[Walkman]

Honestly, I don't care how clean or nice the page design is, until it can't give me good results. Here is an example:

The other day, I was searching for a Django core developer's contact. I knew his exact name was Baptiste Mispelon so I searched that directly.

On Google [1] after his Twitter and Github accounts, the first picture is correct, and I did not have to do anything else, the contact infos are there, his picture is there, great.

On DuckDuckGo [2] the picture is not even close, and the first couple of results are not as useful as on Google [1].

I think it is a mistake to concentrate on clean design on a search engine until the searching algorithm is not that good. AFAIK Google's page ranking algorithm is well known, when I were in university I even heard stories that a student (going on the same class as me) reproduced the algorithms only on his own!

TL;DR: I want to search relevant information with a search engine, not to look some nice webpage.

[1]: https://www.google.hu/search?q=Baptiste+Mispelon

[2]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Baptiste+Mispelon

[billmalarky]

"I think it is a mistake to concentrate on clean design on a search engine until the searching algorithm is not that good. AFAIK Google's page ranking algorithm is well known, when I were in university I even heard stories that a student (going on the same class as me) reproduced the algorithms only on his own!"

Dude they're working on it. Modern search isn't as easy as having a college student implement a crawler with the pagerank algorithm, don't belittle the team like that.

[_zekiel]

Thanks! We'd also encourage every developer to check out: http://duckduckhack.com/ The example reported doesn't seem to be an issue the organic links but if you find any at all, please let us know. Also, we're on the lookout for any instant answers that pop by default but are irrelevant for the query. If you see any, please let us know at https://duck.co/forum

[amenod]

How about you incorporate "flag as irrelevant" button next to each result? Or some way of users reporting back to you the order they would expect from your SE? I am not sure how you could combat misuse, but I'm sure there coule be some measures taken.

[JoshTriplett]

I'd like to see this as well. There used to be a single link for the results page to report bad results, though it didn't allow adding any details or flagging particular links. And even that seems to have disappeared.

[_zekiel]

We'll definitely think about how to improve this! We added the Feedback button in the Menu options so that people used the Feedback page: https://duckduckgo.com/feedback That way, the reports are really actionable (since it's broken out by type) and people don't spam the form :\

[JoshTriplett]

I saw that link, and the categorization seems fine, but following the feedback link doesn't automatically capture the search data. You need a link that automatically includes the search query, so that the user doesn't have to manually transcribe that data.

Ideally, you should do so via JavaScript inline on the search query page, to make it easy for the user to note the bad search results without switching back and forth between the results page and the feedback page.

Click feedback link, click category, identify relevant/irrelevant results, optionally type a sentence or two, submit. That flow needs some UX optimization.

[hrjet]

> people don't spam the form

Use captchas; a rather obvious solution, but mentioning in case you overlooked it.

[truebosko]

The "Answers" /goodies link here just goes to the splash page. Do you know the correct page?

http://duckduckhack.com/

[citruspi]

When I search "Baptiste Mispelon" in Google, the first three results are:

(1) Ad for Christianity

(2) GitHub Profile

(3) Twitter Profile

When I search the same thing on DuckDuckGo, the first three results are:

(1) Twitter Profile

(2) LinkedIn Profile

(3) GitHub Profile

I definitely think that the first couple of results on DuckDuckGo are as useful as those produced by Google, if not more so.

[justizin]

Google may provide results that are more relevant based on you looking for someone you are in a community with, whose pages you are searching for are relevant based on searches you have made.

This specifically relies on keeping information about you that DDG won't.

[Walkman]

Strange, I don't see any ads at the top :O on Google. I have no ad blocker enabled.

[thescrewdriver]

Well maybe they decided you weren't a good match for the ad after they trawled through all your email.

[dredmorbius]

Adblock, do not track, ghostery, privacy badger, and Google's opt-out cookie are among the tools I'm aware of which may affect this behavior. It's complicated.

[gtremper]

I didn't get an ad either. With my search order being Github, twitter, photos, linkedin.

[us0r]

I got the same results. The images are quite random.

[pushrax]

Do you have AdBlock or the like?

[pyronite]

> I think it is a mistake to concentrate on clean design on a search engine until the searching algorithm is not that good.

The team focusing on the design is, I'm sure, not the same team focusing on the search algorithm. I don't see any reason why the design team should stop improvements because of the search algorithm.

[Walkman]

I general if the money is spent on design but the functionality is not quite there yet, that money is not very well spent...

[frabcus]

Downvoted, as that is a misunderstanding that design is neither just on the surface, nor underneath. It pervades all the way through. You have to iteratively improve it all.

[sondr3]

I get the same three top answers, the only difference being in what place they are. On Google it was Github/Twitter/LinkedIn while on DDG it was Twitter/LinkedIn/Github. No problems here.

[Walkman]

Did you find out how the guy looks immediately? I did not, and DDG even misinformed me. His Github, Twitter, and Linkedin are in the top5 results and all of them share the same profile picture, still DDG show some other picture for no good reason.

[nine_k]

This is what I see on DDG search page: http://i.imgur.com/Ec4sCKp.png

Everything position seems relevant, and first 6 are good sources of personal contact info.

Not bad.