// WIDSIX WRITTEN WORD //

SEO + DuckDuckGo – What you need to know for 2021


When DuckDuckGo first hit the market in 2008 little did anyone expect that it would gain traction in the market. Today, with internet privacy becoming the elephant in the room, more and more users are switching to DuckDuckGo – because of the privacy it guarantees. 

The first three years of DuckDuckGo’s operation was dependent on self-funding until Union Square Ventures and angel investors invested in October 2011. Since the cash infusion, traffic & usage have been increasing consistently on a year-on-year basis. It’s early to claim DuckDuckGo will challenge the supremacy of the Alphabet giant Google, but at what point do businesses need to optimize a website for DuckDuckGo?  

The top 4 reasons for DuckDuckGo’s popularity

  1.     DuckDuckGo doesn’t follow you around

Unlike Google that uses information shared by websites and applications to deliver personalized content and ads for users, DuckDuckGo doesn’t do that. With DuckDuckGo, neither the user nor the IP address is tracked so that nobody can take advantage of the users’ search history.

  1.     Minimizes the risk of data breach

DuckDuckGo forces the sites to encrypt the connection whenever possible so that possible data breach can be curbed. The smarter encryption offers safety from any potential hack or breach.

  1.     DuckDuckGo runs anonymously by default

DuckDuckGo always runs anonymously similar to an incognito mode, where the search history is clear. Hence nobody can take further advantage of history.

  1.     There is no second SERP

There is no second page offered by DuckDuckGo. The results keep on appearing as long as the result page is scrolled down. This is an interesting feature from a UX perspective. 

Is it worth investing time in alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo?

A fight for the SEO nerd chatrooms – Google has a whopping 86 percent of the world’s search engine market share, but depending on your market and/or audience, it may be important to invest your time in optimizing your websites for alternative search engines.

If you were to look at the user base of DuckDuckGo in 2019 it had registered almost 38 million searches a day which increased to 100 million searches per day in January 2021. Since hitting this milestone, companies have been adapting to the optimization techniques to divert the traffic to their respective sites from DuckDuckGo. But how do you do it? How do you optimize your website for DuckDuckGo?

Let’s have a sneak peek peep into those emerging trends from the search engine markets. 

How to Approach SEO for DuckDuckGo?

 Like any other search engine, what matters is good content, good site architecture & UX. Let’s have a look at some of the optimization techniques that will make an impact.

  1.       Have quality content on your website

Though DuckDuckGo was built with privacy at its heart, it’s primary intention would still be to cater to the users with the best possible results. You can’t expect users to stick to a search engine only because it ensures privacy, right?

Having well curated & original content is indeed a ranking factor.

  1.       Submit your site to Bing & Yahoo

If you didn’t know, DuckDuckGo partners with Bing & Yahoo making it important that your website is optimized for Bing to increase the chance of your website getting listed on top of the results page. Ensuring that your website has good visibility in Yahoo & Bing will help you rank better in DuckDuckGo.

  1.       Have good quality backlinks

This comes right from DuckDuckGo’s official website and I quote

Ranking is a bit opaque and difficult to discern/communicate on an individual query basis because of all the various factors involved (and which change frequently).

Nevertheless, the best way to get good rankings (in pretty much all search engines) is to get links from high-quality sites.

  1.       Get listed in Apple

DuckDuckGo uses apple maps to deliver local results. You must claim the Apple listing and complete those basic fields such as Business Name, Address, Phone number, hours of operation etc.

To sum up

Keep DuckDuckGo on your radar & watch traffic patterns. Focus on having good content, improve your website’s UX & have good quality backlinks, that’s the key to performing well on DuckDuckGO.