
DuckDuckGo Hits 14M Searches in a Single Day - riqbal
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/duckduckgo-hits-milestone-14-million-searches-single-day/184179/
======
AdamSC1
For the team here at DuckDuckGo, we were excited not only to hit 14M searches
in a single day but to also cross the threshold of 10B total private searches
served. Of which 4B were from last year alone.

We wrote a post covering it in our newly launched blog:
[https://spreadprivacy.com/10-billion-
fc7808c91343](https://spreadprivacy.com/10-billion-fc7808c91343)

It is always an amazing and humbling moment when we hit a new milestone in our
metrics. Our team is so incredibly passionate about what we do. To have people
from all over the world rally around this concept of raising the standard of
trust online and build this product is one thing. But, for users to endorse
that mission at such a growing pace and to share us with their friends and
family -- it lets us know we're truly making a difference for people who want
to be more private online, and that is incredibly rewarding.

So thank you, to all of you who search with us, all of you who know privacy
matters, and all of you who work along side us to show that privacy is not a
fringe interest but something we can all have!

~~~
WhitneyLand
DDG is a great success story, I wish the whole team the best.

I wonder how an exit will play out though. A big factor with DDG is user trust
- that seems to limit the list potential buyers to the few that could credibly
maintain that trust.

Then there is the IPO route, but that has it's own challenges. You could argue
that up until now DDG has had no competition because Google doesn't think it's
worth raising its hand to swat a fly. But there is no flying under the radar
after an IPO. What if Google promoted a new "no track" feature which matched
DDGs benefits without having to do dumb things like append query arguments,
modify location, and run plugins?

You might say Google would never give up this much tracking control, but there
are two caveats. First, if it's just an option buried in settings there will
be limited uptake yet DDG's ability to claim differentiation would be
nullified. Secondly, as DDG itself says, search can still be a great business
without having to track people.

If I were lucky enough to be in DDGs position I would push for a Microsoft
acquisition. MS has kept enough promises in recent years that they just may be
able provide DDG users enough guarantees to maintain the trust. People have
mentioned Apple but that seems like a lower probability for a variety of
reasons. An MS deal would avoid the massive hassle of an IPO and enough
resources to chip away at Google indefinitely without being pressured into
short term decisions.

For now I'm just glad DDG is here trying to do some good.

~~~
panic
Why would DuckDuckGo need to exit? Are they losing money?

~~~
jackcosgrove
Money can corrupt, but so can poverty.

There is a financial sweet spot where the contributors to DuckDuckGo are fat
and happy and there aren't greedy investors wanting to monetize all that
trust.

Google has already occupied the greedy investor niche. DDG has carved out a
niche where, I fear, the greatest threat is a lack of money for the people
building and maintaining DDG. If they feel underappreciated, they may start to
monetize that trust. The DDG team should be rewarded for their hard work.

~~~
AdamSC1
No concern here. While we don't disclose the figure our CEO has publicly noted
that we are indeed profitable:

[http://fortune.com/2015/10/09/duckduckgo-
profitable/](http://fortune.com/2015/10/09/duckduckgo-profitable/)

------
decasteve
I've been using DuckDuckGo since @yegg's first announcement of it (on reddit
iirc). The relevance of the results compared to their competitors' has been
noticeably improving over the years.

When a search doesn't quite give me what I'm looking for, I prepend !sp on my
query (to use startpage.com). I use this less and less and for most things DDG
gets me where I need to go.

I'm a huge fan. I'm thankful services like this are available--that respect
our privacy. I did have good intentions of contributing to duckduckhack.com
but have regretfully not gotten around to it yet.

~~~
zegerjan
I still insert `!g` in about 25% percent of my searches. Loved to see a metric
on how many people do the same or append it on the search box after seeing the
results.

I like DDG a lot, but I feel that Google knowing so much about me prevents it
from showing ruby gems over ruby lang search results. Must say, this has
improved greatly last year, but I don't trust DDG just yet fully.

~~~
eridius
I use !g if a DDG search doesn't give me anything useful, but this is far less
than 25% of my searches, and in nearly every case, Google didn't have anything
useful either.

Really the only times !g actually turns out to be useful is when I'm searching
for something that's well within my filter bubble on Google, but generic
enough that I get the wrong results when outside of my filter bubble (e.g.
DDG). But that's not really all that often.

------
philfrasty
The key for switching to DuckDuckGo for me was to set it as the default
searchengine / startpage on all browsers. While the relevance of search
results is slightly (noticable) worse than Google, I think the tradeoff
between privacy VS result-quality is worth it. Thanks for making such a great
product!

~~~
AdamSC1
Hey Phil,

DuckDuckGo employee here - Be sure to use the 'feedback' button that you find
on the search results page whenever you feel a search isn't up to standards.

Our team has been working hard at increasing relevancy, but the best changes
come when users let us know what they need.

Since we don't filter bubble results
([https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b...](https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles))
results certainly feel different when making the leap, and that takes an
adjustment period for most people. But, if you actually feel you have examples
where you can't find what you're looking for, then we want to know so we can
provide you a seamless search experience as well!

~~~
ximeng
Google has a list of scheduled flights when you put in two airport codes which
is useful, doesn't look like DDG does the same.

~~~
AdamSC1
At DuckDuckGo we've got open-source Instant Answers that currently pull in
information from over 1100 sources: ([https://duck.co/ia](https://duck.co/ia))

If you know of a good data source for scheduled flights you can easily
contribute an Instant Answer, or leave the source as a suggestion for our
community!

~~~
ximeng
Sorry I don't know a source... actually I don't think I've seen this on any
other sites. Just one of those small things that keeps me with Google.

------
hyperpape
I couldn't find anything obviously authoritative, but various sources
suggested Google does 3500m or so daily searches.

That puts DDG at less than 1%, but their percentage growth is huge. It can't
continue forever, but they could be a significant search engine if it doesn't
peter out too soon.

I tried DDG several times, but it finally stuck earlier this year. I'm really
happy it's available as an alternative.

~~~
tiffanyh
>> " Google does 3500m or so daily searches"

It's difficult to define what constitutes a "search" these days. Since google
release autocomplete search in 2004 [1], each letter you type into the search
bar results in a search query.

So simply searching for "superbowl 2017" would result in 14 searches because
there are 14 characters. So, do you count that as 1 search or 14?

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/how-
go...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/how-googles-
autocomplete-was-created-invented-born/278991/)

~~~
puzzle
No, search as you type only happened with Instant Search, which launched in
September 2010. From 2004 on, you still needed to press Enter to perform an
actual search.

Even now, you can inspect JS traffic and see that usually there aren't 14
searches when you enter [superbowl 2017]. Internal metrics reflect a lot of
that nuance and more.

Source: I own a Google Instant shirt because I was in one of the teams
involved in months of testing and in the launch.

------
mkj
Just trying it now, when you go "back" after clicking Images you go to
duckduckgo.com, not the previous page you were on. The url changes, so it's a
bit strange.

Results are decent, though the results page seems harder to skim read.

~~~
actualdc1
I've been using DDG as my primary search engine for years, and this feature
continues to trip me up on a daily basis.

------
RodericDay
DuckDuckGo is great and I've actually had surprising success in getting non-
tech people to try it out, and stick with it! My girlfriend has set it as
default it in all of her devices, she loves the !bang searches (imdb, wiki,
etc.) and lack of ads.

Also, half of my co-workers. !python, !mdn, etc.

I think the biggest hurdle going forward is the fact that DDG is much better
for English results than in other languages (we work half in French), but I
hope the project grows and grows. Google needs to go down eventually!

------
raresp
I've seen that some peoples talk about a name change. They say that:
"duckduckgo" is too much (and they're right in my opinion).

It's interesting to see that duck.com is owned by google. This is what they
call competition :)

The duckduckgo team should be smart enough to keep secret an upcoming name
change/rebranding. See for example how comodo tried to register "let's
encrypt" trademark: [https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/06/23/1946249/comodo-
atte...](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/06/23/1946249/comodo-attempting-
to-register-lets-encrypt-trademarks-and-thats-not-right) .

It's not easy to beat google at it's own game. Good luck!

------
jbmorgado
The only thing I miss in DDG compared to Google, is the ability to search in
time during the last year.

As a researcher and doing some coding, it's invaluable for me to filter
results that way.

------
ecommerceguy
Given the climate of political discord that is occurring on Google sites,
especially google "news" (which gets prominent placement in many google
searches now), I've switched my iPhone default search in Safari to DDG. I've
been pleasantly surprised that I don't need to google things for 90% of
searches.

------
rodionos
What's interesting is that growth has accelerated since September 2016.

[http://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/13/](http://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/e8635882/13/)

Any good reasons behind it?

~~~
dhfhduk
If you increase the time scale, the acceleration doesn't seem so big--it looks
like there's a fairly linear trend.

What's interesting to me is that there's such a consistent drop in searches
around the holidays. I'd expect some drop, but not that big, relatively
speaking.

------
pcora
DDG is a great search engine. I missed the lack of personalized search that
Google gets you, but once you get used and learn how to search properly, you
start loving it.

And I moved from Google on my phone due to the AMP crap.

------
yclept
Congratulations on the big growth.

I'm annoyed that I can't set DDG has the default search engine in Chrome
(Android). I hold a bookmark though so 'duc' autocompletes to duckduckgo. Not
too inconvenient.

~~~
AdamSC1
Hi yclept, we understand the frustration! We're always exploring our options
here. There are other Android browsers that do/can include us!

------
cygned
I recently submitted a bug in the search to DDG. It's very nice to be able to
help improve the project. And the bug reporter is neat.

Never seen anything comparable in competitive products.

------
kerkeslager
I'd love to see if there's a similar uptrend in usage for other services who
advertise privacy as part of their value. Anecdotally, a large chunk of my
social network has joined Signal just in the last few days, and without any
prompting from me. This is speculation, but it may be that many people who
were ambivalent about surveillance under Obama are concerned about
surveillance under Trump, and we'll see more user demand for privacy for the
next few years.

------
jackskell
I've been using DDG for a couple years, not that too many people would know
about it. Heh. Good enough for what I do, and having to go a few pages deep
sometimes doesn't really bother me, and in fact routinely exposes me to
resources that I was not aware of.

I have, and will continue to, pass good privacy practices on to others,
particularly non-tech users, even though people don't always have the time for
privacy discussions, they become aware of the issues.

------
majkinetor
I wonder why DDG bang search is praised like its a first time phenomena ?

What ? ... did people live in a cave all this time ? It existed for more then
a decade all around. Some examples include early Opera, chrome, vimium plugin,
Surfraw (linux CLI search tool) etc...

Anyway, DDG is refreshing. You can even turn off adds in the options. Google
may be a great search engine but as far as I am concerned, it can delete
'don't be evil' phrase from its mission statement.

------
verandaguy

        >In addition, the search engine is celebrating a
         combined total of 10 billion searches performed,
         with 4 billion searches conducted in December 2016
         alone.
    

This can't be right, can it? DDG's been around for years, and nearly half of
its total use volume has been in the past month?

~~~
altern8tif
It should be 4 billion in 2016, not just Dec 2016.

------
muninn_
I use it. It's not as good as Google, but it pretty much gets the job done
when I need it to.

------
patrick96
With 4 billion searches in December 2016, DDG would have had on average 129
million searches every day of december. I have to assume this actually meant 4
billion searches in 2016

------
agumonkey
I don't appreciate ddg results much, but I realized not long ago the feeling
of joy by knowing I'm not being tracked for any thing I search.

I can throw anything at it carelessly.

------
rangibaby
I switched to DDG as my default search everywhere a few months ago, and I
recommend everyone does. The results are passable and when they aren't there
is always !g

~~~
bogomipz
I am curious why you recommend everyone else switch since you say "The results
are passable." That's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

~~~
zokula
Agreed just use Startpage.com for better results and privacy than you can get
from DDG.

~~~
bogomipz
Wow this is great. I had no idea this existed. Thanks for the tip!

------
go_ghoti
One very useful differentiating feature DDG could add would be a discussion
forum search filter, like Google used to have before discontinuing it in 2014.

------
BEEdwards
I want to like DDG, but the results are never good.

Much like when I use bing, I more often than not I must re search for whatever
I want on google to find it.

~~~
adventurer
I have used it for about a month. I feel like it may be good for most people,
but google is far more precise for hard to find pages and answers to
programming questions, error strings, etc.

------
nerdponx
I'm a professional data scientist. Apart from donating, how can I support the
project? It's my default search engine everywhere now.

~~~
AdamSC1
As some others have mentioned you can check out
[https://duckduckhack.com/](https://duckduckhack.com/) our open-source
community that powers our Instant Answers (the answers that appear before the
search results/ads).

Our community has helped us pull in data from over 1100 sources to make
amazing experiences.

The value of this is that you can build out anything you are passionate about.
It creates some great niche experiences.

Maybe you want to look up who is in space right now:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=people+in+space&ia=answer](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=people+in+space&ia=answer)

Or you need to look up some NFL games:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=patriots+games&ia=nfl&iai=641](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=patriots+games&ia=nfl&iai=641)

Or you can't remember the details of that card from your Magic The Gathering
deck:
[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mtg+boiling+seas&ia=games&iax=1](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=mtg+boiling+seas&ia=games&iax=1)

We encourage people to build out the answers they want to see!

~~~
cpeterso
I've had some problems with DDG's bang searches on some sites where the sites'
search URLs moved or could use better search parameters. Where can users
report broken bang searches or suggest better options?

DDG has a lot of open source code on GitHub. A list mapping bang search terms
to site URLs could be maintained as a simple text file on GitHub so
contributors could test them or suggest improvements.

------
nueded
duckduckgo have significantly changed the way i use the web. namely the bangs
feature. simply put it's ingenious.
[https://duckduckgo.com/bang](https://duckduckgo.com/bang) the search has
improved in the past few years but when it fails i merely have to add a !g to
the query.

~~~
bwidlar
Yes, bangs are great.

------
tdkl
Is there any official reason why DDG isn't among the list of possible search
engines on Google Chrome Android build ?

~~~
kyrra
It will be there soon. Looks like all the changes to support this landed
recently. Though it's not so much DDG being in the list, but the available
search engines will be the last 5 search engines you visited.

[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=348360](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=348360)

~~~
tdkl
Thanks for this, tried it in Android Canary version and it works great.

------
korzun
With or without API?

------
escritor
DDG has become habitual for me, mainly because of the bang feature.

I have a blog on DDG's best bangs (and how to use them):
[http://duckgobang.com](http://duckgobang.com)

