Talk:DuckDuckGo

De-ranking/Compromised by fact-checkers

DuckDuckGo takes from the database of Google when I remember correctly. If I search for wikispooks on Google now, the first result is wikispooks.com and the 2nd is the insider article. It could be that this connection with mediabias is not the making of the DuckDuckGo. Right now 7th floor group has become the top result. Other results also indicate that wikispooks hasn't necessarily been de ranked. -- Sunvalley (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, the header in the article has a question mark, so we didn't declare it de-ranking, it was just a suspicion. (I've some other points but we should e-mail about that if this trend continues) I've altered the article with your new observation though. Thx for the heads up. --Jun (talk) 22:31, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not precise enough. There are two things: "de-ranking" and "Compromised by fact-checkers". Both means tampering with the results in some way. As for the example: "7th floor group", it could mean that it took some time to come through, as for: "Compromised by fact-checkers", it seems to me that DuckDuckGo is producing what Google may have put out as a result before the Insider article came out. One would have to know the technical details, or have more observations, so it is just an idea, but right now my hunch goes that way.

Current Google example 1

Current Google example 2

Current example for Off Guardian on Google where "mediabiasfactcheck" still #4

-- Sunvalley (talk) 11:18, 16 March 2021 (UTC

DDG's uses bing and their own mods with a web-crawler https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1, but some of the crawler's sources and API (how the algorithm works) is partly hidden from the public. So why DDG had such a low ranking (when it gets its results from bing) for the 7FG is unclear but suspicious, as it implies their own algorithm had smth to do with it as DDG doesn't de-rank results based on servers (like google does), location or google account using the search term. So the google theory doesn't stand here. Regarding offguardian, I'm not sure, interestingly, outside of the US all those face-checkers aren't on the first pages of the results (and StopFake is only known around Russia, so why is that placed so high). Even in the UK. That also raises questions. --Jun (talk) 16:09, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

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Alright, thanks for pointing that out, now I get it. But leaving the curious example with the 7FG aside, Bing right now does have "mediabiasfactcheck" in the upper region of the searches, both for Off-guardian and Wikispooks, which could still mean that the DDG output comes from the results of the underlying search engine:

• here it is not: current Bing example for Off Guardian 1
• however via Asian proxy it does show: current Bing example for Off Guardian 2
• Current Bing example for Wikispooks -> #1 "wikispooks", #2 "wikispooks about", #3 "mediabiasfactcheck"

-- Sunvalley (talk) 17:02, 16 March 2021

Yeah, I can only go theoretical guessing with this article about that [1], I've added a disclaimer to the off-guardian claim, softening the allegation somewhat for now, along with some concerns from this source. Feel free to change if you find some leads. --Jun (talk) 02:28, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Good work! I almost say I have no further questions, but the argument in itself is still valid and since "mediabiasfactcheck" under "Compromised?" is now the weakest argument in the article, I still tend to remove it until a more obvious observation comes along. You can't actually blame them when they are just passing it through, and still, this is what it looks like to me. Terje do you have input here? I leave a few more links for safekeeping -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -- Sunvalley (talk) 17:30, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Indexing / Time

I just noticed this, it is ~45 hours after I created the article, and I get Wikispooks as the 2nd result from DDG. This time it is the same on Bing. Not indexed on Google (checked the first 4 pages), also not via Metager ... for information. --Sunvalley (talk) 03:56, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

And today I find Wikispooks is totally gone on the first two (long) result pages on DDG, but still remains 2nd on Bing. Checked via VPN as well ... now I see the point; DDG appears to be doing something. -- Sunvalley (talk) 00:50, 8 August 2021 (UTC)