is at the mercy of their sources, they can proxy the results for now to the actual search engines, but what happens if lets say Bing and Yandex requires them to pass some extra stuff or cut the query hose otherwise? Will DDG use its own index? Please.. They have no resources to build an actual half decent search engine.

I agree. Being effective and independent will cost money. There some potential for a company that charges monthly or annually to provide search services to other companies with privacy. There's lots of search, like marketing or competitive intelligence, where companies would prefer that the terms don't go through a surveillance company. Initial results might do as DuckDuckGo is doing now with them incrementally building their own database as funds came in.

Not sure how marketable it is, though. Google is pretty dominant. Most companies already running their stuff through it.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#142

Post by nine_k »

StavrosK wrote: post #50
nine_k wrote: post #34

DDG is great; what it currently lacks (for me) is not search quality but reach; it has trouble indexing less visited corners of the internet. Google did not become huge because of the search engine alone . AFAICT two things, based on related technologies, made Google oodles of money: AdWords and SERP ads. (AdWords used to be so unobtrusive I never tried to block them.) I don't know how DDG currently pays its bills. T…

How poorly targeted can an ad be when you've told them exactly what you're looking for ? It doesn't get much more targeted than "car dealerships Florida".

This absolutely makes sense. It definitely is possible to generate a meaningful revenue from reasonably targeted ads at SERP, based purely on the search query.

OTOH what are you looking for may have a context. That same car dealership's ads may vary greatly in content (and click-through rate) if it is known that the person looking at the screen is a recent graduate, or has a family with three kids, or is a single at his 40s. It's hard to sell a family wagon to a recent graduate, but it costs the same to show an ad with a "wrong" car on it. This kind of precise targeting is what advertisers are ready to pay a premium for.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#143

Post by gist »

> Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

I am at a loss to understand really why 'us' should start doing this 'more often'. Is there something inherently good about using ddg vs. google? Why should anyone use it more vs. what they have already decided works best for them? This smacks of 'make the world a better place by using ddg' unfortunately as many others have noted it's simply not a better mouse trap. And what does the name have to do with it at all?

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#144

Post by hedora »

aq3cn wrote: post #13

I use searx.me more often than any other search engine because along with giving the result it also display the search engine which it uses to fetch the result. I mean it is very important to know the areas where each of the search engine excel. Privacy is a concern for sure, but DuckDuckGo cannot win me over on the basis of privacy only. DuckDuckGo can be an answer to privacy concerned people, but it cannot beat Goo…

It would be great if they made ! more discoverable. For instance, it could tell you the ! code needed to limit searches to the engine that produced each "niche" blue link and gray box at the top of the screen (the one that inlines amazon product thumbnails/prices, wikipedia article synopses, stack overflow answers.", etc)

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#145

Post by AdamSC1 »

cpayne624 wrote: post #132
AdamSC1 wrote: post #81

Disclaimer: I work at DuckDuckGo so I'm a bit bias. I won't turn this into a sales pitch, but here are a few common misconceptions people have about privacy and search. 1) Many people don't realize that tracking isn't just about having something to hide. But, it can cost you money. From Airline tickets to staplers you pay based on a profile: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873237772045781893... http://www.w…

I'm a ddg fan. You guys should have a big, conspicuous WHY? button on the homepage that links to all this. The 'Learn More' link takes me to what you guys don't do, which is good, but it's light on the why .

Thanks for the great suggestion. We're currently exploring ways to get the 'why' message out there more. I'll certainly bring it up with the team :)

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#146

Post by hedora »

jonathansizz wrote: post #101

Questions for you to ponder: 1) Why do you think their results would get better if more people use their engine? 2) If their results really are better than Google, as you claim, why is their user base so small after all these years? 3) Why should we trust them any more than Google? How do you know they're not actually collecting your data or passing it on to the third party engines they use?

1) More revenue -> more developers -> more deep web onebox results.

2) Result quality is trumped by inertia and ecosystem stickyness (I commented above)

3) They have a smaller team and are focused on one product, which means they can survive without doing this. Also, the risk of detection is high, since it relies on hiding revenue, third parties that keep secrets, and the US never issuing a subpoena for their logs. In contrast, Google would go out of business tomorrow if they stopped collecting and monetizing data.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#148

Post by st3v3r »

GavinMcG wrote: post #95
st3v3r wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's a discussion about a search engine. The quality of the results are one of the most important aspects of it.

You're right that it's on-topic. But it's about as non-constructive as you can get while still being on-topic.

I disagree. Saying that the results are shitty is pretty on point.

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#149

Post by DoodleBuggy »

>>> Granted that DuckDuckGo.com is quite a childish name

Call me crazy, but I suspect that's part of the reason DuckDuckGo has had a hard time catching on. A name matters.

If I was DuckDuckGo I would rebrand to something simpler that could be used as a verb. But what do I know?

Re: Let's start using DuckDuckGo more often

#150

Post by hedora »

StavrosK wrote: post #51
neximo64 wrote: post #23

I find duckduckgos results quite bad though, i've given it many shots over the past year but often have to keep switching back to Google.

I find that the results feel quite bad, but, whenever I actually compared results to Google's, the latter wasn't better at all.

Don't worry. This is completely normal. :-)

You can put intentionally crappy results under a google logo, and google results under any other logo, and most people will say the crappy "google" results are better.

You need the crappy results to be reasonable -- for example, strip out half of Google's top ten.

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