DuckDuckGo SEO: What is and How To Optimize Your Website

DuckDuckGo is a smaller search engine if you compare it with Google & Bing. But, it has undoubtedly evolved rapidly since the time it has started its operations.

Thus, many people these days have started to optimize their website for this search engine as well. It is generating a lot more traffic to the website and attracting a more contemporary audience. 

So, in this blog, we would discuss what the DuckDuckGo SEO is and how it can be optimized for your website. 

Let us begin without any further delay:- 

What is the DuckDuckGo Search engine? 

It is perhaps a search engine that was launched in the year 2008 by Gabriel Weinberg.  The good thing about this search engine is that it doesn’t track the user’s searches. Additionally, it doesn’t keep a record of them as well. 

Also, it doesn’t share or collect your personal info. The company mentions that it’s a bad experience if people at the search engines can view user’s information. So, they came up with DuckDuckGo that promises to offer complete privacy & anonymity. As per the company’s research, it suggested that most of the traffic came from mobile devices. 

Hence, they came up with a mobile application DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser which functions similarly to as desktop browser. Hence, you can search freely without having to worry about privacy or anything.

How to optimize your website for DuckDuckGo? 

Here are the few steps that you can follow to optimize your website for DuckDuckGo:- 

• Use modern SEO practices 

This search engine is committed to delivering top-quality results to users. Hence, you need to implement modern SEO practices such as:- 

• Loading time for the website should not take more than 3 seconds. 
• The website should be responsive in nature. 
• Technical SEO needs to be focused on fixing bad meta tags, poor site structure, complicated URLs, etc. 
• Optimize the content such that it is well written & error-free
• Keywords should be used strategically to attract traffic. 
• You need to ensure that your website is optimized for other search engines, such as Yandex, Bing, and Yahoo. 
• Web design needs to be optimized for the overall user experience. 

 

• Focus on Local keyword strategy

The following search engine has a strict privacy policy. Hence, geolocation data is not used to get the search results. 

As a result, the local search response is not very precise. So, if you are a local company, you need to put in a lot of effort to make it to the search result. Additionally, in-depth keyword research needs to be conducted to get an idea about your users. 

So, to find these keywords, you can use various online tools such as Demographics Pro. 

Thus, you will get an insight into how users are searching for particular services/products. 

• Use High-quality backlinks 

Backlinks play a significant role when it comes to DuckDuckGo SEO. So, you must get backlinks from high-quality websites. For getting high-quality backlinks, you need to look out for things such as high domain authority website. Other factors that you need to consider is Relevance, Trust Flow, framing, and placement. 

• Make use of structured data 

This search engine loves having structured data. It provides clues about the content present on your page. Thus, it saves the search engine from a lot of hard work. Structured data is perhaps a standardized format in which content is classified. Apart from this, information about a webpage is provided. The search engine makes use of the above info to understand the content of the page. 

So, if structured data is given to this search engine, then a lot of time is saved. 

Additionally, the crawlers process the data faster as it understands it in a better way. 

• Optimize for Yahoo and Ping 

DuckDuckGo pulls the answer from Yahoo and Bing.  Thus, best practices for these search engines should be implemented as well. For example, XML sitemaps need to be reviewed.  You need to make sure that they are error-free and accurate. Further, it needs to be submitted to Bing Webmaster Tools. 

Additionally, you can use webmaster tools to monitor the various performance parameters of your site. 

This includes crawl, heath, and indexation of your website. 

• Wikipedia-like Backlinks need to be built 

Wikipedia is an open-source platform that allows the users to get customization & control. Moreover, it has a strong backlink profile and low bounce rates.  Moreover, DuckDuckGo uses Yahoo as the primary source to fetch the search data. Additionally, they value & trust crowdsourced websites such as Wikipedia. 

So, it is recommended that you get backlinks from Wikipedia to get higher rankings in the search results. 

You can also consider taking no-follow links from Wikipedia as it is still a crucial part of the algorithm. 

• Repurpose the content 

The bots of this search engine extract the data from 400+ sources to get accurate results.  The reason is that they understand that users are searching for answers rather than links.  Hence, you must repurpose your content. 

You can try to answer the queries on various sources such as Stack Overflow, Quora, etc.  The content present on these platforms are often ranked higher in the search results. The reason is that search engines is providing the answers rather than just the links. 

• Submit the site to various search engines 

If you want to rank your website on DuckDuckGo, try submitting your website to various search engines.  It can easily crawl your website from DuckDuckBot, which is its custom crawler.  It finds the information from 400+ directories such as Yahoo, Wikipedia, Bing, etc. 

• Check if the website is down 

If you cannot access a particular website, it is essential to check if it is down. You need to check if it is not accessible from just your computer or from everywhere. You can use the websites such as isup.me to check for the same.  It is a significant feature that will help in optimizing your website in case it is down. 

• Own bang needs to be added 

Bangs are shortcuts through which you are directed to a particular website when entered into the search bar. For instance,!Reddit, !twitter etc. 

Moreover, you can also personalize your search query in Bangs. 

For example, when looking out for shoes on Amazon, you can enter “ !a shoes”. 

• Concentrate on the local search 

DuckDuckGo search engine doesn’t track the users, and thus you are not aware of their location. It makes use of Geo::IP to identify the locations through IP addresses. Hence, users need to mention the exact location to get personalized results. Thus, specific location info should be included in the meta tags & content. Other than this, you can add any nearby landmarks or any significant streets. 

• Realistic resource allocation should be set 

If you want to take leverage of DuckDuckGo SEO, you need to invest resources & time into it. This platform is growing rapidly, but it is still behind Bing, Google, and Yahoo. So, you don’t need to spend more than 10% of your SEO services efforts on this search engine. However, if privacy holds paramount importance to your company, then you can focus more on this platform. 

Lastly, it is important to get high-quality backlinks while creating engaging content. 

• Make use of its firm privacy policy 

With this search engine, your browser apps & extensions are permanently secure. Additionally, an in-built tracker blocker is available on this platform.  This arguably prevents the ad networks from gathering your information regarding online activities. Other than this, it detects all the hidden networks and further blocks them instantly. 

You also get an option to select the kind of ads that you wish to view. 

• Advertise in a different way 

Before you launch a PPC campaign, you need to understand that control and customization won’t be the same. This search engine aims to safeguard users & their privacy from the exploitation of advertising. However, you need to keep in mind that their ad campaigns is run through Yahoo and Bing. 

Lastly, you would have very little competition since DuckDuckGo has a very small search engine. 

Final verdict 

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that is a unique rival to Bing & Google. The good thing about this search engine is that it focuses a lot more on privacy. Additionally, on this platform, you get millions of queries on an everyday basis. 

So, it is recommended that you optimize your website for DuckDuckGo. 

In this way, you would be able to generate high-quality traffic on your website. 

Lastly, if you have anything to ask, then don’t hesitate to let us know in the comment section. 

Still have a doubt, connect with SEO Company India