Anyone seeing increased traffic from DuckDuckGo in their analytics?

[bernard]

People on Twitter were talking about seeing increased traffic from DuckDuckGo.

Can't say I there's a lot of users from them in my analytics, but it does seem to be consistent and improving. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a thing because a lot of non-SEO people are talking about how Google has become worse.

 

[Smith]

I've been seeing about a 5-10% increase weekly on DuckDuckGo for the last month. My conversion rates are also improving, which might be related to increased DuckDuckGo traffic since my site caters to a more privacy-oriented consumer.

@bernard is the site you're talking about stable, increasing, or declining with Google right now? I ask because I'm seeing a slow and steady decline in Google organic. So it's weird DuckDuckGo would be improving.

Also, I'm pretty sure DuckDuckGo uses Bing as their backend. So increased DuckDuckGo traffic should suggest that Bing is favoring those sites seeing a bump? Or, like you said, just more users overall searching on DuckDuckGo.

 

[bernard]

I've been seeing about a 5-10% increase weekly on DuckDuckGo for the last month. My conversion rates are also improving, which might be related to increased DuckDuckGo traffic since my site caters to a more privacy-oriented consumer.

@bernard is the site you're talking about stable, increasing, or declining with Google right now? I ask because I'm seeing a slow and steady decline in Google organic. So it's weird DuckDuckGo would be improving.

Also, I'm pretty sure DuckDuckGo uses Bing as their backend. So increased DuckDuckGo traffic should suggest that Bing is favoring those sites seeing a bump? Or, like you said, just more users overall searching on DuckDuckGo.

I have very small numbers, but I'm seeing it across several sites, but both sites have been volatile.

The weird thing, and relevant to the above, is that it seems much more stable. None of the weird fluctuations and in and out of the index, just stead and slowly growing traffic.

It's not so much how much traffic I'm getting, but I'm curious if this is indicative of people actually having had enough of Google and moving to DDG. I think more and more tech savvy people are actually doing that.

Personally I find myself using other search engines regularly, which would have been unheard of until recently. I use Bing, Yandex, Brave Search.

I often use other search engines if I want to know something scientific or cultural or political. It's sad, but I've simply come to not trust Google in those searches. Google often returns answers that are simply not what you asked, where as the other search engines still give me a keyword based result.

Like if you would search "Benefits of cocaine use", just an example.

Bing returns a featured snippet answer of "boost of energy, a sense of heightened awareness, and as some report, the ability to perform tasks quickly and effectively.".The next result is a blog "Medical Benefits of Cocaine You May Not Know Of".

Ok, thank you Bing, you actually answered my question, without lectures.

Google one the other hand returns a 1993 study titled "Clinical use of cocaine. A review of the risks and benefits", then the next result is "5 Benefits of Cocaine Addiction Treatment".

Useless actually. I wanted to know the benefits of doing cocaine and I was instead lectured at and told to go to rehab.

I think this is the reason why people are ditching Google.

 

[Smith]

I just ran your "benefits of cocaine" example and it was exactly as you described... the only difference is I ran it on Google, Bing, and DDG. Both Google and DDG gave me health/addiction-related articles while Bing nailed it with the useful snippet you described above.

I think the big thing that will stop Bing from taking market share is Chrome. Chrome has a +60% market share (according to a Google snippet). And it's just easier for people to search in the address bar than it is to type in a new domain and then fill out a search bar on a new site.

Sure, certain people will take the extra step and use a better search engine out of principle. But I always expect the majority of people to take the laziest approach possible. If that means settling for shitter search results, I think they'll do it.

Also, @bernard what kind of results do you think are better on Yandex vs Google or Bing?

 

[bernard]

I think the big thing that will stop Bing from taking market share is Chrome. Chrome has a +60% market share (according to a Google snippet). And it's just easier for people to search in the address bar than it is to type in a new domain and then fill out a search bar on a new site.

This is the sort of thing that might be impacted by an antitrust ruling. I'm a bit surprised it isn't already in Europe.

Also, @bernard what kind of results do you think are better on Yandex vs Google or Bing?

Previously I used Yandex to find stuff I knew existed but that the great firewall of Google had deemed problematic.

Stuff like amateur anthropology blogs. I was into DNA heritage testing and the like for a while and much of it was based around niche blogs and forums. Google scrubbed most of them for reasons they must explain. Probably at the same time they got rid of amateur health blogs etc. Only big brand allowed to report on science and history now.

 

[Biggy]

I started using DuckduckGO and it's really amazing! It's also faster.

 

[Smith]

Looks like DDG is gaining more mainstream attention...

(Ignore the title of the video the link goes straight to a DDG segment)