How Does DuckDuckGo Make Money: Learn the Truth
DuckDuckGo (DDG) is a search engine that focuses on the privacy of the end-users. It’s known for not selling your personal data to third parties. Nevertheless, it garnered $100 million as revenue in 2021. So the question arises, how does DuckDuckGo make money.
If you’ve got the same question in mind, continue reading this blog. Here, we’ll explore the business model of DuckDuckGo and find out how DDG earns its revenue.
What Makes DuckDuckGo Different From Google?
Like any other search engine, DuckDuckGo lets you search for websites, images, news, videos, and products for shopping. But it doesn’t track or record the browsing history or the IP address of the users like Google does. Contrarily, it emphasizes user privacy.
Since this search engine refrains from tracking you, users don’t get to see customized search results based on their previous browsing history. Similarly, there is no targeted ad on its platform.
How Does DuckDuckGo Make Money?
Though DuckDuckGo started its journey in 2008, 2014 is the year it became profitable for the first time. Since then, it has continued to generate revenue. That too, without collecting any personal user information.
The success recipe of DuckDuckGo consists of three elements: search engine advertisement, affiliate marketing, and tracker radar.
1. Advertisement Based on Search Terms
The lion’s share of DuckDuckGo’s revenue comes from keyword advertising. Like other search engines, it also displays ads as a part of search results. Using an auction system, advertisers bid to make their ads appear on top for certain keywords or queries.
When someone clicks on these ads, DuckDuckGo makes money. The winning amount of the bid determines how much DDG gets from a clicked ad. As DuckDuckGo believes that the keywords are enough to show a relevant ad, they don’t track users and show them targeted ads.
2. Affiliate Marketing
As a business model, affiliate commission has seen a surge in recent years. DuckDuckGo also earns a big chunk of its revenue from the affiliate commission. It works with online shopping giants, such as Amazon and eBay, to promote products these platforms sell.
In fact, DDG displays a selection area containing products from these partners for product-focused queries. When a user buys a product within a fixed time window, DuckDuckGo gets a percentage of the total order amount. In some cases, DDG gets paid even if you buy a product different from the initially clicked one.
3. Tracker Radar
It’s not a secret anymore that Google or Facebook use hidden trackers to get various data points such as user location, search history, and browsing records. DuckDuckGo’s Tracker Radar provides you with an overview of the common trackers and their tracking behavior.
While the data gathered by DuckDuckGo is publicly available, its commercial use is only possible after you pay a licensing fee to DuckDuckGo. This fee is another way DDG makes money.
Wrapping Up
This blog answered a commonly asked question: how does DuckDuckGo make money. The value proposition of DuckDuckGo is based on privacy.
Therefore, it doesn’t intrude on user privacy and sells private data to others. Instead, it uses other methods to generate revenue while protecting your privacy.
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