DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is the name of a search engine that distinguishes itself by not collecting user data nor storing IP addresses like Ixquick and qwant. That makes DuckDuckGo drastically different to search engine providers such as Google or Bing. Moreover, websites that contain a lot of advertising are filtered from the search results.

History and background

When Gabriel Weinberg (U.S.) started the search engine DuckDuckGo in 2011, he already had several years of experience on the web. He had developed an online store for his mother’s professional tailoring service and later sold it profitably for well over 5 million dollars. He addressed the subject of spam in his thesis. Thus, the course was set to provide a new search engine with less advertising. Another object of DuckDuckGo is to provide more relevant search results that are not used only for the purpose of creating a better ranking for other websites, according to the providers of this search engine.

Just a few months after the start of the search engine, Weinberg received a lot of support from investors. This was due to an ad posted by Weinberg in San Francisco. Since it went directly against Google’s data collection practices, he was certain to get attention.

Besides investors, DuckDuckGo will be able to manage and publish keyword-based text advertising for advertisers via Bing Ads.

The results of the search engine are generated by the work of its own crawler and integration of results from other search engines. DuckDuckGo uses interfaces to Yahoo, Wolfram Alpha, and Wikipedia as a source. Currently, DuckDuckGo answers 4.5 million searches per day.

DuckDuckGo received renewed popularity in 2013, when the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden showed how much Internet users are spied on.

Versions

DuckDuckGo is available as an add-on for many browsers and as an app for all major mobile operating systems.

Features

DuckDuckGo includes the following special features:

• Zero-click box: Important information on search results is displayed here similar to the Google OneBox or Knowledge Graph, without the user having to click again.

• No storage of personal data

• An anonymous search on the Tor network

Benefits for SEO and Marketing

Currently there are no adequate data with regard to SEO for DuckDuckGo. If the popularity of the search engine is to increase, many SEOs will specialize on optimizing websites for this search.

However, if you want to expand your advertising opportunities on search networks, you can advertise on DuckDuckGo. An advantage could be that the search engine enjoys high confidence amongst users and therefore the above published text-based advertising will be given more trust than Google AdWords for example. Nevertheless, it will be more likely to be a niche in the marketing mix, since DuckDuckGo is (still) far behind Google and other search engines in traffic volume.

Web Links

• DuckDuckGo