Founded by Gabriel Weinberg in 2008, DuckDuckGo is a search engine that as of June 2021 had somewhere between 70 to100 million users. The DuckDuckGo search engine promotes privacy and provides a tracking-free experience. Its main feature is that it doesn’t track or store browsing information.
As is obvious by its rapidly increasing number of users, the tracking-free experience or anonymity offered by DuckDuckGo, is a much-valued feature and will no doubt ensure its continued increase in the number of users.
This post will give readers invaluable insight into optimizing their website for DuckDuckGo, specifically, how to; design a user-friendly website, earn quality backlinks, and choose the highest volume keywords.
So, how does DuckDuckGo work? How can marketers use this search engine to increase the effectiveness of their digital marketing efforts? What does DuckDuckGo SEO marketing look like? Lastly, how can you optimize your website for it?
We will answer all these questions and discuss some of the essential elements of the DuckDuckGo search engine and its ranking factors. Read here for helpful tips on developing the best optimization strategies for DuckDuckGo.
What is DuckDuckGo?
Gabriel Weinberg launched the DuckDuckGo in 2008 based on online privacy principles. DuckDuckGo is an online search engine, but it differs from Google and Bing in that it doesn’t keep track of user searches, nor does it keep any records. It also doesn’t share or collect personal information.
DuckDuckGo promises anonymity and privacy. In its privacy policy, the company explicitly states they find it scary that search engines can view user information. The philosophy behind DuckDuckGo is based on amendments to the Fourth Amendment and the right to privacy, in this case, online privacy.
DuckDuckGo’s smartphone app, “DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser,” functions the same way as the desktop browser allowing you to search freely, without worrying about privacy.
Why Should You Care About DuckDuckGo SEO?
Search engines are a matter of personal preference.
According to Oberlo, DuckDuckGo had a 2.36% market share in the US in 2022, with Google still dominating, showing an 86.46% market share.
However, DuckDuckGo’s 2.36% still represents a significant number of users. To put these numbers in perspective, the market share is only 2.95% for Yahoo, a well-known brand that has been in use for nearly three decades.
DuckDuckGo’s most significant draw is its inability to track users. However, they track queries and see 98.79 million search queries a day. This number has been rapidly escalating in recent years.
DuckDuckGo searchers tend to be more active on websites, which results in lower bounce rates, which means that optimizing for DuckDuckGo is easy and has the potential to attract more users.
How To Optimize Your Website for DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo could soon become users’ preferred search engine as more people become concerned about privacy online. So, it’s crucial to optimize your website for this particular search engine.
The good news is that your entire SEO strategy doesn’t need to be reinvented. Suppose you’re already following the best SEO practices, such as producing quality content and ensuring your website is user-friendly. In that case, these additional tips will help you optimize your website for DuckDuckGo.
1. Design a website that offers a user-friendly experience.
The search engine DuckDuckGo is easy to use and track-free. When you combine the track-free advantage with a website that is user-friendly and rich in quality content, your website is almost guaranteed to receive extensive traffic.
But what does a great user experience look like for DuckDuckGo users? Here are some tips to ensure a great user experience on DuckDuckGo:
- Ensure easy website navigation on both desktop and mobile devices.
- Minimize the use of popups and other features that can frustrate users.
- Make content easy to scan with headings, bullet points, or tables.
Your site will fall in search rankings if it fails to provide a user-friendly experience.
2. Earn quality backlinks.
Backlinks are a key SEO ranking signal. It is important to remember that you should earn backlinks naturally.
Faking backlinks, buying them, or using personal blog networks to cheat are all ways to be penalized by search engines like DuckDuckGo for having a poor backlink profile. Furthermore, trying to cheat will not improve rankings; on the contrary, it will only make them worse.
Here are some legal ways to obtain backlinks. :
- Creating and optimizing high-quality, honest, and unique content to please your customers.
- Improving search engine rankings with complete on-page SEO. This can be a feedback loop: the higher your SEO is, the better rank you have, the more backlinks that you get, and thus, the better your search engine optimization.
- Increasing your content sharing with other inbound marketing strategies such as social media.
Remember that Google and the DuckDuckGo search engine consider backlinks to your site as ranking factors. You can rank higher in both search engines if you have high-quality backlinks.
3. Choose keywords carefully.
When it comes to SEO, intentional keywords are essential, primarily when you use constantly-evolving platforms such as DuckDuckGo. Including keywords in your content is a good idea, but you must ensure they “appear naturally” and do not lessen the readability.
To find keywords and phrases that are relevant to your content, use tools such as Ahrefs or AnswerThePublic. You can use the keyword terms in headings or throughout the text.
You are on the right track if you’ve learned how to weave keywords into your content so that it flows well, increasing your content’s quality.
The Bottom Line
Google, Bing, and Yahoo are the three main search engines, but they are not the only players. The search engine DuckDuckGo is a direct competitor to Google and Bing, and if you are not using it, chances are you’re missing out on a lot of website traffic.
Remember that your primary goals should be to improve user experience, backlinks, keywords, and high-quality content. If you’re already doing so, then you are well on your way to attracting some of that DuckDuckGo traffic.
DuckDuckGo will likely use the same best practices as Google and Bing to give you a ranking lift. With a few tweaks to your SEO strategy, you can see new, impressive growth in your website leads and conversions.
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Contact ADMS today to learn how you can focus on building quality links, user-focused keyword searches, and optimizing for search engines like DuckDuckGo.
