Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Search Engines -- November 11, 2020

I was again curious about "Duck Duck Go" vs "Google." The former does no tracking of my previous searches, my interests, my surfing through the internet; the latter attempts to do its best to help me find what I'm looking for and tracks me whenever it can.

There is no comparison. If you want a bunch of random hits with little utility, go with "Duck Duck Go."

If you want to find what you are looking for, go with Google. 

Period. Dot. End of story.

As noted, I was curious, so I went to Duck Duck Go and typed in "million dollar way" and the top hits had to do with traveling beautiful highways in the US. and eight ways to invest a million dollars in 2020. Good grief, Charlie Brown. Duck Duck Go had no idea what I was looking for.

Doing the same with Google and a link to my blog is the first thing that shows up and then, this, the second hit. Wow:

This was back in 2009 and an op-ed piece begins with a quote from my blog. Wow, I am blown away. I had not seen that before.

Google knew what I was looking for, and for this to be the second hit for a pretty generic search (million dollar way) this tells me this Grand Forks Herald article had a lot of views, a lot of hits. Whoo-hoo!

By the way, here's the Duck Duck Go screenshot:

Here's the Google screenshot:

For folks who like to surf the net with no goal in mind, Duck Duck Go is perfect. Talk about a waste of time, however, for those who are actually trying to find something useful, Google beats everyone out there.

Wow, eight ways to invest a million dollars in 2020. And it's a real estate site. Good grief, Charlie Brown.

6 comments:

  1. the Milion Dollar Hwy is Fantastic, we have been on this road in the Summer.. let someone else drive so you can enjoy the Sienery.. don

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    1. I have been to Durango, CO, on my way to Flathead Lake, MT, in the past, but did not take the highway to Ridgway, CO. I will make a point of doing that next summer.

      Having said that, two other roads that may be even better:

      Highway 20, western Wyoming: Shoshoni, Wyoming, to Thermopolis, WY: and,
      Highway 66, on the way to Oatman, AZ.

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  2. This is probably a first, but must disagree on the Google/DDG issue.
    Have been using Duck duck go for several years now and have no issues. In fact, just did Duck search and this blog comes up first. (maybe intuitive algorithms have finally figured me out)
    PS- Have a Blessed Veterans Day

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you searched for this blog generically and the first hit was this blog, this tells me that DuckDuckGo is, in fact, tracking you.

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  3. Or it recognizes excellence in the blogesphere, as it should

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I used "DuckDuckGo" to look something up:

      http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2020/11/apples-new-chip-is-apparenly-real-deal.html.

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