Using DuckDuckGo to Search Google

This week, the search gurus at i3 want to show you how you can use DuckDuckGo to search Google directly. There are many reasons why a user might want to do this. DuckDuckGo has often been touted the “privacy engine,” because it doesn’t log your searches or track you like many other search engines. Per their privacy policy, “What you search for is your own business and we’d like to keep it that way. That’s why we don’t collect any personal information and therefore, have none to share.” It will give you clean, unbiased search results, regardless of your browsing history or location. If this sounds good to you, read on!

DuckDuckGo uses what are called “Bangs” to allow you to search thousands of sites directly. To use a Bang, you simply add an exclamation mark in front of the domain you want to use. For example, “women’s shoes !google” would search google.com for “women’s shoes”. “Where to find restaurants !bing” would search Bing. Note, you can add the Bang anywhere in the search query – it doesn’t have to be in the beginning or the end. So you could, if you chose to, search like this: “volkswagen !bing jetta tires.” It’s very flexible and clever.

What do you think? Will you be using DuckDuckGo to perform your searches?