优先考虑隐私的搜索引擎DuckDuckGo在上周达到了一个重要的里程碑，单日搜索量超过1亿次。
根据该搜索引擎的网站，它在1月11日记录了102,251,307次搜索，这是这家成立12年的公司的历史最高纪录。本月，它平均每天的搜索量超过9000万次，比2020年同期增长了73%，当时平均每天的搜索量约为5200万次。
虽然与市场领导者谷歌每天进行的超过50亿次搜索相比，这个数字仍然微不足道，但对于这个不存储任何用户个人信息、不对用户的搜索历史进行存档、不跟踪用户搜索活动的搜索引擎来说，这个里程碑是一个重要的里程碑。
"这是一个重要的里程碑，尤其是它超越了必应和雅虎，达到了这个目标，"加州海沃德的一家技术咨询公司Pund-IT的首席分析师查尔斯-金说。
"这是DuckDuckGo生命力的一个坚实的标志，但也反映了曾经占主导地位的行业平台的影响力正在减弱，"他告诉TechNewsWorld。
"在搜索引擎游戏中，确实已经有一段时间没有出现像必应和雅虎这样的低级玩家的重要竞争对手了。"加州库比蒂诺的技术研究和咨询公司Constellation Research的副总裁兼首席分析师利兹-米勒补充道。
她告诉TechNewsWorld，"突破1亿线对DuckDuckGo来说是很有希望的"。
移动领域的腿
根据Statcounter的数据，虽然DuckDuckGo在全球搜索引擎市场上排名第六，占比不到1%，但在重要的移动搜索市场上，它以2.25%的份额位居第二，其次是雅虎的1.94%和必应的1.13%。
市场上压倒性的领导者是谷歌，份额为94.48%。
"2016年移动网站浏览量超过了传统PC浏览量，"King说。"即将到来的支持下一代5G的智能手机和其他设备的浪潮可能会帮助移动搜索大幅增长。"
"人们在移动设备上生活的时间比过去多了很多。在移动领域拥有这样的力量是很方便的，"俄勒冈州本德市的一家咨询服务公司Enderle Group的总裁兼首席分析师Rob Enderle观察到。
"桌面部分被锁定了，"他告诉TechNewsWorld。"移动端没有那么多，所以移动端机会更多。"
米勒指出，现在有60%的搜索是在移动设备上进行的。
"我预计这不会很快放缓，"她说。"即使在流行病中，你可以说更多的人在桌面环境中，移动搜索仍然激增。"
"DDG在这里有巨大的机会，因为他们的多源搜索和用户选择控制，给用户以控制的准确性的感觉，"她补充说。
广告与隐私共存
有很多因素在推动DuckDuckGo的增长，其中最重要的是它对隐私的重视。
"DuckDuckGo随着时间的推移一直在稳步增长，"总部位于柏林的位置营销解决方案制造商Uberall的市场洞察副总裁Greg Sterling说。
"它越来越多的采用是由关心隐私的人，"他告诉TechNewsWorld。"它是最知名的隐私友好型搜索引擎和浏览器。"
"消费者和企业越来越意识到并厌倦了他们的个人搜索数据如何被用于有针对性的在线广告，"King补充道。"同时，DuckDuckGo已经精心打造了一个坚实的解决方案，使私人搜索变得简单而有效。"
米勒指出，DuckDuckGo强调隐私并不意味着它放弃了广告业务模式。不过DuckDuckGo与其他公司的不同之处在于它采用了选择加入的广告控制。
"在一天结束的时候，他们是--而且是透明的--是一个广告驱动的企业，"她解释说。"关键的区别在于，他们将基于广告结果的控制权交到了用户手中。"
"DDG已经接受了这样一个概念，即个性化和隐私可以在收集较少的数据中共存，这些数据被用户定义为与他们想要接收的东西相关，"她继续说道。"因此，人们正在享受控制的体验，并得到了他们认为对他们来说是准确的结果。"
不是大科技
DuckDuckGo的成长也被其不在大科技保护伞下的形象所炒热。
"DuckDuckGo已经被归入了这个反大科技、自由言论解决方案的行列，里面还夹杂着一点隐私，尽管没有准确定义或理解现代世界的隐私，"Miller说。
"随着头条新闻和来自政治化阵营的突发新闻报道说，大科技是为了得到美国普通公民，替代品被提供作为治疗，"她解释说。"DDG是这种产品的一部分。"
该搜索引擎最近的增长也是由季节性因素和时事推动的。
DuckDuckGo负责传播的副总裁GoKamyl Bazbaz解释说，该公司通常会在新年前后看到比正常情况下更大的搜索和下载量上升，因为人们试图在那个时候清理他们的数字工具和足迹。
对于DuckDuckGo来说，建立市场份额仍将是一项具有挑战性的任务。"大多数人继续使用谷歌是出于习惯，而且因为他们与许多其他谷歌服务绑定在一起，比如Gmail、地图、新闻、YouTube、Android手机等等。"斯特林解释说。
"还有一种看法，认为谷歌是最好的搜索引擎，这部分是合理的，"他继续说道。
"DDG不太可能成为谷歌的严重挑战者，但他们或许能够建立一个可持续发展的业务。"他补充道。
要做到这一点，DuckDuckGo将需要增长并让他们的客户满意。
"为了减少跟踪，我从Chrome切换到Firefox，从谷歌切换到DuckDuckGo，"波士顿东北大学新闻学教授丹-肯尼迪解释说。
"我并不特别担心隐私问题，但我已经厌倦了查找，比如说，一个学生写的产品，以便检查拼写，然后在接下来的六个月里看到该产品的广告不断，"他继续说道。
"不幸的是，我认为DuckDuckGo的效果并不是很好，当我找不到我要找的东西时，我发现自己经常使用谷歌。"他说。"所以大概过了几个月，我又换回了谷歌。我一直坚持使用Firefox，这似乎已经完全消除了跟踪。"
原文题目：Search Milestone Gives DuckDuckGo Something to Quack About
原文：DuckDuckGo, the search engine that prioritizes privacy, reached a significant milestone last week, racking up more than 100 million searches in a single day.
According to the search engine's website, it recorded 102,251,307 searches on Jan. 11, an historical high for the 12-year-old company. For the month, it's averaging more than 90 million searches a day, a 73 percent increase over the same period in 2020, when the average was around 52 million searches per day.
While still a paltry number compared to the more than five billion daily searches performed by market leader Google, the milestone is a major one for the search engine that doesn't store any of its users' personal information, doesn't archive their search histories, and doesn't track their search activity.
"It's a significant milestone, especially since it surpassed Bing and Yahoo to get there," said Charles King, the principal analyst at Pund-IT, a technology advisory firm in Hayward, Calif.
"That's a solid sign of DuckDuckGo's vitality but also reflects the waning influence of what were once dominant industry platforms," he told TechNewsWorld.
"There really hasn't been a significant competitor to lower players like Bing and Yahoo in the search engine game for some time," added Liz Miller, vice president and a principal analyst at Constellation Research, a technology research and advisory firm in Cupertino, Calif.
"To cross the 100 million line is promising for DuckDuckGo," she told TechNewsWorld.
Leg Up in Mobile
While DuckDuckGo is in sixth place in the search engine market worldwide, with less than one percent of the search pie, it is number two in the important mobile search market, with a 2.25 percent share, followed by Yahoo with 1.94 percent and Bing with 1.13 percent, according to Statcounter.
The overwhelming leader in the market is Google, with a 94.48 percent share.
"Mobile website views surpassed traditional PC views in 2016," King said. "The coming wave of next gen 5G-enabled smart phones and other devices is likely to help mobile search grow significantly."
"People are living on their mobile devices a lot more than they used to. Having that kind of power in mobile is handy," observed Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst at the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore.
"The desktop segment is locked up," he told TechNewsWorld. "Mobile isn't so much, so there's more opportunity in mobile."
Miller noted that 60 percent of searches are now conducted on mobile devices.
"I don't expect that to slow any time soon," she said. "Even in the pandemic when you could argue that more folks were in a desktop environment, mobile search still surged."
"DDG has tremendous opportunity here because of their multi-source search and user opt-in controls that give users the feeling of accuracy with control," she added.
Advertising and Privacy Coexistence
A number of factors are driving DuckDuckGo's growth, not the least of which is its emphasis on privacy.
"DuckDuckGo has been growing steadily over time," said Greg Sterling, vice president of market insights at Uberall, a maker of location marketing solutions based in Berlin.
"It's increasing adoption is by people concerned about privacy," he told TechNewsWorld. "It's the most well-known of the privacy friendly search engines and browsers."
"Consumers and businesses are becoming increasingly aware and tired of how their personal search data is being used for targeted online advertising," added King. "At the same time, DuckDuckGo has crafted a solid solution that makes private searching simple and effective."
DuckDuckGo emphasis on privacy doesn't mean it has forsaken the advertising business model, Miller noted. The difference between DuckDuckGo and others, though, is its use of opt-in advertising controls.
"In the end of the day, they are -- and are transparent about -- being an ad-powered business," she explained. "The key difference is that they put the controls of advertising-based results in the hands of users."
"DDG has embraced the notion that personalization and privacy can coexist in collecting less data that users define as relevant to what they want to receive," she continued. "So people are enjoying the experience of control and are being rewarded with results they feel are accurate for them."
Not Big Tech
DuckDuckGo's growth is also being fired by its image as a player not under the umbrella of Big Tech.
"DuckDuckGo has been lumped into this band of anti-big-tech, free-speech solutions with a little privacy tucked in there, albeit without an accurate definition or understanding of privacy in the modern world," Miller said.
"With headlines and breaking news pieces from politicized camps saying that Big Tech is out to get the average citizen in the U.S., alternatives are being offered up as the cure," she explained. "DDG is part of that offering."
The search engine's recent growth was also fueled by seasonal factors and current events.
DuckDuckGo Vice President for Communications GoKamyl Bazbaz explained that the company generally sees a larger than normal uptick in searches and downloads around the New Year as people try to clean up their digital tools and footprint around that time.
Building market share will continue to be a challenging task for DuckDuckGo. "Most people continue to use Google out of habit and because they're tied into many other Google services, such as Gmail, Maps, News, YouTube, Android phone and so forth," explained Sterling.
"There's also a perception, which is partly justified, that Google is the best search engine available," he continued.
"It's unlikely that DDG will ever be a serious challenger to Google but they may be able to build a sustainable business," he added.
To do that, DuckDuckGo will need to grow and keep their customers happy.
"In order to cut down on tracking, I switched from Chrome to Firefox and from Google to DuckDuckGo," explained Dan Kennedy, a professor of journalism at Northeastern University in Boston.
"I wasn't concerned about privacy especially, but I was tired of looking up, say, a product a student had written about in order to check the spelling and then seeing a constant stream of ads for that product for the next six months," he continued.
"Unfortunately, I didn't think the results from DuckDuckGo were very good, and I found myself using Google frequently when I couldn't find what I was looking for," he said. "So after maybe a couple of months I switched back to Google. I have stuck with Firefox, and that seems to have all but eliminated the tracking."
