Live data from Hacker News

DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

pcgamer.com

241–250 of 556 posts

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#241
post #199

Google has ~90% of search where DuckDuckGo has A ~30% jump of DuckDuckGo is about 0.3% of global search traffic, basically a rounding error for google. Still, it's an interesting signal, but not nearly enough to worry Google. If the jump had been 300% that would merit some thought.

That's users changing products in advance of a change, which is a relatively uncommon thing. We'll presumably see another bump when Google actually rolls out their changes.

Well, it's users trying another product anyway.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#242
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also tell the LLM exactly what you have in the fridge or what allergies you have and get customized recipes. It’s just a better experience, 2026 is rough for a recipe site.

Would you trust the tool that recommended putting glue on pizza to give you a good recipe?

If the user puts glue on their pizza because a computer said so, that's a human problem.

The computer generated recipes can be useful as inspiration, but of course common sense is required.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#243

My friends who previously had no interest in technology and never talked about it, are suddenly following tech news closely all because they hate AI being pushed so hard. One was just messaging me this morning about alternatives to Google search and maps. He ended up downloading DuckDuckGo. If Google isn’t carefully they’re going to push people away from their golden goose.

> downloading DuckDuckGo.

What for? Just use the website via your favourite browser.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#244

Google has 90% market share. DDG has 0.7%. I don't have a POV on whether AI mode is good or not, but surely there's gonna be some people who dislike it, and even if that's a tiny percentage, it can be a huge boost to DDG.

0.7% * 1.28 = 0.9% market share today.

A large fraction of the people using Google probably have no idea DDG exists. So the backlash is likely significantly larger than just the 0.2% who left to this search engine.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#245
post #244

Google has 90% market share. DDG has 0.7%. I don't have a POV on whether AI mode is good or not, but surely there's gonna be some people who dislike it, and even if that's a tiny percentage, it can be a huge boost to DDG.

0.7% * 1.28 = 0.9% market share today. A large fraction of the people using Google probably have no idea DDG exists. So the backlash is likely significantly larger than just the 0.2% who left to this search engine.

Chrome/Android users in the UE have, at least, heard about DDG.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#246

My friends who previously had no interest in technology and never talked about it, are suddenly following tech news closely all because they hate AI being pushed so hard. One was just messaging me this morning about alternatives to Google search and maps. He ended up downloading DuckDuckGo. If Google isn’t carefully they’re going to push people away from their golden goose.

> downloading DuckDuckGo. What for? Just use the website via your favourite browser.

> My friends who previously had no interest in technology

Their friend are probably the kind of people conflating Chrome/Google with "The Internet"

And I think on Android its even less clear the distinction between the browser app and "Google"

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#248
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to capture more of the value that was previously going to others. That's basically what this has all been leading to. Why let a cooking website get visitors and ad revenue when they are free to take the content and show it as their own? Now they are going to do the same to e-commerce. Either they are going to let customers buy their products through Google's interface, or they won't be discovered. No more o…

> Why let a cooking website get visitors and ad revenue when they are free to take the content and show it as their own? I think this is a step beyond that - why should people be creating cooking websites when you can ask LLM how to cook given thing, while indeed, serving their own ads. It's the continuation of "we own content other people produce" policy

Google already killed cooking websites - when it refused to show them in search unless they added long slop content to it. And it killed blogosphere when it decided blogs wont be found if they just contain content without deliberate SEO play.

And I think the rest of it will end the same way. People will be significantly less eager to do all that free work when no one will be able to find it.

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#249
post #242
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you trust the tool that recommended putting glue on pizza to give you a good recipe?

If the user puts glue on their pizza because a computer said so, that's a human problem. The computer generated recipes can be useful as inspiration, but of course common sense is required.

This "common sense" you refer to, is it the same common sense Babbage was subject to?

"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

~ Charles Babbage

Re: DuckDuckGo search saw 28% more visits after Google said people love AI mode

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I truly don't get Google's move. Users aren't adopting their AI at the rate shareholders expect, so they now force the adoption at the cost of search.

According to Google, users are adopting it. They say AI mode is the most popular feature they've ever introduced, and is driving an increase in total search queries. >Just one year after its debut, AI Mode has surpassed one billion monthly users, with queries more than doubling every quarter since launch. As people have realized just how much more Search can do for them, they’re searching more than ever before — so m…

> driving an increase in total search queries

I search more when I cant find the thing I am looking for. I search less when I find the thing I am looking for.

Second, it takes additional effort to not do AI search.

Post reply on HN