DuckDuckGo is an internet search engine that emphasizes protecting searchers' privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results. DuckDuckGo distinguishes itself from other search engines by not profiling its users and by showing all users the same search results for a given search term.

DuckDuckGo hit a milestone in January 2021 when it reached 100 million searches per day for the first time.

Why We Should Care About DuckDuckGo?

My research into DuckDuckGo started in 2018 and at that time, data privacy concerns were already on the rise.

With antitrust claims against some of the giants including Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google, people are paying attention to their privacy policies.

DuckDuckGo’s mantra is simple: “no tracking, no ad targeting, just searching.” It calls out Google on its site by pointing how much Google is tracking you and using your data for ads.

DuckDuckGo’s market share pales in comparison to the other major players: Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Per Statcounter.com, DuckDuckGo’s U.S. search market share in 2020 was 1.61%.

How to Approach SEO for DuckDuckGo

There is little information about optimizing for DuckDuckGo outside of the traditional SEO methods.

1. Attract Quality Links

Don’t roll your eyes at this tip. It’s directly from DuckDuckGo.

I took a screenshot when I came across this information a couple of years ago and I believe it still applies.

Search Engine Journal has a great resource for link building that you can reference for this particular DuckDuckGo tip: Link Building for SEO: A Complete Guide.

SEMrush, SpyFu, Ahrefs, and Majestic are all tools that can help you identify and vet link opportunities.

You must focus on quality links, but shouldn’t that always be the case?

2. Know What the Searcher Might Query

Given the privacy approach of DuckDuckGo, searchers will likely adjust how they conduct queries.

For example, if I know that DuckDuckGo cannot pinpoint my exact location but I want a local result, I might add a geo-qualifier to my query.

You will need to get into some pretty deep keyword research to truly understand your visitors coming from DuckDuckGo.

Tools such as Seed Keywords, SpyFu, SEMRush, and SE Ranking can all help you understand how people are searching for your products or services.

For more tips, check out: A Deep Keyword Research Process That Will Attract More Customers.

3. Optimize for Bing

Wait, aren’t we talking about DuckDuckGo?

We know that DuckDuckGo is pulling from Bing, so let’s ensure we are following best practices for this search engine, too.

This is something that you should be doing anyway, considering it has a decent share of the search market.

For example, review your XML sitemaps. Make sure they are accurate and error-free and submit them to Bing Webmaster Tools (credit to Micah Albert on this tip).

In addition, use Bing Webmaster Tools to check the health of your website, monitor crawl and indexation performance, and identify optimization improvements.

Bing’s SEO Reports can also come in handy at this point.

For additional information on Bing SEO, read 5 Ways SEO for Bing is Different from Google SEO.

4. Claim & Update Apple Maps Listing

If you haven’t claimed your Apple Maps listing, simply go to https://mapsconnect.apple.com.

There are basic fields to complete once you have claimed your business, including:

. Business name.

.  Address.

.  Phone number.

.  Hours of operation.

.  Categories.

.  Website.

.  Social media profiles.