

What People Search First at Duck Duck Go (with an HN subset) - epi0Bauqu
http://duckduckgo.com/blog/what-people-search-first-at-duck-duck-go.html

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vaksel
This is pretty telling, because that means people aren't really looking for
results, they are just using random queries to see what the search results
layout looks like.

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abossy
It's difficult to think of a search term that will "stress test" a new search
engine. I literally search Google anywhere from 20-100 times a day by using
Ctrl+K in my browser. If that could be substituted by search engine X (where
X, in this case, is Duck Duck Go) such that the results were much more
precise, then that would be a basis for switching. It works, though, and it's
built-in, so why switch? I don't feel one can get a promising measure of how
good a search engine's results are with random queries, only how BAD they are
(e.g. Cuil returning no results for "basic" queries).

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ericb
I would argue dirty terms are good for test purposes as they are heavily
gamed, because there is so much money at stake. The "boobs" searches mentioned
in the article might not be solely for the obvious reason.

"Mesothelioma" results would be worth testing.

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ramonlima
The "meshing" idea behind Duck Duck Go is great, but it's search results is
not what a user needs everyday. A user needs results sorted out in cultural
domains, based on their usage and culture you can get results that is
proximate to what someone is thinking.. based on linkage and facts that makes
the result of the query.

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chanux
One thing I notice again & again. How those stats turn in to a normal
distribution by time.

First the tech people came & looked for python, lisp Google etc then the
average guys came & looked for boobs, sex & fuck. (I don't say that tech guys
didn't look for boobs).

Noticed this happening on Twitter & I hope this is at least starting to happen
to HN.

PS: And I shamelessly did a vanity search first :)

And duckduckgo seemed worth adding to Firefox. The simple interface will be a
lot helpful for less techy/experienced crowd.

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prakash
I found #25 hi, #28 cuil & #30 India funny - a greeting, a not-so-new search
engine & a country.

How many days do you store logs? Why don't you use cookies? How many people
searched for "0"?

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epi0Bauqu
Not many '0' queries--that term's ranking is about #2000 in this data set.

We're planning on removing IP addresses from our logs after a year, but
keeping them in some form indefinitely, as per our privacy policy:
<http://duckduckgo.com/privacy.html>. However, we're very open to suggestions
on this front. Right now, as it has been less than a year since we went
public, we have everything.

We don't use cookies at the moment because simply there hasn't been a pressing
need to use them. We may start using them, however, to store things like
language/region preferences.

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prakash
Thanks!

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chaosmachine
My first test searches were all Drupal related, looking to see where my own
sites might rank. My conclusion was that the results were very similar to
Google's.

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yawniek
how can i add it to safari?

<http://duckduckgo.com/?q=duckduckgo+safari> is not very informative...

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epi0Bauqu
You cannot without a plugin. This is one: <http://www.machangout.com/>

This whole area of browsers really bothers me. I don't get why Safari and
Opera don't implement the opensearch protocol, and further don't get why
Chrome and Firefox (who do) don't implement the equivalent of IE's
isSearchProviderInstalled, so you can stop showing an Add to X link once it is
done (without cookies). Actually, in this area IE is the clear winner!

