The privacy-minded search engine, DuckDuckGo is losing its momentum and if you dig into the numbers, it is evident that the platform has lost its daily users.
Last year, DuckDuckGo received the milestone of achieving a record of more than a hundred million user searches. Despite this, in the year 2022, the average growth of DuckDuckGo just reached 17 percent since April and the usage from an average consumer is continuously going downwards. Considering graphical values, from January 2021 to June 2022, daily DuckDuckGo searches have declined from ninety-five million to ninety million. Notably, in the past five years, DuckDuckGo’s daily search attempts hit 73 percent which is relatively much lesser growth as compared to previous years. At present, DuckDuckGo is occupying rank 18 in the Utilities category, which is very low. Likewise, in 2021, DuckDuckGo was the most frequently used search engine in the United States and ranked number 2. But, this year, Yahoo beat DuckDuckGo and now it is ranked number 3.
The reason behind the decelerating growth of DuckDuckGo is that the search engine is not frequently introducing innovative features. Other key factors may include the DuckDuckGo initiative to filter out the websites that are linked with the deception regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict. CEO of DuckDuckGo, Gabe Weinberg, supports the Ukrainian people and to favor them he has launched an update that allows the search engine to automatically down-rank web pages associated with misleading information spread by Russia. On Twitter, he said that the news modules and accurate content will remain at the top of the search results. The reaction from DuckDuckGo users was miscellaneous. As some users think it is a good step toward focusing on confirmed news and information. While others perceive this move as political and biased. The users don’t appreciate this step and some claim to shift their search engine preference due to this Russian down-ranking site decision.
It is worth mentioning here that to stop percolating false information about the intensified Russia-Ukraine dispute throughout the online platforms, tech giants like Twitter and Meta have already introduced reforms in their policies. In addition to it, Microsoft and Google have also made the necessary steps to deal with this issue.
Assuming whatever the reason is, the fact is DuckDuckGo's user base is losing steam. Users want the information without being down-ranked. As for them, they don’t trust anyone and they can decide whether the information is misleading or not. The founder of DuckDuckGo believes that the user’s privacy is the most important thing and the company will never compromise on it. However, from another point of view, it can be a hindrance when we talk about the quality of results.
Let’s see how DuckDuckGo will get back its users and continue to offer more to searchers.
Read next: TikTok, Twitter and Instagram are all about engaging content, here's what you should know about the types of content that generate the most buzz on these platforms
Last year, DuckDuckGo received the milestone of achieving a record of more than a hundred million user searches. Despite this, in the year 2022, the average growth of DuckDuckGo just reached 17 percent since April and the usage from an average consumer is continuously going downwards. Considering graphical values, from January 2021 to June 2022, daily DuckDuckGo searches have declined from ninety-five million to ninety million. Notably, in the past five years, DuckDuckGo’s daily search attempts hit 73 percent which is relatively much lesser growth as compared to previous years. At present, DuckDuckGo is occupying rank 18 in the Utilities category, which is very low. Likewise, in 2021, DuckDuckGo was the most frequently used search engine in the United States and ranked number 2. But, this year, Yahoo beat DuckDuckGo and now it is ranked number 3.
The reason behind the decelerating growth of DuckDuckGo is that the search engine is not frequently introducing innovative features. Other key factors may include the DuckDuckGo initiative to filter out the websites that are linked with the deception regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict. CEO of DuckDuckGo, Gabe Weinberg, supports the Ukrainian people and to favor them he has launched an update that allows the search engine to automatically down-rank web pages associated with misleading information spread by Russia. On Twitter, he said that the news modules and accurate content will remain at the top of the search results. The reaction from DuckDuckGo users was miscellaneous. As some users think it is a good step toward focusing on confirmed news and information. While others perceive this move as political and biased. The users don’t appreciate this step and some claim to shift their search engine preference due to this Russian down-ranking site decision.
It is worth mentioning here that to stop percolating false information about the intensified Russia-Ukraine dispute throughout the online platforms, tech giants like Twitter and Meta have already introduced reforms in their policies. In addition to it, Microsoft and Google have also made the necessary steps to deal with this issue.
Assuming whatever the reason is, the fact is DuckDuckGo's user base is losing steam. Users want the information without being down-ranked. As for them, they don’t trust anyone and they can decide whether the information is misleading or not. The founder of DuckDuckGo believes that the user’s privacy is the most important thing and the company will never compromise on it. However, from another point of view, it can be a hindrance when we talk about the quality of results.
Let’s see how DuckDuckGo will get back its users and continue to offer more to searchers.
Read next: TikTok, Twitter and Instagram are all about engaging content, here's what you should know about the types of content that generate the most buzz on these platforms
