5 ms·

If DDG gains sufficient marketshare, MS may just buy them out, for a steal perhaps since they have the ability to tighten the screws. So DDG is little more than

If DDG gains sufficient marketshare, MS may just buy them out, for a steal perhaps since they have the ability to tighten the screws. So DDG is little more than an MS proxy aimed at Google’s search business. It’s not really an underdog, just two behemoths fighting for control of the search business. Sounds more like “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

ISL 6y ago
This is only true if DDG isn't investing into its own backend as it grows. If all the users go to DDG.com, it won't matter if Bing has a great backend or not. I've recently lived this experience in another context. We built a great backend for a partner that was good at publicity. When they redirected users to their internal backend, we were dead in the water. It didn't matter that the partner struggled with their backend and ours was better. We hadn't invested resources in independent publicity, so users couldn't find us. It was a hard lesson to learn.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  And to that point, DDG does have its own crawler, and I believe leverages other third-parties as well (I know Yandex was historically in the mix, for example). So if Microsoft did try to strongarm DuckDuckGo, DDG would have other options, even if less-than-ideal.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    There’s no one close to Google in the US. After a big drop, there’s no one REMOTELY close to Bing for 2nd best results. Bing dropping DDG in 2020 or 2021 would be a death kneel for them for US search results. Probably many other countries too. Yandex is too far off right now to be a replacement. I haven’t checked Yandex in a bit of time though. Perhaps they drastically improved. People in tech circles always say DDG has a crawler. I know they do. No one ever says how big it is. I have a hard time believing it’s crawling more than a couple percent what Bing is crawling.
    - yellowapple 6y ago
      > No one ever says how big [DuckDuckBot] is One complicating matter is that it specializes in DDG's "Instant Answers"; apparently¹ the "source from other search engines" approach really only applies to the traditional results list, while DuckDuckBot is focused specifically on the Instant Answers, effectively optimizing for the absolute most relevant first result possible. So in its current state DuckDuckBot ain't exactly comparable in purpose. Still, I don't see much that'd be stopping DDG from ramping this up and having it generate the traditional list of results, too. Yeah, obviously the results for quite a few queries will be far from ideal, but if the query already hits one of DDG's curated data sources, I suspect the results might already be better if anything. ---- ¹: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
- travisporter 6y ago
  DuckDuckGo is ddg.gg not ddg.com
  - julianlam 6y ago
    However, I believe they are also duck.com
toyg 6y ago
I believe DDG used other solutions pre-Bing; it’s just that, after they switched to Bing, it seemed to work well enough that they kept it. Could they afford the hit in result quality resulting from switching away, if MS started playing rough? That’s a good question, but I’m sure the DDG folks have thought about it.
- asdkhadsj 6y ago
  Depends on the user I imagine. Most of my searches start on DDG and I just got used to expecting certain types of "human phrase searches" to be !g'd, or more recently for me, !s'd. So if DDG degraded in quality I'd be fine, because I don't expect perfection. Though I suppose it depends on how much, of course.
- chris_f 6y ago
  I believe DDG used other solutions pre-Bing... DDG used the Yahoo Boss API [0] originally. It was pretty good, but Yahoo shut it down and Bing now also powers their search engine. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Search_BOSS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Search_BOSS
  - takeda 6y ago
    Wasn't Yahoo! Bing powered at that time? :)
    - chris_f 6y ago
      DDG launched in 2008, and according to the below, the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft didn't happen until 2009 at the earliest. In July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search. All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012. The deal was altered in 2015, meaning Yahoo! was only required to use Bing for a "majority" of searches. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=4325491 https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=4325491
      - skinnymuch 6y ago
gist 6y ago
> for a steal perhaps since they have the ability to tighten the screws. You think they don't have some tight contractual relationship with built in renewals and extensions? This is really similar to how corporations lock up retail real estate locations. They don't sign a 1 or 2 or even 5 year lease and then hope the landlord doeesn't rake them over the coals when there is no where else to go to. (Which could often be the case..) You build in renewal options as part of the deal. Those can last a long long time. May even have (probably does) a 'right of first refusal' and so on.
udp 6y ago
Maybe DDG is hoarding the results of every API call to Bing to build its own database. Then one day they can turn off the Bing integration and nobody will notice.
- kvothe_ 6y ago
  You can't hoard search results since they change. The same search in March may be different in April.
- frandroid 6y ago
  1) search results need to be dynamic over time 2) MSFT has clauses in its contract to address this. If a commenter on HN thinks of this one minute after reading the article, you can be sure that their legal team has thought about it too.

ISL 6y ago

This is only true if DDG isn't investing into its own backend as it grows. If all the users go to DDG.com, it won't matter if Bing has a great backend or not. I've recently lived this experience in another context. We built a great backend for a partner that was good at publicity. When they redirected users to their internal backend, we were dead in the water. It didn't matter that the partner struggled with their backend and ours was better. We hadn't invested resources in independent publicity, so users couldn't find us. It was a hard lesson to learn.

yellowapple 6y ago
And to that point, DDG does have its own crawler, and I believe leverages other third-parties as well (I know Yandex was historically in the mix, for example). So if Microsoft did try to strongarm DuckDuckGo, DDG would have other options, even if less-than-ideal.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  There’s no one close to Google in the US. After a big drop, there’s no one REMOTELY close to Bing for 2nd best results. Bing dropping DDG in 2020 or 2021 would be a death kneel for them for US search results. Probably many other countries too. Yandex is too far off right now to be a replacement. I haven’t checked Yandex in a bit of time though. Perhaps they drastically improved. People in tech circles always say DDG has a crawler. I know they do. No one ever says how big it is. I have a hard time believing it’s crawling more than a couple percent what Bing is crawling.
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    > No one ever says how big [DuckDuckBot] is One complicating matter is that it specializes in DDG's "Instant Answers"; apparently¹ the "source from other search engines" approach really only applies to the traditional results list, while DuckDuckBot is focused specifically on the Instant Answers, effectively optimizing for the absolute most relevant first result possible. So in its current state DuckDuckBot ain't exactly comparable in purpose. Still, I don't see much that'd be stopping DDG from ramping this up and having it generate the traditional list of results, too. Yeah, obviously the results for quite a few queries will be far from ideal, but if the query already hits one of DDG's curated data sources, I suspect the results might already be better if anything. ---- ¹: https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
travisporter 6y ago
DuckDuckGo is ddg.gg not ddg.com
- julianlam 6y ago
  However, I believe they are also duck.com

toyg 6y ago

I believe DDG used other solutions pre-Bing; it’s just that, after they switched to Bing, it seemed to work well enough that they kept it. Could they afford the hit in result quality resulting from switching away, if MS started playing rough? That’s a good question, but I’m sure the DDG folks have thought about it.

asdkhadsj 6y ago
Depends on the user I imagine. Most of my searches start on DDG and I just got used to expecting certain types of "human phrase searches" to be !g'd, or more recently for me, !s'd. So if DDG degraded in quality I'd be fine, because I don't expect perfection. Though I suppose it depends on how much, of course.
chris_f 6y ago
I believe DDG used other solutions pre-Bing... DDG used the Yahoo Boss API [0] originally. It was pretty good, but Yahoo shut it down and Bing now also powers their search engine. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Search_BOSS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Search_BOSS
- takeda 6y ago
  Wasn't Yahoo! Bing powered at that time? :)
  - chris_f 6y ago
    DDG launched in 2008, and according to the below, the deal between Yahoo and Microsoft didn't happen until 2009 at the earliest. In July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search. All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012. The deal was altered in 2015, meaning Yahoo! was only required to use Bing for a "majority" of searches. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=4325491 https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=4325491
    - skinnymuch 6y ago

gist 6y ago

> for a steal perhaps since they have the ability to tighten the screws. You think they don't have some tight contractual relationship with built in renewals and extensions? This is really similar to how corporations lock up retail real estate locations. They don't sign a 1 or 2 or even 5 year lease and then hope the landlord doeesn't rake them over the coals when there is no where else to go to. (Which could often be the case..) You build in renewal options as part of the deal. Those can last a long long time. May even have (probably does) a 'right of first refusal' and so on.

udp 6y ago

Maybe DDG is hoarding the results of every API call to Bing to build its own database. Then one day they can turn off the Bing integration and nobody will notice.

kvothe_ 6y ago
You can't hoard search results since they change. The same search in March may be different in April.
frandroid 6y ago
1) search results need to be dynamic over time 2) MSFT has clauses in its contract to address this. If a commenter on HN thinks of this one minute after reading the article, you can be sure that their legal team has thought about it too.