DuckDuckGo is a search engine built around privacy. It says it does not track users' searches or build profiles, so results are not personalized by search history. Its results come from many sources: its own crawler, DuckDuckBot, specialized sources, and partners, with Bing among the most important for traditional links. For site owners, good visibility on Bing usually carries over to DuckDuckGo to a degree.
Where results come from
DuckDuckGo's help pages say it gets results from over a hundred sources, including Bing, its own crawler and specialized sources such as Wikipedia for instant answers. It does not offer a webmaster console or let you submit sitemaps directly, so optimizing for it mainly means making sure Bing and DuckDuckBot can crawl your site.
No personalization
Because DuckDuckGo does not personalize based on history, results for a query are more consistent between users. It does use approximate location for local results unless the user turns that off. That makes it handy for a quick, non-personalized look at a results page.
Practical steps
There is little DuckDuckGo-specific work to do, but a few basics apply.
- Allow DuckDuckBot in robots.txt if you restrict crawlers
- Set up Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap
- Check that your local business data is consistent across map providers
Common mistakes
Blocking unknown bots broadly
Overly strict bot rules can block DuckDuckBot along with scrapers. Check user agents before blocking.
Questions
There is no submission tool. Get indexed on Bing and allow DuckDuckBot to crawl your pages.
