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I want DDG to succeed, but I'm worried they missed their window of opportunity. Being a thin wrapper on Bing will only get you so far... I was hoping they wer

I want DDG to succeed, but I'm worried they missed their window of opportunity. Being a thin wrapper on Bing will only get you so far... I was hoping they were busy building their own search engine the past several years, but it doesn't seem they have been. People noticed their traffic was trending downward last year, and they responded by removing their publicly facing traffic page entirely (formerly here: https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://duckduckgo.com/traffic).

dmix 4y ago
That's not a good sign. > I was hoping they were busy building their own search engine the past several years, but it doesn't seem they have been. I assumed this as well. If Google could do this in the late 90s and iterate into the 2000s why can't DDG be able to do it over a decade in the 2020s? Maybe DDG has figured out some business model and don't want to mess with it or something.
- thayne 4y ago
  > If Google could do this in the late 90s and iterate into the 2000s why can't DDG be able to do it over a decade in the 2020s Well, part of it is there is a lot more content to index now, which means you need a lot more resources to get started.
jefftk 4y ago
Specifically: * Between 2022-06-02 (https://web.archive.org/web/20220602142058/https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://web.archive.org/web/20220602142058/https://duckduckg...) and 2022-06-08 (https://web.archive.org/web/20220608024746/https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://web.archive.org/web/20220608024746/https://duckduckg...) they removed the graph. It was showing queries leveling off just under 100M/d. * Between 2022-11-18 (https://web.archive.org/web/20221118045948/https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://web.archive.org/web/20221118045948/https://duckduckg...) and 2022-12-06 (https://web.archive.org/web/20221206080717/https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://web.archive.org/web/20221206080717/https://duckduckg...) they took the page down entirely.
gtirloni 4y ago
I've also tried to like it many times and used it as my default search engine, but the results are simply worse. I do cheer for them though but I'm not holding my breath. Being privacy focused only goes so far.
freedomben 4y ago
> Being a thin wrapper on Bing will only get you so far... I was hoping they were busy building their own search engine the past several years, but it doesn't seem they have been. Indeed, in the startup world it is wide knowledge that you should buy whatever you can buy - never build. I'm guessing DDG took this approach also. At some point though, I've seen companies get to where aren't actually offering anything of value. Brand value can be high so some companies can float on brand alone, but it's quite a risk. Especially in DDG's case, relying on a third party (especially one that directly competes with you!) is a dangerous practice. By all means leverage the data you have access to, but if you're not improving significantly on it or aggregating or something, you're just rolling dice.

dmix 4y ago

That's not a good sign. > I was hoping they were busy building their own search engine the past several years, but it doesn't seem they have been. I assumed this as well. If Google could do this in the late 90s and iterate into the 2000s why can't DDG be able to do it over a decade in the 2020s? Maybe DDG has figured out some business model and don't want to mess with it or something.

thayne 4y ago
> If Google could do this in the late 90s and iterate into the 2000s why can't DDG be able to do it over a decade in the 2020s Well, part of it is there is a lot more content to index now, which means you need a lot more resources to get started.

jefftk 4y ago

Specifically: * Between 2022-06-02 (https://web.archive.org/web/20220602142058/https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://web.archive.org/web/20220602142058/https://duckduckg...) and 2022-06-08 (https://web.archive.org/web/20220608024746/https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://web.archive.org/web/20220608024746/https://duckduckg...) they removed the graph. It was showing queries leveling off just under 100M/d. * Between 2022-11-18 (https://web.archive.org/web/20221118045948/https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://web.archive.org/web/20221118045948/https://duckduckg...) and 2022-12-06 (https://web.archive.org/web/20221206080717/https://duckduckgo.com/traffic https://web.archive.org/web/20221206080717/https://duckduckg...) they took the page down entirely.

gtirloni 4y ago

I've also tried to like it many times and used it as my default search engine, but the results are simply worse. I do cheer for them though but I'm not holding my breath. Being privacy focused only goes so far.

freedomben 4y ago

> Being a thin wrapper on Bing will only get you so far... I was hoping they were busy building their own search engine the past several years, but it doesn't seem they have been. Indeed, in the startup world it is wide knowledge that you should buy whatever you can buy - never build. I'm guessing DDG took this approach also. At some point though, I've seen companies get to where aren't actually offering anything of value. Brand value can be high so some companies can float on brand alone, but it's quite a risk. Especially in DDG's case, relying on a third party (especially one that directly competes with you!) is a dangerous practice. By all means leverage the data you have access to, but if you're not improving significantly on it or aggregating or something, you're just rolling dice.