Microsoft could decide to terminate their access to Bing APIs at any time resulting in DDG’s immediately losing most of their users. DDG does not have their own crawler or index.
Or they could do what Microsoft typically does, and just buy them out. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
Re:DuckDuckGo Traffic
by frosted-flakes on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @08:15AM
(#22117240)
DuckDuckGo do have their own crawler (DuckDuckBot), and they augment their results with other search providers other than Bing, including Yandex.
https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/so...
They seem to only use their crawler for Instant Answer type results while all their "traditional links" come from "a variety of partners, including Verizon Media (formerly Yahoo) and Bing".
Re:DuckDuckGo Traffic
by IndexPointer on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @01:47PM
(#22120635)
The text in their help is confusing, but it kind of implies that their crawler is for answers only, and that web results come from Bing and yahoo (which is powered by Bing).
Re:DuckDuckGo Traffic
by skinnymuch on Thursday January 23, 2020 @06:14AM
(#22126582)
It’s not augmenting when almost all their results are from Bing. Most people on HN seem to try to spin it that way. Which isn’t correct.
Re:DuckDuckGo Traffic
by IndexPointer on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @08:39AM
(#22117399)
I don't know why they would, though.
They get paid and it doesn't steal traffic from them.
Unless Bing releases its own anonymous mode and DDG becomes a competitor.
Then they could charge more or force DDG to display "powered by Bing" in the logo. That would be the end of DDG.
Details of their deal with bing is unknown. It could be that Microsoft is giving it for free or they may have even better terms. There is zero transparency.
DuckDuckGo is 12 years old. They're far away from being a new upstart.
To put that into perspective, AltaVista's prime years only lasted six or seven years (~1996-2002; sold off in 2003). DDG is now one of the oldest independent search engines in Internet history.
Their very long-term, very slow, grinding upwards is one of the most amazing aspects of what they're accomplishing. It's incredibly difficult to do versus an entrenched monopoly (and one of the most powerful brands and corporations in the world at that). You almost never see it happen in tech once a monopoly is stable.