DuckDuckGo statistics prove that searchers no longer want to be profiled, they want real results. DuckDuckGo’s approach has shown that search engines do not need to profile their users to provide them with the information they seek.

The small search engine may not yet be a serious competitor in the game, but after the recent media boom over online privacy, it jumped hyperdrive.

• When Was DuckDuckGo Founded?
• Who is DuckDuckGo’s CEO
• How Much Revenue Does DuckDuckGo Generate?
• DuckDuckGo Valuation
• DuckDuckGo Revenue 2020
• DuckDuckGo Business Listing
• DuckDuckGo Search Engine
• DuckDuckGo Browser
• How Much Funding Does DuckDuckGo Have?
• What Sector Does DuckDuckGo Operate in?
• Who Are DuckDuckGo Competitors?
• How Does DuckDuckGo Make Money?
• What is DuckDuckGo Net Worth
• Is DuckDuckGo Owned by Google?
• What is The Catch With DuckDuckGo?
• What Are The Advantages of DuckDuckGo?
• DuckDuckGo vs Google

When Was DuckDuckGo Founded?

DuckDuckGo history goes back to 2008 when Gabriel Weinberg founded it in his basement. It is a “hybrid” search engine, as its foundation is on various vendors’ search APIs, rather than the approach leading search engines rely on. It wasn’t until March 15, 2010, that it was decided not to track search history, a revolutionary move that has proven to be the driving force of their popularity.

Who is DuckDuckGo’s CEO

Gabriel Weinberg, 36, runs DuckDuckGo, an eight-year-old search engine based near Philadelphia that is a David to Google’s Goliath. Weinberg, who wrote a 2014 book, Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers, that suggests ways to market new companies, says DuckDuckGo’s 2015 revenues exceeded $1 million (Google’s were $74.5 billion).

How Much Revenue Does DuckDuckGo Generate?

According to Crunchbase, DuckDuckGo has raised a total of $13 million across 2 rounds of venture capital funding.

Investors into the company include Union Square Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Scott Banister (founder of IronPort), Joshua Schachter (co-creator of Memepool, amongst others), or Peter Hershberg (co-founder of Reprise Media).

As a private company, DuckDuckGo is not obliged to share any revenue or valuation figures. Nevertheless, CEO Weinberg in an interview with Philly Mag shared that the company generated over $100 million in revenue for 2020.

Google, for reference, made around $183 billion over the same time span. Alphabet, its parent company, is valued at around $1.35 trillion. That is equal to a 10x multiple.

Read Also: How Does Google Get Profit by Search Engine

Applying roughly the same multiple to DuckDuckGo’s business, we can safely assume that the company can already be valued at $1 billion, making it a startup unicorn.

DuckDuckGo Valuation

Growth at 30% a year (half of current growth rate) for the next five years would lead to estimated revenue of $150M.
At 24 million searches a day, DDG was reported to have annual revenues of $25M.

Today, they receive 40M searches a day. Assuming linear growth in revenues with search volume, a reasonable assumption based on DDG’s business model, it would reach $150M revenue in five years at 30% annual growth.

Assuming the conservative 30% growth rate with a 20% profit margin and 25x P/E ratio results in a $740M valuation in five years.

A more bullish case would be maintaining the historical 50% growth rate, a 25% profit margin, and margin expansion to 35x P/E ratio which translates to a valuation of $2.6B. Keep in mind that the average S&P P/E ratio today is 20–25x. Even with a discount for private companies, a 35x P/E ratio for a company growing at 50%-60% is extremely conservative.

DuckDuckGo Revenue 2020

The last revenue post was $25 million when DuckDuckGo had 24 million searches. At this rate of 30% annual growth and based on their business model, in five years they will reach an annual revenue of $150 million. So far, the DuckDuckGo revenue is greatly benefiting from their business model, and in five years they may easily surpass expectations.

DuckDuckGo Business Listing

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that doesn’t track your browsing and activity.

Its privacy policy is plain and simple: “We don’t collect or share personal information.”

When you search at DuckDuckGo, it doesn’t know who you are, so there is no way to tie your searches together. Additionally, it doesn’t store or log your searches and cookies are not used by default.

As its popularity continues to increase, small business owners with a Web presence may wonder how does DuckDuckGo rank sites? And the answer pretty much depends on what you are trying to achieve, but good SEO practices apply.

According to the company:

“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 like Wikipedia.”

Even though it doesn’t have the billions of searches Google has daily, DuckDuckGo has at least 10 million searches daily as of June 2015. And those are potential customers your small business can reach.

Having quality links, quality content, using hyperlocal keywords, and being mobile-ready with a responsive website are all important, if you want to rank well with DuckDuckGo or any search engine.

DuckDuckGo Search Engine

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that shows the same results for a search term to all its users. This is unlike Google, which filters search results based on the sites you have been visiting.

It is also now possible to set DuckDuckGo as a default search engine in iOS 8 as well as OS X so you can get instant search results just by typing your query into the Safari browser. Of course, you can also use DuckDuckGo in Chrome or Firefox by visiting DuckDuckGo.com and clicking the Use in Chrome or Use in Firefox button.

DuckDuckGo Browser

At DuckDuckGo, they have expanded beyond their roots in search, to protect you no matter where you go on the Internet. The DuckDuckGo browser extension and mobile app is available for all major browsers and devices, and blocks these Google trackers, along with the ones from Facebook and countless other data brokers. It does, even more, protect you as well like providing smarter encryption.

How Much Funding Does DuckDuckGo Have?

The company was self-funded until they got their first raise of $3 million in 2011. This funding was followed by a significant boost of $10 million in 2018 through their partnership with OMERS.

With these funds, the company is set to continue to grow and expand its privacy protection policy worldwide. Based on these numbers, it is evident that the DuckDuckGo funding growth is directly proportionate with the attention they’re getting.

What Sector Does DuckDuckGo Operate in?

DuckDuckGo is an online search engine, internet software and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) platform that allows users to search news, images, videos and music.

DuckDuckGo is headquartered in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Gabriel Weinberg is the Founder & CEO of DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo has received a total of $13M in funding. DuckDuckGo’s main competitors are Google, Bing and Baidu. As of February 2020, DuckDuckGo has 3.1M fans on Facebook and 327.2K followers on Twitter.

Who Are DuckDuckGo Competitors?

The top 10 competitors in DuckDuckGo’s competitive set are Google, Bing, Baidu, Yandex, IAC Search and Media, Inc., Qwant, WebCrawler, Lycos, Inc.. DuckDuckGo says it doesn’t track you, it doesn’t send your searches to other sites, by default it does not use any cookies, it does not collect personal information, it does not log your IP address or other information about your computer that may be sent automatically with your searches, it doesn’t store any personal data.

How Does DuckDuckGo Make Money?

DuckDuckGo makes money in two simple ways: Advertising and Affiliate Marketing. Advertising is shown based on the keywords typed into the search box. Affiliate revenues come from Amazon and eBay affiliate programs. When users buy after getting on those sites through DuckDuckGo the company collects a small commission.

When you surf the web through Google, the search engine is tracking you so that you can get targeted ads by the businesses part of the AdWords network. While this is interesting for businesses, which can quickly make money from advertising.

That is a flaw in this model: users’ privacy. In fact, as concerns from how data online gets used by private companies or governments that opens up new concerns from users. A concern is a threat to an established organization, but an opportunity for a rising one. Those fears can become a value proposition.

That is precisely what DuckDuckGo has done. Privacy has been the beginning one of the reasons why the search engine got built.

DuckDuckGo has managed to build a business model based on differentiating its value proposition compared to Google. Google’s value mainly comes from its ability to track its users to offer targeted ads.

While this is a strength that makes it attractive for businesses to pay for Google ads, and publishers to know what content users want, that might also be a weakness. As privacy concerns grow, more users are willing to give up Google to find an alternative to that.

Based on that. DuckDuckGo has built a value proposition based on privacy. Where Google tracks its users, DuckDuckGo doesn’t. So how does it make money? Mainly through untracked advertising and affiliate marketing. Is this business model sustainable? As of 2015, DuckDuckGo was already profitable. Its revenues though are a tiny fraction of Google revenues.

What is DuckDuckGo Net Worth

Based on the estimated daily, monthly, and annual revenue of the search engine, the estimated worth of the website is currently at $901 million. Once again, due to the fact that there is very little real information about what visitors are doing, calculating the DuckDuckGo net worth is difficult. It can only be estimated based on the number of visitors alone and the seach engine’s means of profit through advertising and affiliate marketing.

Is DuckDuckGo Owned by Google?

In December 2018, it was reported that Google transferred ownership of the domain name Duck.com to DuckDuckGo. It is not known what price, if any, DuckDuckGo paid for the domain name. In March 2019, Google added DuckDuckGo to the default search engine list in Chrome 73.

Ask anyone to search for something on the internet and the phrase is literally “Google it.” That’s how infiltrated the search engine has become into our lives and it’s hard to believe anything will change that. Google, the search engine, has been around since August 1996 and there is no question that it’s not the top search engine.

But does Google own DuckDuckGo? Nope. It’s not affiliated with Google and started in 2008 with a desire to give people another option. One of its first advertisements was urging people to look at Google with the slogan, “Google tracks you. We don’t,” on a billboard in San Francisco’s tech-heavy SOMA district in 2011.

What is The Catch With DuckDuckGo?

Here are six key things you should know about DuckDuckGo:

1. It’s big on privacy.   
The words underneath DuckDuckGo’s search box read “Search anonymously. Find instantly.” Search anonymously isn’t an exaggeration. In this case, it means that DuckDuckGo doesn’t know who you are when you use it and can’t — and pledges not to — tie your searches back to you.

Your secrets are (well, mostly) safe with DuckDuckGo, that is unless a prying court-ordered legal request rears its head. “Like anyone else, we will comply with court-ordered legal requests,” the company’s privacy policy states. “However, in our case, we don’t expect any because there is nothing useful to give them since we don’t collect any personal information.”

2. It doesn’t collect and save your identifying data.
Unlike its bigger, nosier brothers (ahem, Google, Yahoo and Bing), DuckDuckGo claims it never nabs your IP address — ever — giving you wings to freely fly the far reaches of the Internet privately. Oh, the places you’ll go! Or not.  

Other identifying information that DuckDuckGo says it doesn’t save includes: login credentials for other services, like usernames and email addresses and social media logins, individual identifiers stored in browser cookies, dates and times of your searches and quite a bit more.

3. It doesn’t save or share what you search for.
Somewhat disappointingly, unlike Google, DuckDuckGo offers no “Search History” option. So, nope, you can’t go back and dig through all of your (or your 13-year-old son’s) past searches for stuff you wish you didn’t forget.

The often uncomfortably personal contents of your searches also won’t be shared with (or hawked to) third-party advertisers, insurance companies, college admissions officers, employers, and the list goes frighteningly on.

So, if you just happen to search for, say, “Herpes treatments,” “Viagra” or maybe “how to fix my bad credit,” it can’t be traced back to you, DuckDuckGo’s privacy policy states.

DuckDuckGo really, really wants you to know why it’s important to protect your searches.

4. It doesn’t offer the joys of auto-complete. 
It’s also notable that DuckDuckGo doesn’t offer a search auto-complete feature. You know, like that sometimes hilariously revealing one that’s so fun to rubberneck at on Google. Instead, DuckDuckGo filters out overly advertisement-cluttered results and mainly serves up relevant, refreshingly spam-free results.

5. Yup, you will run into ads.
Like all of the biggie search engines, DuckDuckGo generates revenue through ads and affiliate programs that it claims to comply with its privacy policy. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, reportedly claims otherwise, commenting on a Hacker News thread that he “believes” he saw “search ad links on DDG that included my IP address in the URL.”   

6. It’s growing fast, but not fast enough to threaten Google, not even a little.   
Sure, DuckDuckGo snagged a few sparkly headlines when it nearly doubled its usual traffic “pretty much overnight” after Edward Snowden let the NSA’s PRISM spying racket out of the bag.

And, yes, it’s notable that fledgling site last year pulled in more than 1 billion searches in all. Still, that’s a teeny, tiny drop in the bucket compared to Google. One billion also happens to be the number of searches the Google machine gobbles up in a single day alone.

Keep quacking, DuckDuckGo. Looks like you have some catching up to do, big time.

What Are The Advantages of DuckDuckGo?

1. Uniform Results – Information As It Is

Searching for the same information by 2 different people may bring up different results on Google search, depending on your browsing history and behavior. Since DuckDuckGo does not store any browsing history of users, the search results are 100 percent uniform and straight to the point, which a lot of users & critics have felt being very helpful.

2. Victim of Data Breach – Ney, Never!

Going the DuckDuckGo way can surely save you from any possible data breaches that we have seen happening in the recent past. Since they don’t have any of your personal data, there is no risk of it being leaked at all.

3. Security = Peace of Mind

Data such as your browsing history might seem insignificant to you at a glance, but is very powerful and just 30 days of your browsing history can accurately predict your age, gender, income group, where do you live, work, frequently eat, political inclination, current mental state, etc. Imagine this getting into the wrong hands. Yes, it’s scary.

Browsing with DuckDuckGo can give you peace of mind when it comes to feeling secure with your online banking, trading, and other such extremely important activities you carry out on the internet by blocking tracking cookies, never storing your IP address or similar private information and encrypting your queries.

4. Ad Free Browsing

DuckDuckGo doesn’t bombard you with intrusive Ads based on your past internet activities. It does however show ads based purely on keywords you searched, but this can be turned off from Settings and a pure, 100 percent ad free searching can be experienced with DuckDuckGo.

5. No Binge Shopping – Save Money

Google Remarketing – a technique that helps advertisers follow you anywhere you go on the internet after you’ve visited a website or searched for a product actually results in unnecessary purchases. More often than not, you do end up buying things that you don’t really need. Searching something on the internet should simply offer you the information, and DuckDuckGo does exactly that.

6. True Personal Space

Every one of us wants some personal space – isn’t it? Well that’s true when it comes to browsing internet as well. Imagine every action of yours being recorded every moment of your life. That’s exactly what search engines such as Google do to your virtual life (life on the internet). Unlike Google, where you are tracked even if browsing in the private mode (why call it private then?), DuckDuckGo offers you that true personal space, where you can browse truly privately.

7. Better Control of Your Searches

What you search should be focused more on the information you are looking for and not be pocket-friendly to the advertisers. DuckDuckGo does that really well, and better than any search engine out there right now.

8. Cross Device Data Protection

With DuckDuckGo being available for your Android and iPhone, the private data security (if you really care about it) is available to users at an enhanced level. Our phone stays with us all the times and records every move, not just the browsing history. DuckDuckGo gives you detailed information on what all a website is trying to track about you and let’s you control and block such websites across all your devices.

9. Contribute to the Cause

If you are for “Internet & Digital Privacy“, and believe that it should be the way of the future, using DuckDuckGo is a must and each of your tracking free search query will mark your contribution to the cause.

10. Find it Out for Yourself 🙂

Privacy is very subjective and can be perceived differently by all of us. Let us know what it means to you by adding a comment below, and we might feature an article with the top fifty suggestions, titled – “50 Practical Privacy Benefits of DuckDuckGo”

DuckDuckGo vs Google

Usually, when people think of the Duckduckgo vs Google competition they are immediately thinking of the search engine Duckduckgo vs the search engine Google. Namely, this debate is about whether to use Duckduckgo or Google as your default browser search engine and/or homepage.

Even though Duckduckgo has other tools and apps besides its search engine, as I’ll get into below, for now, let’s keep referring strictly to the search engine. This way, you’ll understand better what all the fuss is about with the Duckduckgo vs Google debate.

Read Also: How Does a Search Engine Site Earn Money

As the tools and techniques used for data gathering have slowly turned into more and more comprehensive algorithms tracking scores of information, both consumers and businesses have become more preoccupied with privacy. The rise of the so-called big data and big tech conglomerates has led to an increased level of surveillance which makes most people uncomfortable.

The fact that all the search history of users is tracked by Google (even in incognito browser mode) has contributed to the growing discomfort of concerned users.

If they’re not particularly concerned with how Google itself manages their personal data, then they’re concerned about data breaches.

Nowadays, with so many breaches making the headlines, it’s hard to trust that your data will remain as private as you’d like. Even if the entities you’re willing to share that data with have your confidence, no one is truly unhackable.

Google doesn’t compete with Duckduckgo so much, in the grand scheme of things. Google is the big guy in the industry and while they are certainly aware of their smaller competitors catching up, it’s not really the same league. Yet.

Virtually all internet users tend to be Google search engine users, by default. The main strategy for Google is to try to hold on to the users it has by implementing better security and privacy protection measures. This is something definitely on their agenda, but the issue still remains that user data is tracked. Therefore, Google is leaking some users who are leaving its boat in order to climb aboard that of Duckduckgo.

For their part, Duckduckgo is directly positioning itself as an alternative and competitor to the Google search engine. Their very blog is aiming to answer the very direct question of ‘Why You Should Use Us Instead of Google’.