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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

#151

Post by Matt_Cutts »

metalruler wrote: post #139
ck2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just you. Maybe he only crawls the Alexa top 10k or some similar minimal set.

I checked my logs and there are several fetches from 72.94.249.37 and 72.94.249.38, over a number of domains that I host. None are particularly popular as far as the greater internet is concerned; one is a semi private site that I set up for my daughter's photos, another is one that has not yet been developed, apart from a few words of text and an image. Interestingly, the fetches do not have a user-agent that identi…

That's interesting.

Gabriel, does DuckDuckGo's crawler have a distinct user agent? Can you talk more about how DuckDuckGo observes/respects robots.txt?

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

#152

Post by shawn-butler »

icelancer wrote: post #123
shawn-butler wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no access to the internal budgets of Microsoft so I can't really comment intelligently. I am a cross-platform smartphone developer so I use wp7, wp8 as well as Google APIs daily in order to do my work and bing doesn't seem so bad for consumer oriented searches. YMMV. For the queries I execute, I agree their results are subpar. But I feel compelled to respond. If there is no alternative to Google for something…

"Need" implies that it requires state intervention on Google's products/services; that somehow Google's position as the market leader in... whatever it is exactly we care about (search, I guess) is a very bad thing. Except that market forces are what they are, and there is no compelling reason to compare Google who has tons of backups and with many competing services (though most are bad) to the Library of Alexandria…

I never stated I advocate state intervention. I said search is not a natural monopoly and as a result we as a market need viable competitors. As the perceived cost to us for both is zero, those competitors need "charitable" use to improve because the product is the activity. You can only improve human search by analyzing human searches. One might argue I suppose that there is enough capital to throw at the problem (say, pay me to use ddg until it catches up or pay Google to provide data), but I question whether that can be the case due to the network effects of the integrations you mention.

The Internet was not designed to provide highly-available redundant backups of data. It was designed to route packets across disparate peer networks in a manner to minimize congestion. Is there an ietf rfc you have in mind that illustrates your assertion? [0]

I do not follow; what does fluctuations in Starbuck's stock price have to do with the discussion? It was used as an example of a brand latching on to a public resource, libraries, in the hopes of becoming indistinguishable from the activity, namely reading.

[0] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1958

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

#153

Post by samuellb »

ck2 wrote: post #46
boyter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone ever seen DuckDuckBot hit their site? I don't have any web property large to appear via DuckDuckBot, but maybe someone else does? Im fairly certain it crawls Quora, as via this tweet https://twitter.com/yegg/status/33693491838066688

It's not just you. Maybe he only crawls the Alexa top 10k or some similar minimal set.

No, it crawls non-Alexa sites too. I host two sites, one PR4 with Alexa rank 1.6+ million and another with PR3 and no Alexa rank. Only the latter one was accessed in the last year according to my servers access logs (and only with a single "GET /" request).

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

#154

Post by irahul »

neya wrote: post #149
irahul wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What appears to be just a text box and a logo has a lot of details. And since it appears as a text box and a logo, doesn't it make the point about having a lot of details moot? It's slightly different than google or bing, but vastly similar. Let's not make shit up here. > (Yet, you run a web-development company...cool story bro!) Take a breath. Web development isn't the same as web design. It's kinda sad that I hav…

>Web development isn't the same as web design. The one you claim to do on your homepage talks about involving design, which is why I referenced it. And which you absolutely have no idea about. >Instead of making shit up, you could have just said it's using a lot more gradients. It's more than just using just gradients (which is just one thing), which was my point. See, you're just proving it time and again. >I will b…

> The one you claim to do on your homepage talks about involving design, which is why I referenced it.

My homepage talks about design doesn't mean I have to design.

> I am not obliged to let you know that. But surely it isn't as shitty as this:

http://i46.tinypic.com/21vfc.jpg

That thing is called a prototype. And you are not obliged to tell what you have built, but when you are throwing shit all around, at least have some credentials. Either don't be an asshole, or at least be correct. When it comes to opinions(and not absolute facts), who has it is an important factor in evaluating it.

> For the rest of the world to see, that's what iRahul has built so far and he's here to critique a designer. And now you know why the search boxes appear the same to him, and probably everything else will, too.

In case it didn't occur to you, rest of the world doesn't give a shit about a petty internet argument. When I did the prototype, it was open for everyone to see. I don't see the point in your declaration about the whole world seeing what I built. Different strokes for different people. Some people build things and move on if it doesn't work; some people post comments on news forums with nothing to back them up and then go digging something to feed their vanity. Vain people are a big pain in the ass, not because they are vain(that too) but because they sustain themselves on putting others down, rather than getting themselves ahead.

> Please keep your profanity to yourself. You just proved you are worth no one's time. Bye.

It isn't like I am being benefited from getting in argument with some random designer on some internet forum. And do you always lobby others to cry for you?(rest of the world to see, "no one's time" rather than "my time")

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

#155

Post by bruceboughton »

neya wrote: post #149
irahul wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What appears to be just a text box and a logo has a lot of details. And since it appears as a text box and a logo, doesn't it make the point about having a lot of details moot? It's slightly different than google or bing, but vastly similar. Let's not make shit up here. > (Yet, you run a web-development company...cool story bro!) Take a breath. Web development isn't the same as web design. It's kinda sad that I hav…

>Web development isn't the same as web design. The one you claim to do on your homepage talks about involving design, which is why I referenced it. And which you absolutely have no idea about. >Instead of making shit up, you could have just said it's using a lot more gradients. It's more than just using just gradients (which is just one thing), which was my point. See, you're just proving it time and again. >I will b…

I think you need to calm down.

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

#156

Post by irahul »

ebrenes wrote: post #147
irahul wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you seriously saying brands which can be abbreviated aren't adapted as well by consumers as brands which can't be? And do you have anything other than "I said so" to back it up?

It's not whether the brand can be abbreviated or not, it's what you choose to build your brand around. A short, easy to remember name is crucial [1]. You don't hear much about International Business Machines, but you do hear a bit about IBM, because IBM built it's brand around the abbreviated form which is easier to remember. Likewise, HP is now the word du jour to refer to Hewlett-Packard. Abbreviated forms are fine…

I am not questioning building a brand. As I said elsewhere, in blind tests, people have a hard time distinguishing google search results from bing. Brand name is one of the major factors when it comes to consumers.

People preferred pepsi to thumsup in blind tests. Thumsup sweetened its drink and faced a major backlash. Thumsup drinkers associated themselves with Thumsup brand and took pride in "not sweet as pepsi".

I do understand that brand plays a major part for the consumer.

What I was questioning was the ridiculous assumption that somehow calling DuckDuckGo as DDG is diluting its brand, and always calling Google as Google is indicative of its strong brand.

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

#157

Post by barrkel »

shawn-butler wrote: post #31
barrkel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

DDG have queries that start out unadorned, then get repeated with !g. They don't need me to fill out forms.

I agree that having strong competition to Google is necessary. But I found DDG painful to the point of becoming a little bitter.

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

#159

Post by iomike »

yegg wrote: post #80
paulsutter wrote: post #50

This article is pure crybaby bullshit PR about a nonexistent problem. Does anyone care about DDG anyway? They're trying to solve a completely imaginary problem, and they haven't got a hope in hell of creating a viable search engine as that costs billions of dollars. Why is this article even on HN?

Hi, this is Gabriel Weinberg, the guy mentioned in the article. The main issue I have is with duck.com. A lot of people remember that we are a search engine "duck something" and so naturally try duck.com. As a result, there is a lot of confusion, e.g.: "I was telling someone about DuckDuckGo and they thought it was Duck.com and they went to Google. Is Google using this to find people who make the mistake to Duck.com…

Your poor marketing with an unknown name is not Google's problem.

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

#160

Post by prawn »

Surio wrote: post #100
prawn wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I keep going to Duck.com when meaning to visit DuckDuckGo.com" Tell them that you called your search engine Duck Duck Go, registered DuckDuckGo.com, and for them to visit DuckDuckGo.com. It's not as though you were ever called Duck.com instead. This just sounds like a petty whinge otherwise. Sorry!

Daniel meant to convey that he hears that line from other people who get to hear that line within their circles of recommendation -- effectively after the damage has been done. Doesn't sound like a petty whinge according to me though at least if you follow his full explanation of Google actually capitalising on this confusion and redirecting users to their own engine .

Capitalised on the confusion? They have hundreds of domains pointing to their main site. On2.com or whatever it is showed an acquisition notice because that was the company purchased. It's definitely possible that enquiring about the domain reminded them that they had it and should forward like the rest they owned.
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