How about a trying out a new simple, clean and organized search engine. No doubt Google is the leading search engine with the highest market share. But there are a number of reasons why you can try out some other Google search alternatives. Bing is what comes to the mind after Google, but here’s one other search engine that definitely looks promising.
DuckDuckGo, is an unusual name for a search engine but it has a simple, minimalist layout, lesser advertisements and no other fancy stuff. It just lets you what it is meant for – search. No complicated stuff here.
Google is increasing ads on their search results page. Try entering a popular keyword and you can see ads on top of the page and on the right sidebar. Sometimes these ads are annoying and distract us, as they are highlighted. For example, try entering “buy computer” in search box. In the results page you can see three ads on top of the page, which are highlighted with light yellow color and ads are also displayed on the sidebar. Therefore the first thing a user views are the ads. This is how Google monetizes and earns but for an end user this is not a good experience. That’s where DuckDuckGo wins over Google, it does displays advertisements but they are not annoying like Google. It displays only one advt on search results page. But there are many more advantages, let’s get into more details.
Why Use DuckDuckGo? Why not Google?
There are many different search engines. They all work best when a user enters a normal or basic type of term. But their true potential can only be seen when they a user enters a complex search term. Sometimes the results go haywire and not relevant to the search term. But this is not the case with DuckDuckGo. While testing out, this search engine presented relevant results.
DuckDuckGo is a search engine that concentrates on search, and not on advertisements. The results are presented in an order – the official website, then Twitter and then Facebook. Thus, with a simple search, anyone can know about your website’s Twitter and Facebook URL.
Observed anything special in this screenshot? There are no advertisements. When searching for many keywords, this search engine won’t present you with even a single advt. That means you can focus on results and not on those pesky ads that are of no use to you. And even if it displays “sponsored link”, that would be clearly highlighted to clearly distinguish ads from real search results.
On the right side, you can see search suggestions (which is removed from above screenshot, for a better visibility of results). This type of suggestions are also presented on Google but at the bottom of the page. DuckDuckGo presents these search suggestions on the right side, as it does not have any bottom (footer) part. Don’t be amazed that’s because it displays results on the complete page and no need to click on page numbers, as it would automatically scroll to the next page. For example, it works as if you are scrolling down on Facebook, it would automatically keep on displaying content, no need to click on any page number (no pagination displayed).
Anonymous Search Engine – Prevent Tracking Personal Information
There’s one more amazing point about this search engine. It does not track your search queries. DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information. This is clearly written in their privacy policy. It cares about “your” privacy. Basically this means that you search anonymously, no more search history, no more tracking.
You can also check out the goodies page which highlights some of the advanced stuff that this search engine offers. It helps you in directly converting currency, temperature (fahrenheit to celsius, or vice versa), find out birth date or death rate of specific people, facts, finance and offers much more features. Just visit this goodies page and you can find many interesting things that you can do.
You can also make use of the !bangs. Bangs are shortcuts that can redirect your search query directly to that particular site. For example, to search for “Battleship” trailer on YouTube, type this: !youtube battleship. This will search for “battleship” on YouTube. Bangs can come in very useful at times and there exists 100s of bangs.
So which search engine delivers the best results? For now, the answer is Google, but DuckDuckGo is also a good alternative, worth trying out. Try this this and let me know in the comments about your opinion on this search engine.
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