When we think about search engines, what name comes to our mind first? Yes, you are right! It is Google. But is that the only effective search engine in the market? Maybe not. There are many other players on the field. DuckDuckGo is one of those.
Google is the most dominant search engine on which the maximum number of searchers all over the world rely upon, though some countries are exceptions. Well, there are all the right reasons behind it.
Google serves some great quality easy-to-find results with top-notch accuracy and enhanced functionalities. However, competitors never sit back to match the level of Google, and thus they try to excel at it.
DuckDuckGo is one such search engine that is a tough competitor of Google. It is especially great for those users who prefer privacy more than anything. However, DuckDuckGo is not only tight with its privacy but also offers so many interesting search elements, which makes the search much easier.
Hence, here is a detailed comparison of DuckDuckGo vs Google so that you can understand better which one is for you and which one is not.
Google:
Search features:
As a search engine, the search features of Google must be at the top of our discussion. Google is referred to as the O.G. But why?
It comes with a very robust, vast and impressive search engine. It includes a large family of tools and a database that facilitates the search. At the same time, it helps in delivering the most relevant kind of valuable answers quite quickly.
Starting with Google Map, which is a very powerful tool of the search engine, it comes with a large pool of valuable and accurate information for businesses across the globe. For any of the tasks related to names, addresses, photos, reviews, videos, and many more, it helps quite significantly.
Google+ is a great creation by Google, which robustly helps in building a human network along with similar and useful information.
It comes with a clear sense of how dedicated the company is to improve the user experience. Google not only limits itself in the searches but also delivers valuable results to add more improvement to the platform.
Similar to DuckDuckGo, Google comes with a quite specific search vertical. It helps in simple searches along with more options.
In the Map results and traditional web results, Google includes some of the useful verticals. The verticals are for the following:
- Finance
- Shopping
- News
- Books
- Flights
- Videos
- Images
There are also additional tools that are used for refining searches. Also, there are plenty of settings regarding it.
As Google says, the Search Index of Google contains hundreds of billions of web pages. These are of the size of 100000000 gigabytes.
With this aspect, you can call Google one of the vastest of the search engines with its indexes among the comparison of DuckDuckGo vs Google. With its extensive functionalities, it has gained its position as one of the dominant players among the game of search engines.
Is the indexing one large about Google? No. Even if it is the smartest.
Google constantly stays up with plenty of updates to its ranking signals and algorithms with the addition of the RankBrain artificial intelligence. This mechanism of machine learning is making Google one of the most dominant presences that deliver the result which any competitor can barely crack.
Google has the best kind of crawlers with a robust index and a great algorithm, which makes it the first choice of the maximum number of people.
Google comes with its great ability to identify the queries of the search along with the answers. Also, from the long-tail searches that lack the most important kind of information, Google serves great answers.
If you look at the popular search suggestions or keywords, you can easily understand how vague the sentences are with the information. But Google still tries its best to deliver results that are highly reliable and give the best results to the queries.
Another contribution that Google makes in delivering a robust user experience is through YouTube, Gmail, AdSense, Play Store, etc.
It comes as one of the greatest tool suites for productivity, which helps in businesses. It includes Docs, Slides, Sheets, Calendar, Meet, etc.
Read: 10+ Best Image Search Engines: Find Similar Photos Online
Also, Google does a great job in delivering free tools for marketers and webmasters, like Google Analytics, Search Console, etc., which makes Google score a bit high in the DuckDuckGo vs Google debate.
So, what makes Google the actual player with a strong goal in the field? It comes as a great combination of the following:
- A robust network of properties and the Alphabet-owned tools
- It facilitates its unparalleled leadership in the search world and the websites
- It is committed to the constant improvement of the Google Search experience for both the long and the short term.
- It has the amazing capability to analyze and understand the real-world capabilities and their relationship with one another.
However, even though Google is all-powerful and worth appreciating with its out-of-the-box services every time, it still has some of the areas to score low in the DuckDuckGo vs Google debate.
Google keeps extracting information from its users. Then it applies this information to the places where it helps the company to earn and make users pays for it.
Though companies now have the learning about the extensivity of privacy in user's lives, Google's policies on privacy are not so robust.
Google keeps finding ways to leverage loose policies for its privacy. As a tool, it attracts more users due to the feature offered by its various services by collecting and storing the data from users.
It is no longer a secret that Google does it every time. This may not be ethically wrong as users know where their data is being used and why Google is using it.
This data extraction has enabled Google to become one of the richest companies in the globe. It earns from targeted advertising, which is sold on its platform and through many of its partners.
However, this does not change our mind regarding the fact that it is currently the best and fastest search engine. The collecting of data and storing it is part of their service improvement. Google uses this data to personalize searches.
While you compare DuckDuckGo with it, you can see that it delivers almost similar search results for everyone as it does not curate unique searches for each of the users based on their interest, search history, and web history. This is exactly what makes Google different from anyone else.
What do we like about Google?
- Google never fails to meet the expectation of its users. Not only as a search engine but also in various other areas, it continues to push its limits to deliver high-quality results with improved user experience.
- The uniqueness of Google is quite difficult to match. It has the largest search index, which is a smarter search engine algorithm. At the same time, it boasts the largest portfolio for free tools.
- Google has the power to change the world, and it did.
What do we not like about Google?
- Google comes up with the largest network which works with data collection. It is hard for users not to feel violated by it.
- Google keeps updating its features, which may not be always impactful, but it makes the webmaster and searchers have some hard time with it.
- In some cases, it also delivers misleading or inappropriate answers.
Read: 10 Best Video Search Engines to Crawls the Web for Video Content
DuckDuckGo:
Now, let's have a focus on DuckDuckGo’s search features to understand the DuckDuckGo vs Google comparison better. Well, DuckDuckGo is quite a popular search engine that started its journey in 2008.
Unlike Google, DuckDuckGo claims that it does not store any personal information of users. The searches which are done on this platform are always anonymous.
What most of the privacy freak users like about DuckDuckGo is that it does not follow users with personalized ads. It does not store the search history and track the IP address. It has no personal data to sell. Whether the user is in private browsing mode or not, it remains the same.
With the growing concern of privacy, DuckDuckGo serves us with something that sounds quite right.
This year in January, DuckDuckGo surpassed its 100 million mark of users. The unique fact about the search engine is that it has separated itself from the competition, and has excelled in the area of privacy. While the other search engines have refused to offer this privacy, DuckDuckGo keeps itself motivated in delivering that unparalleled privacy.
Recently, DuckDuckGo has taken a much stronger and unique stand for the privacy of users. It actively blocks any other search engine from collecting the data of its users.
But is it all about the privacy that DuckDuckGo offers to us? Maybe not. There are many other areas to look at which intensifies the DuckDuckGo vs Google comparison.
It comes with quite a similar layout to Google. Here is what it offers:
- The SERPs have usually serve 10 of the organic search results on the respective Page 1s in the March of 2019.But Google offers hybrid results for a various number of search types with 8 traditional organic results for a specific title of a movie on Page 1. Google has also coveted the " People also ask" feature with image and video searches embedded on the top of the three results.
- Includes a Knowledge Panel of information along the right rail of the Page1 of the SERPs based on the entity.
- It comes with a couple of ads at the top and the bottom of each of the SERPs or takes one or two depending on the search query with its search volume. The competition is mostly around keywords and their topics.
DuckDuckGo works with its web crawlers, DuckDuckBort, and with 400 other sources to compile all of its search results with the help of other search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex. Also, it uses crowdsourcing like Wikipedia.
The Knowledge Panel of DuckDuckGo is more like a Breakout Box on its right rail. It includes important details like address, name, website, number, etc., which are drawn from Wikipedia.
DuckDuckGo also gets the information from its user-review site, Yelp, which includes the phone numbers, review addresses, and the business hours for that respective panel.
The business-location directions come from the Apple Maps with a change from 2019 when DuckDuckGo defaulted itself to the Bing Map. It also offers users the option to toggle within their preferences of Maps provider among Google Maps, OpenStreetMaps, or the HERE Maps as the source.
DuckDuckGo comes with several other simple usabilities for the preference of tweaks, which helps to simplify the overall process for the user.
As the user reaches the bottom of the SERP, they can also select to see more results, and they can activate endless scrolling. It opens up the next SERP right below the current one without even opening a new page.
It is quite a simple difference, but it makes the user experience much cleaner. Another great part is that the pages load quite faster, which gives it one score up in the DuckDuckGo vs Google comparison. It can also be turned off from the search engine settings when needed.
The category pages are also quite impressive in the platform of DuckDuckGo. It offers a category lineup with a brief description and images, which appears more cleanly and impressively for a variety of topics and categories.
Similar to Google, DuckDuckGo also offers Instant Answers, which are extracted from 100s of sources around the web.
The verticals of DuckDuckGo include:
- Web results
- News results
- Maps results
- Shopping results
- Video results
- Image results
Depending on the vertical, the user's searches will dynamically generate the applicable search verticals for that query.
It also offers a search operator similar to Google, which includes the Bangs. These are the simple site search commands. The search engine also refers to the "!bang syntax," which makes it a lot easier.
DDG also helps you to come up with a secure password and lets you change the query from lower case to uppercase or vice versa. You can also identify the character count and can bust a rhyme.
However, the anagram solver of it is quite pointless. But it is still consistent and entertaining. DDG is currently hitting 100 million daily searches. Though DDG only owns 2.6% of the total global search market share, it is the 10th most popular search engine in the world.
What do we like about DDG?
- It boasts robust privacy, which makes it score high in the DuckDuckGo vs Google comparison. It does not track the information of its users and offers the most private search.
- This one is quite easier to use, which delivers a similar experience to Google with a unique search experience.
- Due to its functionality and objectives, it is now growing in popularity.
What do we not like about DDG?
- In terms of performance, it is not like Google.
- It has quite a tiny market share. it only owns a .22% market share
So, which one should you use?
What works best for you is always about your preference. Both the search engines can give you the answer you are looking for.
But if you are passionate about privacy, then DuckDuckGo is the best one for you as it is better than any of the average search engines.
But if you are a fan of how easy Google does the searches for you, then you know your answer. Thus, after the detailed DuckDuckGo vs Google comparison, it seems both the search engines have their uniqueness. But in terms of popularity and robustness, Google is undoubtedly tough to beat.