Been slowly running into more results from DDG that seem to have some “personal parameter” or difference in search results. I had a search saved from some months ago, went to check it for some references and got new hits involving local organizations that had nothing to do with the search. Opening up a private browser I see that the searches aren’t 100% matching up either.
I see this as only getting worse, I want to be able to enter a search and it searches for my query. Not based on my personality or whatever info is being collected. Does anyone know a search engine that’s reliable and focuses on giving the same results and doesn’t try this “personalized” crap?
Ugh. I use DDG for the privacy, because it sure as fuck isn’t a good search engine.
I use DDG for the privacy as well, but personally I think it works better than Google in my field (software development). The only issue I personally have with DDG is that it lags behind Google in terms of updates, I notice when searching for something that came out or happened only recently.
This would be a major issue, because DDG specifically claims it does not store any identifying information about you.
https://duckduckgo.com/privacy
I had a search saved from some months ago, went to check it for some references and got new hits involving local organizations that had nothing to do with the search. Opening up a private browser I see that the searches aren’t 100% matching up either.
my guess is this is just variation in the search algorithms over time. excerpt from their privacy policy above which I think can explain most of the variability you mentioned:
“For example, we may know that we got a lot of searches for “cute cat pictures” today, but we don’t know who actually performed those searches. That is, viewing search results on DuckDuckGo is anonymous. And we only save these anonymous search queries — completely disconnected from any unique identifiers like IP addresses — for just enough time to analyze anonymous trends like popular searches, so that we can better serve you. For local search results in particular, we’ve further engineered a solution to shield your precise location from us and our content providers that sends us a random location nearish to you, which we also never log to disk.”
So they do use your geo IP and popular searches to weigh results which can change over time.
Well. Isn’t ddg just a Bing API?
pretty much: https://www.searchenginemap.com/, used to be +the Yandex API
Is there a way to get reminded when there’s more replies?
I noticed today searching that the date search no longer seems to work right. There are some terms that only appeared since 2020 and up until my recent attempts those terms produced no results on DDG when date constrained but now produce terms in articles clearly after that date. I don’t know if this is some personalisation nonsense or always pulling but results if the constraints don’t match or what but its seriously problematic and means I can’t trust the date constraints anymore.
The local results thing has been a thing for years (for me), it mostly happens when doing a search with few results
I’ve been noticing that they’ve been getting worse and worse myself. I was recommenced Mojeek and Qwant, but I haven’t made the switch yet. I always forget to use them instead.
thanks for mentioning us; Qwant also uses Bing (same as DDG) so if they don’t have a personal parameter then it should be similar. That being said we (obviously) think people should give Mojeek a go :D
Thanks for letting me know that Qwant is Bing. It’s hard as a typical person to find any info on search engines, so I appreciate the heads up.
no problem, this map might be useful: https://www.searchenginemap.com/
Search query with possible parameters included from their website.
I’ve noticed this too. Not only what you stated, but how the search terms aren’t always respected; ie they do similar terms, even if the term or phrase is in quotes (the quotes should mean exact matches only). They also do a lot of filtering of the results if they feel I shouldn’t be seeing them. I can take my same search query from DDG to Google and most of the time find what I’m looking for.
If I understand DDG correctly, they use Microsoft Bing as their backend for search results. So while they may be branded DDG, the results are in fact out of DDG’a control. It also means we are more subject to Microsoft’s privacy policy than we are to DDG’s.
I’ve been wanting to move away from DDG because of these reasons, but have been unable to find good alternatives. Hopefully someone here can make good suggestions.
DDG uses a bunch of different sources, it’s not just rebranded bing.
also DDG does not send any personal info to its partners, so Microsoft’s privacy policy is not relevant.
OP’s concern is that DDG itself is keeping your personal info and using that to weigh your search results. But that also directly contradicts DDG’s privacy policy, so it’s either a major breach of trust or I think more likely OP is reading into varying search results too much.
