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I'm not sure DDG can actually do much to improve search results with the way they operate. They aren't a first class search engine, they get results from other

by WD-42 7y ago

I'm not sure DDG can actually do much to improve search results with the way they operate. They aren't a first class search engine, they get results from other search engines. Perform a search on DDG, then do the same search on Bing. You'll notice the first results are the same. In order for search results to get better on DDG, they first need to get better on their partner search engines (which I believe Bing is the main) so as far as I can tell it's out of their control.

MadWombat 7y ago
> They aren't a first class search engine, they get results from other search engines. Perform a search on DDG, then do the same search on Bing You search for the thing and you find the thing. Why do you expect the results, especially the top results, to be different? Is there any other evidence that they are not doing searches themselves?
- rvnx 7y ago
  duckduckgo-owned-server.yahoo.net ? Same results and order as Yahoo on obscure keywords
  - rjf72 7y ago
    Which keywords? I just searched (as posted above) for "extent space taco secure". It breaks bing. Yahoo returns results that are closer (including some shared oddities like storage units in Nashville), but they're still very distinctly unique.
    - rvnx 7y ago
      "squalala" Country Estonia 100% match between DDG and Yahoo from my tests
- WD-42 7y ago
  Because that's how it works? They even document it themselves: https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1 https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1
  - fredsanford 7y ago
    Doesn't yahoo use bing for searches? I'd swear it did at one point.
rjf72 7y ago
You know there's something weird. You could prove your little hypothesis here wrong in less time than it took you to write it. So why state something that's wrong? I tested this by choosing to search for something completely random that would return unusual results and give a decent indicator of whether or not DDG was just copy-pasting results, so to speak. I searched for "extent space taco secure", no quotations. Bing seems to have exploded when I searched for this. The results are completely nonsensical and seem to have nothing to do with what I searched for. The first two hits are to Google, the first about webhp (apparently some virus?) and the other to their chrome page. Other links include things like links to fidelity.com, americanexpress.com, and the huffington post front page. DDG's results are [mostly] reasonable and populated mostly by things like some recent event where the head of NASA mentioned space security. Though it does have a link to the SF bay area craigslist alongside a couple of other really weird ones. In any case, you can see for yourself. Suffice to say they're definitely not just replicating results, at least not from Bing.
- WD-42 7y ago
  You could also read their documentation: https://duckduckgo.com/api https://duckduckgo.com/api > Because of the way we generate our search results, we unfortunately do not have the rights to fully syndicate our results, free or paid. That page links to: https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/ Where, after you get past a bunch of stuff about their "instant answers" gets to the root of it: > We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from a variety of partners, including Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing. So yes, maybe I was wrong saying results come only from Bing. But they definitely source their search results. I'm not knocking DDG here, I use it as my daily search driver. If you were to try and build a search engine today with limited resources would you really try to start from scratch? The way DDG has approached the problem (by sourcing results from other search engines) seems like the only reasonable way to be even remotely competitive.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    Yes, they source their results. This is not the extent of your claims. You were stating that they directly rip from other engines meaning that, in your words, "In order for search results to get better on DDG, they first need to get better on their partner search engines". That is simply completely wrong, as my example showed extremely clearly. The one and only weakness of sourcing from third parties is that if they are not indexing some site, you also will not be indexing it. You were implying they are directly dependent on the ordering and quality of the other engines, which is obviously and provably false.

by WD-42 7y ago

MadWombat 7y ago

> They aren't a first class search engine, they get results from other search engines. Perform a search on DDG, then do the same search on Bing You search for the thing and you find the thing. Why do you expect the results, especially the top results, to be different? Is there any other evidence that they are not doing searches themselves?

rvnx 7y ago
duckduckgo-owned-server.yahoo.net ? Same results and order as Yahoo on obscure keywords
- rjf72 7y ago
  Which keywords? I just searched (as posted above) for "extent space taco secure". It breaks bing. Yahoo returns results that are closer (including some shared oddities like storage units in Nashville), but they're still very distinctly unique.
  - rvnx 7y ago
    "squalala" Country Estonia 100% match between DDG and Yahoo from my tests
WD-42 7y ago
Because that's how it works? They even document it themselves: https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1 https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1
- fredsanford 7y ago
  Doesn't yahoo use bing for searches? I'd swear it did at one point.

rjf72 7y ago

You know there's something weird. You could prove your little hypothesis here wrong in less time than it took you to write it. So why state something that's wrong? I tested this by choosing to search for something completely random that would return unusual results and give a decent indicator of whether or not DDG was just copy-pasting results, so to speak. I searched for "extent space taco secure", no quotations. Bing seems to have exploded when I searched for this. The results are completely nonsensical and seem to have nothing to do with what I searched for. The first two hits are to Google, the first about webhp (apparently some virus?) and the other to their chrome page. Other links include things like links to fidelity.com, americanexpress.com, and the huffington post front page. DDG's results are [mostly] reasonable and populated mostly by things like some recent event where the head of NASA mentioned space security. Though it does have a link to the SF bay area craigslist alongside a couple of other really weird ones. In any case, you can see for yourself. Suffice to say they're definitely not just replicating results, at least not from Bing.

WD-42 7y ago
You could also read their documentation: https://duckduckgo.com/api https://duckduckgo.com/api > Because of the way we generate our search results, we unfortunately do not have the rights to fully syndicate our results, free or paid. That page links to: https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/ Where, after you get past a bunch of stuff about their "instant answers" gets to the root of it: > We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we also source from a variety of partners, including Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing. So yes, maybe I was wrong saying results come only from Bing. But they definitely source their search results. I'm not knocking DDG here, I use it as my daily search driver. If you were to try and build a search engine today with limited resources would you really try to start from scratch? The way DDG has approached the problem (by sourcing results from other search engines) seems like the only reasonable way to be even remotely competitive.
- rjf72 7y ago
  Yes, they source their results. This is not the extent of your claims. You were stating that they directly rip from other engines meaning that, in your words, "In order for search results to get better on DDG, they first need to get better on their partner search engines". That is simply completely wrong, as my example showed extremely clearly. The one and only weakness of sourcing from third parties is that if they are not indexing some site, you also will not be indexing it. You were implying they are directly dependent on the ordering and quality of the other engines, which is obviously and provably false.