We’ve covered DuckDuckGo many times here at Search Engine Watch (check out Rebecca Sentence’s great primer here[1]). This month sees the privacy-first search engine turn 10 – an impressive age for any business that boasts Google and Bing as its main competitors.
The 10-year anniversary coincides with a major funding boost for the service. This comes courtesy of Canadian pension fund Omers who have invested $10m to assist with expansion into Canada and further global impact. While DuckDuckGo’s worldwide search market share might currently be tiny compared to Google et al. (less than 0.39% according to StatCounter), it is clear there are tech disruptors beyond the walls of the business itself who continue to see great potential for growth as the digital landscape evolves.
So how has DuckDuckGo grown in recent years? And is there still a viable pull from the duck side as the service enters its second decade?
DuckDuckGo: The search engine that doesn’t track you
As we’ll discuss later, DuckDuckGo has evolved to become more than just a search engine during its first 10 years. But first, let’s recap on this element of the company and how it sets itself apart.
Launched in 2008, DuckDuckGo gave users the option to search the web without having their IP addresses, search history, or any other user data stored save for some essential cookies. It has its own web crawler, and its SERPs bolster this primary source with hundreds of other secondary sources such as Yahoo! and Wikipedia – as well as ads from the Yahoo-Bing network (but these are not tracked).
In a nutshell, complete privacy is DuckDuckGo’s USP. There are no filter bubbles for users because there are no