Many people are wondering how to optimize their websites for DuckDuckGo. This is because the search engine is quietly attracting new users and generating more traffic for websites. Unfortunately, there’s no “magic bullet” or easy answer when it comes to SEO for this site. There’s also nothing shocking, newsworthy, or tricky here.
Why you Should Care About This Search Engine
One of the major advantages people are pointing out about this search engine is that it protects your privacy. Even people who haven’t been apprehensive in the past about having their information collected and shared are now taking notice because of all the heat Facebook is receiving. With this search engine your personal information and search history are never stored. You and your ads are never tracked.
The popularity of this site is astonishing. There were 6 billion searches conducted using it in 2017 – about 50% more than in 2016 when there were only 19 million searches. Searches are expected to continue to grow, especially now that DuckDuckGo is in partnership with Samsung and Brave. However, its search market share is only about .22%, which is considerably lower than all the other players (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com, AOL).
It’s easy to blow this search engine off when you look at its statistics.
However, if you look at where your website’s traffic is coming from, you’ll see that a growing amount is coming from here. While this is probably only a small amount of traffic at this point, it’s something you should still watch. Analytics are already demonstrating how this number is growing – doubling over a 6-month period.
What you Should Know About DuckDuckGo and its SEO
Now that you know why this search engine is so important, there are a few other things you should know as well, including:
- This search engine admits to pulling information from over 400 sources including crowdsourced websites, search engines like Bing and Yahoo, and its own bot. In the past, they said they use the rankings of underlying APIs that they re-rank, omit, and merge to get their SEO results.
- Their instant answer feature provides answers directly in the SERPs.
- With a high focus on privacy, this search engine doesn’t know your exact location, just an approximate one from a GEO::IP lookup.
How to Approach SEO for DuckDuckGo
Unfortunately, nobody has much information about this. However, many people do believe that the traditional methods will also work here as well. These consist of:
- Attract high-quality links. You can use tools like SEMrush, SpyFu, Ahrefs, and Majestic to help you identify and vet link opportunities.
- Know what people are searching for when they “find” your website. Based on this search engine’s privacy approach (they don’t pinpoint your exact location), your searchers will probably start using geo-qualifiers. This is something that tools like Seed Keywords, Answer The Public, and Demographics Pro can help you understand better.
- Optimize your website for Bing and Yahoo because these are the databases that DuckDuckGo pulls from. Here you’ll want to remember the importance of having an accurate, error-free XML sitemap that you can submit to Bing Webmaster Tools. You’ll also want to use Bing Webmaster Tools to check your website’s health, as well as its crawl and indexation performance so you can find ways to improve your optimization.
Keep This Search Engine on Your Radar
While there’s no “magic bullet” or “secret sauce” for optimizing your website here, you can’t overlook it either. Instead, you need to get a team together to work on your SEO. The Local SEO Tampa Company can be this team for you. We can conduct keyword research that helps you attract high-quality links and gets your site listed higher up in the SERPs that DuckDuckGo is using. Essentially, they’re the ones who can help you get your ducks in a row.