With so much being reported on the major search engines these days, it is easy to overlook the little guys.  Yet even the Googles and Bings of the Web started out small . . . with a concept and a simple search site.  The oddly named DuckDuckGo is one of the little guys to watch.  It is serving up searches with an old-fashioned look backed by some state of the art power.

Remember when Google was just an uncluttered search interface that brought you great results?  Or when the early incarnation of Microsoft’s Bing brought you your hits without all of the advertizing and fluff?  It almost makes one nostaligic for the early days of web search!  Web searching has come a long way since then, with the additions of real-time results and semantic searching for example.  Search engine interfaces, however, have gotten cumbersome and cluttered as results compete with advertisers for your attention.  With DuckDuckGo though, you can have a clean search interface and eat the sematic web too!

Based in Valley Forge, PA, DuckDuckGo is a new search engine start up that aims to simplify the search experience without compromising the quality of the results.  The interface is one of the cleanest and most uncluttered we have seen in years.  Search the web classically, search info summaries, or  search shopping sites.  It almost seems too simple.  The simplicity, however, is only on its face.  DuckDuckGo has a lot going on in the background.  Take for instance its disambiguation feature.  Enter a search that has multiple meanings and it will first give you the chance to choose which one you want.  There is also the built in ability to search other sites (even Google!) using its “!bang” words functionality.  Add to the mix a whole host of shortcuts, power customizations, and “Zero-click info” which aims to provide you with basic info on your search topic before you even get into the results and you can see while it may look old-fashioned, DuckDuckGo’s search capabilities are anything but!

The iBraryGuy team took DuckDuckGo for a spin and had a blast.  For a start-up, they have made a strong and impressive debut with a feature-rich offering that offers a welcome reprieve from the world of search engine overload.  Clean, fast,  and fun are three ways we’d describe DuckDuckGo.  Powerful is another.  The first three aspects grabbed our interest.  As info pros, however, it was the fourth that really won us over.

Give DuckDuckGo a try today and let us know what you think!