[lambda]

I tried setting my main search engine to DuckDuckGo once.

I switched back to Google after trying to search for maps and local results. One of the really important features that Google offers me is Google Maps. Not having that kills DuckDuckGo for me, even if their normal search results were to work just as well.

[zck]

In DuckDuckGo, searching for map! place I'm going to redirects you to google maps with the same query.

[lambda]

Yes, but with Google, I don't have to think about that; I just type "place I'm going" (which is frequently copied & pasted, so I'm not even typing, and adding "map! " would be a separate step), and I'm done. And it's not just for maps; it's also local results, like when you search for "japanese food some place" and get a list of several places with a map and aggregated ratings. For instance, when I do "japanese food place I live" on Google, I get a bunch of relevant results with star ratings, and the best one is on top. When I do the same on DDG, I get links to several other restaurant aggregator sites like GrubHub, Yelp, Urbanspoon, and so on, plus one link to a restaurant that only lasted a few months before closing.

If I'm going to do "map! place name" in order to get map results, I might as well just use Google; DDG isn't adding anything. Google is a place where I can type "thing I'm looking for", and get, most of the time, the answer I'm looking for, while with DDG that's just not true.

[nsmartt]

This is where the !bang syntax comes in handy.

In areas where ddg isn't quite "there," they offer the !bang syntax.

!gm {query}or !gmaps {query} will redirect you to Google maps.