4 ms·

DuckDuckGo is top result for "new search engine"

27 points by pclark 18y ago

jacquesm 18y ago
I'm all for diversity, let's hope this duck doesn't go the way of the dodo! If anybody out there wants to pit their might against google then I wish them good luck, as long as you find that your relevance for 'new search engine' on your competitors website is of major importance I think you have a ways to go. Coincidentially duckduckgo gives 'cuil' as the first result for 'new search engine', I'm not sure how to interpret that :)
- thorax 18y ago
  Now that you mention it. Am I the only one seeing this? For the past month or so, Google has been less satisfying in their search results for me. I've been an avid Google search addict since 1998, I really sense a palpable drop in result quality since before the holidays. Maybe it's a bad index refresh? Maybe they've got some little issue? Maybe it's my discomfort with the invasion of the top search results with "Did you mean BLAH" results? Or I'm losing my mind? Or maybe they're losing a bit of their touch? Recently I had 2-3 technical search results that returned much better hits from Yahoo and Live than from Google. This almost never has happened for me-- certainly never before did I start to think "maybe I'm missing out by using Google exclusively". For a business perspective, I believe this might be adding to why we're seeing increased traffic for our error search engine (http://bug.gd http://bug.gd). Our search results differe substantially from Google's because we optimize for errors across our own web index, our community results, and BOSS. Google used to do a better job of finding these errors in haystacks, too. Is anyone else feeling this drop in Google search results quality lately? Or is it just me?
  - mojonixon 18y ago
    You're not alone. I think it's the suggested search results. Almost never useful. I've switched over to yahoo in my toolbar. I think the top search engines are close enough in quality that their results are only distinguishable by interface (there's been research, though I can't remember where). When they change the presentation with that "did you mean" they do more damage to the brand than improvement to the results. It's Google's version of Clippy.
mattmaroon 18y ago
This site is going to have to change it's name to get to the next level. I can't ever see anyone saying "just duckduckgo it".
- truebosko 18y ago
  "Just duck it." :)
- ericb 18y ago
  duckit?
- seano 18y ago
  Maybe, but 15 years ago "just google it" would have sounded strange too.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    There's strange and then there's overly long. Google rolls off the tongue. Also, Google is fun, maybe even a little silly. DuckDuckGo is childish. It makes me think it's a search engine for toddlers. I'm willing to admit I may be wrong, but I think that name will hold them back.
    - mkuhn 18y ago
      I somewhat agree with you. In the long-run in my opinion it will hinder widespread adoption because, as you said, the name just sounds silly. But right now the name probably helps them because it generates attention and is memorable. But how DuckDuckGo thinks about this when it comes to a long-term perspective I don't know.
      - mattmaroon 18y ago
        It's harder to change names later. Google both generated attention immediately and was long-term viable. The product will generate attention in the long run if its good.
truebosko 18y ago
DuckDuckGo gets some interesting results on an ego search compared to Google. I wonder how it ranks results compared to other search engines.
markessien 18y ago
Speaking of new search engines, is there any search engine that just returns a single result for each query typed in?
- mkuhn 18y ago
  yes, google. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button is your friend :-)
  - breily 18y ago
    Also, you could set the num parameter: http://www.google.com/search?q=asdf&num=1 http://www.google.com/search?q=asdf&num=1
    - markessien 18y ago
      What I'm thinking of here is a search engine that returns a single result per item, and then if the result answers your question, it ranks higher in the search result, meaning it answers other peoples questions too. You can click a button to get rid of the current result and view the next. This way, the search engine always gives the best possible reply.
      - mkuhn 18y ago
        this somewhat sounds like the search-wiki extension Google has. you can only see it when you are logged in but you can influence the ordering of results. it's not one result but you can manipulate them and AFAIK Google mentioned that they want to use that data sometime in the future.
      - gojomo 18y ago
        Was thinking of something like this, also. I could see it working, but mainly for queries that have one clearly-best result, or where the 'snippet' itself answers the query. So perhaps for 'answers' search more than general web search. The implicit user feedback created would be great... but uses might be frustrated by not being able to scan many results quickly. (I always set Google to return 100 results...)
tokenadult 18y ago
"We label official sites, and always put them on top." How would we torture-test this product claim? This claim is a lie as to an ego search on my own name. There is an "official" page (one I maintain), but it's not the top result. Do we consider Paul Graham, to give a familiar example, to have an official site?
- epi0Bauqu 18y ago
  paulgraham.com, which is labeled Official site at http://duckduckgo.com/Paul_Graham http://duckduckgo.com/Paul_Graham Sorry if our text is a bit unclear. We label official sites (that we know about), and always put them on top.
vaksel 18y ago
how many people would go to Google and search for a term "new search engine"? I'd figure a person would use the term search or search engine, and for those duckduckgo is not even in the top 10 pages
- epi0Bauqu 18y ago
  http://www.google.com/trends?q=new+search+engine%2C+hacker+news&ctab=1701978227&geo=all&date=ytd http://www.google.com/trends?q=new+search+engine%2C+hacker+n... You have to start somewhere...
  - epi0Bauqu 18y ago
    Just to be clear, I went for this key phrase, e.g. look at the homepage title. I thought "new search engine" was a) in immediate reach; b) efforts for it could help with "search engine"; and c) people actually searching for "new search engine" are probably good candidates for using Duck Duck Go. Now I suppose it's time to move on to higher volume stuff...
- axod 18y ago
  "new search engine": Approx search volume January=18,100. Approx search volume average=22,200 (From google adwords tools). For comparison, "people search" gets 68,000,000 January, and average of 30,400,000
  - fallentimes 18y ago
    Sort of off topic, but is the adwords tool the best one to use to find search volume?
    - epi0Bauqu 18y ago
      If you have a point of reference, I find Google trends useful as well. By point of reference, I mean you have some keywords where you know the actual click volume from personal experience, i.e. you rank 1st on that keyword.
petercooper 18y ago
And you know how they got that ranking? They promoted a widget - http://duckduckgo.com/karma.html http://duckduckgo.com/karma.html - a little while back that when you install it on your site it uses backlink text of "new search engine" to link to their front page (rather than the page with the widget). Sadly I don't find their actual search engine very useful at all, but the widget is excellent! It shows you your karma count / popularity on a handful of Web services including Hacker News.
- epi0Bauqu 18y ago
  Thanks for using our widget! There is also a similar profiles one: http://duckduckgo.com/profiles.html http://duckduckgo.com/profiles.html If anyone needs/wants any help getting it set up (doubtful on HN), or, needs/wants other services added before use (more likely), then please let me know...
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- wensing 18y ago
  Not to co-opt any thunder, but we used the same strategy for Stormpulse.com and in doing so have become the #1 result for "storm tracker" http://is.gd/i2C3 http://is.gd/i2C3 and the #2 result (behind only the National Hurricane Center itself, and ahead of Weather Underground, et al) for "hurricane tracking" http://is.gd/i2C8 http://is.gd/i2C8.
sgman 18y ago
Interesting that you used google to search for a "new search engine".

27 points by pclark 18y ago

I'm all for diversity, let's hope this duck doesn't go the way of the dodo! If anybody out there wants to pit their might against google then I wish them good luck, as long as you find that your relevance for 'new search engine' on your competitors website is of major importance I think you have a ways to go. Coincidentially duckduckgo gives 'cuil' as the first result for 'new search engine', I'm not sure how to interpret that :)

thorax 18y ago
Now that you mention it. Am I the only one seeing this? For the past month or so, Google has been less satisfying in their search results for me. I've been an avid Google search addict since 1998, I really sense a palpable drop in result quality since before the holidays. Maybe it's a bad index refresh? Maybe they've got some little issue? Maybe it's my discomfort with the invasion of the top search results with "Did you mean BLAH" results? Or I'm losing my mind? Or maybe they're losing a bit of their touch? Recently I had 2-3 technical search results that returned much better hits from Yahoo and Live than from Google. This almost never has happened for me-- certainly never before did I start to think "maybe I'm missing out by using Google exclusively". For a business perspective, I believe this might be adding to why we're seeing increased traffic for our error search engine (http://bug.gd http://bug.gd). Our search results differe substantially from Google's because we optimize for errors across our own web index, our community results, and BOSS. Google used to do a better job of finding these errors in haystacks, too. Is anyone else feeling this drop in Google search results quality lately? Or is it just me?
- mojonixon 18y ago
  You're not alone. I think it's the suggested search results. Almost never useful. I've switched over to yahoo in my toolbar. I think the top search engines are close enough in quality that their results are only distinguishable by interface (there's been research, though I can't remember where). When they change the presentation with that "did you mean" they do more damage to the brand than improvement to the results. It's Google's version of Clippy.

mattmaroon 18y ago

This site is going to have to change it's name to get to the next level. I can't ever see anyone saying "just duckduckgo it".

truebosko 18y ago
"Just duck it." :)
ericb 18y ago
duckit?
seano 18y ago
Maybe, but 15 years ago "just google it" would have sounded strange too.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  There's strange and then there's overly long. Google rolls off the tongue. Also, Google is fun, maybe even a little silly. DuckDuckGo is childish. It makes me think it's a search engine for toddlers. I'm willing to admit I may be wrong, but I think that name will hold them back.
  - mkuhn 18y ago
    I somewhat agree with you. In the long-run in my opinion it will hinder widespread adoption because, as you said, the name just sounds silly. But right now the name probably helps them because it generates attention and is memorable. But how DuckDuckGo thinks about this when it comes to a long-term perspective I don't know.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      It's harder to change names later. Google both generated attention immediately and was long-term viable. The product will generate attention in the long run if its good.

truebosko 18y ago

DuckDuckGo gets some interesting results on an ego search compared to Google. I wonder how it ranks results compared to other search engines.

markessien 18y ago

Speaking of new search engines, is there any search engine that just returns a single result for each query typed in?

mkuhn 18y ago
yes, google. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button is your friend :-)
- breily 18y ago
  Also, you could set the num parameter: http://www.google.com/search?q=asdf&num=1 http://www.google.com/search?q=asdf&num=1
  - markessien 18y ago
    What I'm thinking of here is a search engine that returns a single result per item, and then if the result answers your question, it ranks higher in the search result, meaning it answers other peoples questions too. You can click a button to get rid of the current result and view the next. This way, the search engine always gives the best possible reply.
    - mkuhn 18y ago
      this somewhat sounds like the search-wiki extension Google has. you can only see it when you are logged in but you can influence the ordering of results. it's not one result but you can manipulate them and AFAIK Google mentioned that they want to use that data sometime in the future.
    - gojomo 18y ago
      Was thinking of something like this, also. I could see it working, but mainly for queries that have one clearly-best result, or where the 'snippet' itself answers the query. So perhaps for 'answers' search more than general web search. The implicit user feedback created would be great... but uses might be frustrated by not being able to scan many results quickly. (I always set Google to return 100 results...)

tokenadult 18y ago

"We label official sites, and always put them on top." How would we torture-test this product claim? This claim is a lie as to an ego search on my own name. There is an "official" page (one I maintain), but it's not the top result. Do we consider Paul Graham, to give a familiar example, to have an official site?

epi0Bauqu 18y ago
paulgraham.com, which is labeled Official site at http://duckduckgo.com/Paul_Graham http://duckduckgo.com/Paul_Graham Sorry if our text is a bit unclear. We label official sites (that we know about), and always put them on top.

vaksel 18y ago

how many people would go to Google and search for a term "new search engine"? I'd figure a person would use the term search or search engine, and for those duckduckgo is not even in the top 10 pages

epi0Bauqu 18y ago
http://www.google.com/trends?q=new+search+engine%2C+hacker+news&ctab=1701978227&geo=all&date=ytd http://www.google.com/trends?q=new+search+engine%2C+hacker+n... You have to start somewhere...
- epi0Bauqu 18y ago
  Just to be clear, I went for this key phrase, e.g. look at the homepage title. I thought "new search engine" was a) in immediate reach; b) efforts for it could help with "search engine"; and c) people actually searching for "new search engine" are probably good candidates for using Duck Duck Go. Now I suppose it's time to move on to higher volume stuff...
axod 18y ago
"new search engine": Approx search volume January=18,100. Approx search volume average=22,200 (From google adwords tools). For comparison, "people search" gets 68,000,000 January, and average of 30,400,000
- fallentimes 18y ago
  Sort of off topic, but is the adwords tool the best one to use to find search volume?
  - epi0Bauqu 18y ago
    If you have a point of reference, I find Google trends useful as well. By point of reference, I mean you have some keywords where you know the actual click volume from personal experience, i.e. you rank 1st on that keyword.

petercooper 18y ago

And you know how they got that ranking? They promoted a widget - http://duckduckgo.com/karma.html http://duckduckgo.com/karma.html - a little while back that when you install it on your site it uses backlink text of "new search engine" to link to their front page (rather than the page with the widget). Sadly I don't find their actual search engine very useful at all, but the widget is excellent! It shows you your karma count / popularity on a handful of Web services including Hacker News.

epi0Bauqu 18y ago
Thanks for using our widget! There is also a similar profiles one: http://duckduckgo.com/profiles.html http://duckduckgo.com/profiles.html If anyone needs/wants any help getting it set up (doubtful on HN), or, needs/wants other services added before use (more likely), then please let me know...
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
wensing 18y ago
Not to co-opt any thunder, but we used the same strategy for Stormpulse.com and in doing so have become the #1 result for "storm tracker" http://is.gd/i2C3 http://is.gd/i2C3 and the #2 result (behind only the National Hurricane Center itself, and ahead of Weather Underground, et al) for "hurricane tracking" http://is.gd/i2C8 http://is.gd/i2C8.

sgman 18y ago

Interesting that you used google to search for a "new search engine".