DuckDuckGo isn't as ubiquitous as Google, but it's getting there. Just weeks after the National Security Agency (NSA) scandal made headlines, traffic to this alternate search engine has skyrocketed from 1.8 million to 3 million searches per day.
DuckDuckGo launched in 2008 in response to mounting concerns over online search privacy. The engine uses the old-fashioned ad-based revenue model -- meaning they don’t track Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or use cookies to record search histories.
Amid the spike, the Paoli-based company released
their first mobile search app, available on iOS and Android. Unlike its desktop counterpart, searches field a user's questions and deliver relevant content from trusted sources instead of a list of links. The product also displays the day's top-shared "stories" -- which includes articles, videos, images and infographics -- by aggregating content-sharing sites like Reddit and Popcore.
"We wanted to make something that addressed the flaws of mobile search," says Gabe Weinberg, founder and CEO. "You're on the go, you want the answers."
Weiner attributes the company's growth to their open-source user community -- they provide source recommendations, new team members and even customer acquisition. Because the company rarely advertises, recommendations from their users are largely responsible for redirecting those additional 1.2 million daily searches to DuckDuckGo.
Source: Gabe Weinberg, DuckDuckGo
Writer: Dana Henry