DuckDuckGo: Shiny Object or Search Engine Evolution?

March 21, 2022

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Background

For as long as the Internet has been widely accessible, Google has dominated the search engine market. Google’s success dates back to the 1990s, and the browser has been steadfast in its position, achieving a 92% market share as of January 2022.

Historically outpaced players include, but certainly aren’t limited to:

  • Bing
  • Yahoo!
  • Baidu
  • Yandex RU

Aside from evolving into its own verb, Google has been able to accomplish such great strength for a multitude of reasons. The mindset of ever-evolving innovation, continually releasing Beta versions, and commitment to user-focus, are just a few of the traits that have allowed the organization to grow to where it is today.

*DuckDuckGo Enters the Chat*

Recently, DuckDuckGo, announced its achievement of 100 billion searches to date. The search engine has recently experienced a rather significant explosion of usage, which can may be a result of the company’s mission:

Piggybacking on their mission statement, DuckDuckGo is adamant about not tracking Users. And the platform takes pride in serving its Users “unbiased” results, which it claims you don’t receive on Google searches. Meaning, DDG won’t apply your previous search history or online activity when deciding what to serve you on its SERP (search engine results page).

DuckDuckGo History

DuckDuckGo was launched in February 2008 and its service is a combination of 400+ sources while also including data from crowdsourced websites.

Website traffic and popularity speak for themselves, with 2022 already yielding over 100 million searches per day and a new record for daily DDG searches on With each privacy change or wave of data protection across the web, DDG experiences solely positive results, primarily an increase in traffic and usage.

Does this pose a threat to Google’s status?

Definitely not. DDG still has a long way to go in overtaking Google, but is making notable progress compared to Yahoo!, Bing, and other browsers.

Should I pivot away from Paid Advertising on Google?

Definitely not. Google has over a 90% foothold on the search engine market share! On top of this, Google is the most visited website with estimates of 5-6 billion searches per day.

So does DDG Monetize its Services?

Yes, DDG is still a for-profit organization, utilizing search engine advertising and affiliate revenue. Meaning, brands can advertise on DDG through Microsoft Advertising.

TAKEAWAY

At Orchard, we want to draw attention to and acknowledge this particular phenomenon with DDQ as Google has been dominant in its position over the years. This “legacy” has resulted in a significant amount of investment performed by brands, marketers, and other B2B organizations based solely on Google’s existence.

Fortunately, all SEO effort put into your website will help your ranking, or presence, regardless of the browser. User experience and intent will continue to be at the forefront of all search engines – so as long as your website is optimized, you don’t necessarily have to worry about DDG’s performance against Google.

QUESTIONS FOR OUR READERS

We’d love to hear from you:

  • Do you have any experience with DuckDuckGo? If so, do you prefer it to Google or any other search engines?
  • Do data and privacy scandals have an impact on how you view Google?
  • Would you consider using DDG instead of Google? If so, why?
  • Do you use any other search engines outside of DDG or Google?

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