[Estimated read time: 4 minutes]
SEO is not just about Google! Yes, that’s right, I genuinely mean this and I’m going to stick to my word.
It’s common practice for SEOs to invest all their time and energies into just one search engine, but this is a limited approach. The truth is that SEOs need to investigate other strategies for generating traffic which don’t rely purely on Google. And to underline this point, I’m going to take a quick look at the current landscape and prove why this is an essential step for SEOs to take.
In mid-February, after a few months of in-depth testing, Google finally released details on the 4 paid ads on top. And there’s one particularly keen insight that Dr. Pete has uncovered that you need to pay attention to.
With 4 paid ads on top, Google is setting itself up in the enviable position of being able to control 80% of the results above the fold. This scenario raises many questions, but the most intriguing one concerns the effect it will have on the organic results CTR.
For example, let’s quickly do a search on the religion of enlightenment, Buddhism. Can you see the 2nd or 3rd results? Hardly positive karma, isn't it?
The alternative search engine
I could speak about the lurking potential hidden deep within Bing, but I’ve got nothing to add to the swathes of articles going over old ground.
Instead, I want to take a sidestep from current SEO trends and focus on the fastest-growing search engine: DuckDuckGo.
It’s a search engine which respects its users’ privacy and, as a result, is operating in a niche which taps into the current zeitgeist of security concerns. The world of Internet search is gradually changing from a trackable arena into a more private and anonymous realm, so DuckDuckGo find themselves first in line to exploit this new frontier of SEO opportunity. It’s an exciting rise and, as I covered recently, one that is threatening to frazzle the edges of SEO.
As you can see here, in correlation to the increase of direct queries (more than 12 million per day), DuckDuckGo had more than 108 million visits in one month, which is an increase of 22% in their total traffic.
And the sweetener with DuckDuckGo is that they have only one position on top for ads. Naturally, this sets up a highly lucrative difference between the CTR of the top results in DuckDuckGo compared to Google and its bulldozing approach of 4 paid ads on top.
The growth marketing opportunity
It should be becoming clear to you now that your SEO needs to concentrate on more than just Google’s complex algorithms. SEO needs to take time to delve into the exciting world of guerrilla marketing and help to drive the growth marketing tactics of your client/company.
One of the most sweeping changes to SEO in recent years has been the scorched earth policy of social media traffic. What exactly do Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have in common? That’s right, they’re driving huge amounts of traffic that’s out of Google’s reach.
The top 5 biggest social networks by outgoing traffic:
I’m not being speculative when I say Facebook is the leading social media network for outgoing traffic. It’s a cold, hard fact. As you can see, according to SimilarWeb traffic stats, in January 2016 Facebook sent more than 3.5 billion desktop visits to other websites. That’s just over 1.5 billion more desktop visits than Twitter.
The top 10 biggest referrals in outgoing desktop traffic:
However, it would be a little foolish to simply renounce Google and put all your eggs in the social media basket. There are still plenty of other websites you should be looking to portion your SEO efforts out on.
Twitch.tv is the number one referral site in the world and manages to deliver 385 million outgoing desktop visits. Even the fifth most popular, BuzzFeed, still generates a mammoth 50 million outgoing visits, and HackerNews closes the list with almost 20 miillion outgoing visits in January 2016.
Final thoughts
I’ve shown how times are changing in SEO, and all the clues point towards social media becoming the new Google. This, of course, could easily be misconstrued as repeating the SEO/Google mistake of neglecting diversification. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, it underlines the need to choose your tactics carefully on the SEO battleground and attack a number of different traffic sources.
If you’ve got any questions, or want to discuss how you’re tackling the evolution of SEO, then I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
Facebook does drive a lot of traffic! It's important to remember how the searcher's behavior and intention will determine the medium they use to find that information. A user is very likely to click on a news article, video, or maybe a shopping ad while browsing their timeline in Facebook. But if they are looking for more specific info about, say, how to grow tomatoes, they will still probably go to Google.
Totally agree!
For those longer term searches, it may be the case that they are not as competitive in paid search so paid ads may not dominate the SERP.
Don't forget about Pinterest, where the increasingly large group of (mainly female) users are now taking their searches, especially in regards to specificity like DIY projects or interior design know-how.
This is a perfect article showcasing that we need to ever expand the efforts of SEO, and with that said the various search engines. I think that you did a great job on pointing out that these other options along with social media are shaping the search landscape so not to solely focus on one place is key.
I am interested in seeing how duckduckgo utilizes natural SEO structure in the long run, if it allows for organic search to dominate and not let paid search overtake then the landscape for users will be more natural. Great article and also contribution to the community thanks.
Great comment! Thanks
SEO is not Google Optimization. It is search engine optimization which is a universal technique. However, Google is spying on you 24/7 whether it is on android, chrome or many other browsers. Google 'PANDA/PENGUIN' updates are merely updates which incorporate user statistics from multiple sources which they are not entitled to use.
When they plug this data with the search engine algorithm it produces a result which normal users cannot even understand.
There is not WHITE-HAT and NO BLACK-HAT. It is plain simple that SEO is a direct threat to the Adwords money Machine. No wonder Google has been found of violating user privacy by spying on user cookies and using remarketing techniques while crossing the privacy boundaries.
The search results of Bing are more efficient than Google but users are sticking to the old Google because they think that Google will give them efficient results whereas it is not. Bing results are far much better and you can try yourself searching. This trend could easily change.
GO DUCK DUCK GO
As Bruce Clay (father of SEO) said in a workshop I attended, anyone who doesn't believe Google is in business to make money -- and not "provide" search results out of the goodness of their heart -- doesn't understand how this whole search engine business works. They reward websites who play "by the rules" and don't try to game the system with black hat tactics with high organic results. Trying to trick the people you want to get free stuff from (aka organic rankings) = disaster.
Hey Roy you were right it’s not only about Google, it’s not only about Search engine, and I believe it is for searcher what they really want. SE fulfills the demand of searcher by providing content. As SE demands content so we have to focus on that by anyway. Focusing on different or multiple SE will take a lot of time and investment. So for this don’t consider what SE wants, work on what real user wants, do proper content marketing.
Well, when someone talks about Google then I think one is telling about the GIANT of Internet. Obviously we have to focus on that. Anyway, thanks for the sharing the post.
Exactly, you understood my point :)
Hello Roy,
My question is how the website gets ranked on other search engines like Bing, Google, Duckduckgo etc.. As far as I know whether you focus on any search engine, the strategy for ranking will be the same.
I am using Bing sometimes and it shows very accurate results for any queries. One of my clients was asking what extra efforts are required to increase visibility on Bing... It would be great if you can share few points.. if any???
This post is excellent! I have been putting some extra emphasis on bing and yahoo lately. One tip with those engines, make sure your sitemap.xml is squeaky clean. It should only have status code 200 urls. Anyone know if duck duck go is automatically going in the organic medium in GA?
duck duck go is going in as referral in GA.
Duck Duck go will soon bypass yahoo Search Engine.
Very ineresting article. but i dont know what to say about duckduckgo... I havent heard about it, and i dont think our clients heard of it, so until it becomes more popular it will be hard to sell
Roy, Thanks for sharing,
DuckDuckGo has an algorithm that is similar to Yahoo, In my opinion. If you search Google Vs DuckDuckGo back to back for the same terms, you will find their algorithm puts more weight on content, keywords and meta as opposed to age, links, authority and trust flow. Our company did a couple tests on about 50 keywords and found sites on DuckDuckGo top 10 had domains on the front page that were less than 6 months old. Not one link on Google was under a year old. I know this is a broad example but every algorithm is different and yeah, its crucial to optimize for all of them.
I agree 100% that SEOs shouldn't limit themselves to one Search Engine and the importance of optimizing for every engine and social platform is Key!
Thanks again
I'm honestly not overly concerned with the addition of a 4th ad above the fold. Google has built its reputation on the quality of its organic results; they won't want that to change. I believe the addition of a 4th ad is simply a reaction to people becoming more educated about the difference between paid and organic results; Google needed to react in order to maintain the same ratio of paid/organic clics.
That being said: you need to diversify your traffic sources, even if you rank #1 on Google. Any other way would be suicidal.
The big problem with DuckDuckGo results for me is that results aren't automatically geo-targeted. So here in the UK default results have shopping listings priced in $ and a heavy bias towards american sites. You can set the targeted country within advanced settings, but only advanced users will a) take the trouble to do that instead of moving on and b) be able to do it, as the setting is buried. I'm not a huge fan of auto geo-targeting, without the ability to easily switch between "world" and "national", but as it stands the results are simply not relevant enough for my region.
Update: I've just discovered the globe icon that is positioned after the search button following your first search, which does make geo-targeting more accessible, but not exactly obvious IMO.
Diversifying traffic is definitely the smart thing to do:
Help in regards to risk aversion: losing traffic in google, your social media account getting shut down, or whatever worse case scenario - the risk is minimized when you don't have all eggs in one basket.
Diversification helps grow all channels indirectly: For example, becoming well known on social media can indirectly increase organic rankings. Also, having good organic rankings can increase social media shares & exposure.
Hi Roy,
Totally agree that google is not perfect but still it is an internet giant, SEOs and marketers like me are getting organic traffic from Google (Mostly). In this case how can we focus out from Google?
I agree that sometimes it is become hard to manage traffic from google due to its algorithms like penguin, panda. but how can we get huge amount of traffic from other SEs? your thought please...
Google is still the biggest traffic referral in the world, I'm just saying that there are a lot of differnent resources to get traffic.
Yes, I agree BTW Thanks for The Sharing :-)
Hey Roy,
Yes, off-course! I agree with you that there are a lot of different resources to get traffic. I also want to say that doing SEO is not a stable process with one SE. Nowadays specially in GA, DuckDuckGo is going to be a big SE. People will use it hugely and DuckDuckGo will definitely be a another option to get traffic. So we should start to care about this fact in our SEO strategy. Well nice post thanks for it.
Hi Roy,
After reading your article it becomes even more clear to me that focussing SEO efforts only on Google is foolish. I found the growth of DuckDuckGo particulary interesting and I am going to research more on the possibilities of this search engine for sure.
anyway, Really nice post!
Very nice article Roy.
We will likely as you said, see more effort put into social to get traffic.
I don't think we will see a move away from Google anytime soon, though looking the traffic sources in analytics, the majority of organic still comes from Google.
What are your thoughts on optimising for multiple search engines?
I do consider putting more effort into pushing for more visibility on others like Bing, but when looking at my rankings report, I can see that they are (generally) a lot better for Google than other search engines and don't want to make changes to push for them and potentially lose my organic rankings in Google.
The Results on Google are now more focused on showing PAID ads rather than Paying any attention to the organic results. If there are 4-5 PAID ads above you, you have little chance.
When I was in college and started searching on Google, I used to make sure never to click on PAID ADS and this trend is still present on Google where users are not interested in clicking on PAID ADS. Some users click on PAID ADS because they are not aware that they are clicking sponsored ads. Google is incorporating PAID ADS in a manner that they are masquarading as ORGANIC ads which is quite alarming.
I'm using MozPro, that's great tool support my SEO campaing
this is my keyword XSMB, Look forward to your suggestions for my keywords on top 3 in google
Thank your advise
Hi there, you will likely have better luck getting helpful responses to this question over in our Q&A forum. The forum is available for anyone to search for answers to their questions. As a Moz Pro user, though, you have the option to post your own questions in the forum. Best of luck!
Yeah its not about google but Major no.of webmasters are depending on google tools.
Eventdex
Great post Roy,
Best Wishes!!
Thanks Roy Hinkis
I agree with you SEO is not about Google Only but I would just like to add my observation to the post. core of SEO have never changed and can never change, for example google (as per matts cutts statement ) had nullified the role of directories in ranking metrics but believe me I have seen good rise in terms of ranking with just 1 directory link which i purchased (metrics were good and directory was quite popular)..I would like to know your opinion on this front.
Next Google is constantly trying to kill SEO they have now started showing pdf's in searches which will drive majority of traffic to the Pdf's and thats something i would never support.
I have also started showing presence in above listed platforms (which i ignored previously)
Regards
Pulkit Thakur
Hey Pulkit Thakur,
Just some thoughts over here.
I don't think Google is trying to "Kill" SEO, just making the searches more relevant to users.
Also, on the PDF front, most of these PDF's have text and are being crawled by the search engines. In my opinion, these results may be more relevant to the user.
Lets say some is searching for a "Business Plan Template" and three PDF's come up, I would say that is a pretty relevant display of results for that query and not three sites with popups and ads all over the place. Also, in this example, users may get a website that asks for your email to download one or is selling you one. Sometimes PDF's are great and relevant displays in the SERPS, just depends on the query.
In any case, you make some valid points about the directories, I agree.
Very interesting article. I would definitly say that Social Media has a big deal of guilt in this. It is also nice to see some growing competitors in the field.
Any search engine fetches relevant information from the correct source is important and that determines its quality. I think google is doing the same thing. Showing the paid Ad on the top is its core business they are not here for charity.
We need to understand where the audience of our product be found. Strategies for all SEs are not common. It has to be per SE.
Hey Roy,
This is really a nice post. It is great to have access to this site and exploring to great content. I'm completely new to SEO. I love your post and the more important thing is the way you have described it. I have never heard about duckduckgo before.
Thank you for sharing this post to community.
https://tricksense.com
Great article. Its true that seo is not for google, with my knowledge i can say its the maintaing and managing the website or a blog.
Great post!
An article very interesting, although I think google will always be number 1, bove all by the amount of information it collects from us.
google will always be number one
What we need to know about alternative search engines is how they decide what is in their index. I have one browser defaulted to DuckDuckGo and the other to IXQuick - primarily because I can copy and paste links from the results without opening them first to get the actual link.
The problem is that much of the time what I am searching for is in neither of them and it isn't in Bing either. So I am forced to use Google to find it OR go directly to the site where I know it exists and use the on-site search box.
I would love to use DuckDuckGo or IXQuick or any alternative to Google instead of Google - even Bing, but the fact is that they are not indexing as much content and what I'm searching for that I know exists is not coming up in their results.
The universal fixation with Google from SEO standpoint stems from the fact that Google used to dominate the Internet before Facebook joined the party and eat away its market share. Today, Google is clearly struggling to maintain its foothold in the search space, trying to ensure the shareholders are happy.
From the perspective of an online marketer, promoting a product/service/website/cause doesn't need to be confined to one single search engine. In fact, nobody directly promote their search engine for Google anyway. If a website is popular and offers value, it can take off on its own without doing much.
DuckDuckGo is a promising search engine that is rather underrated as of today. However, with the growing user base, it might soon begin to make make a dint inn Google's market share as well. Who knows!
Hi Roy
Although I remain faithful to Google, it is true that the possibilities are wonderful Duck Duck Go.
Seguremente not a bad strategy to focus forces search engines like this
Focusing too much on Google is the perfect way to put all your eggs in one basket. Now Google isn't the only Search engine out there. When you think about it, Pinterest is a search engine. My girlfriend finds essential oils on Pinterest, THEN searches them on Amazon, and wallah -- she has essential oils without Google's help. Of course, she might use Google to, but I think that the point is that avenues for search traffic are out there, even if you are in the most challenging, complicated niche. Thanks for the thoughtful article Roy.
I am a firm believer and frequent user of DuckDuckGo. As it continues to gain in popularity, I have seen its search results continue to improve. However, barring any regulatory oversight, DDG will likely remain a niche-level search engine at best. My hat's off to them, however; it can't be easy going up against monoliths like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
I can't get my head around duck duck go or how it works compared to Google.
Great article. I use DDG almost exclusively, and I never use Google for web searches. And that's my point.
While we understandably need to focus on Google for optimization, the reason is because they're the dominant search engine and have the power that comes with that distinction and thus they to a large extent control what we do.
The best way (the only way) for us to reduce the control Google has over us is to stop using Google for our web searches (even while we optimize for them). If we can begin to chip away at their dominance, we chip away at their ability to force us to cater to them.
A pipe dream, perhaps, but technology kings have fallen before and they can fall again. If we want to free ourselves from bowing to every Google utterance, we need to reduce their dominance.
Google may be the biggest, most popular, used search engine worldwide, but in the present scenario people, organisations are also looking at different platforms to advertise themselves. The reason could be, however, it reached a saturation point or because of the overcrowding in it, newcomers losing out on their opportunities otherwise provided by Google. Whatever it is, but it is surely a great chance for other small search engines, SEO units working in the scene, to try buck up and make hay while the sun shines. No one knows, if tomorrow if we get to hear some other name in the place of Google, having made a mark among the public comprising classes as well as masses alike, in a sure shot way. An option at present available for all sorts of search activities can also be fulfilled through yahoo. com, as a much older, much ahead started search engine than Google.
I tried DuckDuckGo and the results are not too good, at least in the searches i have tried.
Roy, thank you for this post!
I have been telling clients for years that they cannot put all of their digital marketing eggs all in one basket, especially relying on the Big G as their primary source of website traffic. If your business relies on just one traffic source and for some reason that traffic source goes "BOOM!" (you get hit with a penalty, or you can't throw money at PPC anymore), then your business and therefore livelihood is in serious jeopardy.
So, a big "Yes!" to working diligently and intelligently on multiple traffic sources. I always suggest testing every single traffic source that is out there. You just never know which one will pay off for your niche. For example, Facebook advertising might work better for one niche vs. another. Or Pinterest will work wonders if you are in the home decor, fashion niche.
I have been keeping my eye on DuckDuckGo for a while now. When ever someone calls something a "Google Killer" your SEO ears always perk up a bit. It is good to see a rising search engine. Didn't think that was possible since Google has controlled the market for so long. I have been waiting for their market share to increase before optimizing a website for it.
Amazing stats on Twitch.tv! That is an eye-opener for sure. Again, their target audience is mostly video game enthusiasts and music but they have been branching out into different categories such as the Creative channel recently. So, if your niche involves that at all then you should definitely be exploring that as an option.
Insightful, Innovative and Informative article. Thank you. But, a serious doubt popped up in my mind. Will only white hat seo do in representing your brand to Google? Since the competition is more ferocious now, what suggestions would you like to give on the contrast of your article? People were dying to come in 1-10 results, now it is apparently altered to 5-10, right?
Interesting article. I must say I have not focused much on DuckDuckGo.
Where is bing?
They are not listed here, because I don't have something new about them.
Hey Roy,
Just wondering if Social Media would be a good scope of SEO with content and outreach, How flexible it would turn when we focus on the link? And how we can use Social Media as a part of organic search.
Hi Devarshi,
Everything is SEO, some things have more direct affect and some have indirect affect
Please watch this video: https://moz.com/blog/seos-direct-ranking-signals-google-whiteboard-friday
Thanks, Roy,
For sharing the video link. Will definitely have a look into it.
Hi Roy,
Thanks for this in depth analysis, it's very useful especially because many marketeers keep focusing all their efforts on being optimized on Google search result and not exploring others canals.
Nevertheless, main question here is how to be indexed on duckduckgo? How to develop an SEO strategy on this particular search engine? Google has Adwords for sponsored ads but what's the situation with Duck Duck Go?
That's a good questions, that hopefully will have answer soon
Good article. I have to say that it's kind of a different story over here in Germany. Google is dominating the ranks by 94,52%, followed by BING with 4,16%. DuckDuckGo, although i use it often, is not even listed here.
The Problem with most other Searchengines is, they don't understand me like google does. When I look at my analytics there is nothing changed in since 4-Google-Ads. And in germany nearly everything seems to be "high commercial" because I only see 4 Ads or 1. I think that's only a feeling and not the truth. When I have 100 visits via Google, I earn up to one visit via bing or duckduckgo.
The People I speak to (wich are not highly interested in search engines) didn't noticed that shift (!!!)
I'm not saying not to focus on Google, I'm showing you how you can gain more traffic to your website with differnt sources of traffic.
Sorry I didn't finished the comment rly - I had to work.
I am not sure what is better - to have just one Search Engine or more than one.
In most cases I only have to focus on Google, in some countrys like Czech Republic we got a second SE to look at. But a lot of people do not notice google changes, or dont know what bing is make me beleive - here in europe is just a google only world (most cases).
And again - work... I will never finish my comment =)
What do you think - would SEO/OM be easier with only one Searchengine? Can you imagine that 99.8% of your SE-traffic is via Google? I can - and I know that my Bing traffic is coming by people using IE/Edge/Cortana and they thought it was google (no joke). I think it is easier - but like we see - google can change how it likes to - noone is changing to another SE. Thats a problem. DuckDuckGo is known, but not used that often - but the the users know it is not google. Thats not often the case with bing.
Hi Roy, Really a nice post. I like it very much and the most important thing is I never heard about duckduckgo before.
Keep up the good work !!
Glad to hear that!
I do agree the points, Bulldozing approach of Google for 4 paid ads on top, now world every one having big competitors now in online there is no big competitor for Google one should come, then only Google's monopoly will come to end, thanks for your great article. SEO industry have to go for different options bcz there is no way !!!
DuckDuckGo ?? never heard that before..thanks for the information.
Totally agree! It may be cause I'm only in my twenties and more used to social networks to search info than in Google, and I think that may be the future cause it's not only me, it's all the youth that's going to use it as a way to send and receive info.
I love how Google works, but in my humble opinion, it all has a stimated life time.
Great post BTW! :D
Hi Roy,
I'm googling Buddhism now and I don't see any ads at all via Chrome (whether I'm logged in to google or if I use incognito). However if I search "rugs", I see 4 ads.
How does google decide when to show adds to the user?
Thanks,
Mike
Hey Roy,
Some great information here. Though Bing and Yahoo has their enough share, but the big G is still able to steal the show. Howeever, Duckduckgo seems to be the best Google alternative in near future.
Definitely Social media is one of the best traffic fetching platforms now. But I too agree with your point that, we must not put all the eggs in the same basket.
Thanks for sharing.
Wow twitch is surprising to me... is that all gaming?
Well, when you are the biggest in the world you'll schrink when youstart to misbehave (Google Don't Be Evil).
I've been searching for good Duck Duck SEO information but could not find good information (in Google;-))
Someone who reccommends a source where I can find a Duck Duck SEO Manual?
What I'd love to see in this post are cold, hard stats.
You say there's a trend towards Bing and Duckduckgo, but we can't see any numbers. Neither is there info on whether we'd have to do anything different to rank for these search engines.
I'd also like to make a point on semantics. I'm afraid social media has nothing to do with SEO. It's another way of getting traffic, yes, but Facebook, Twitter et al are not search engines. I'd count it as social traffic - so SMTO (social media traffic optimisation?). And, as we know, this is all moving towards paid as well.
Hi Roy
I knew DuckDuckGo, but unknown growth and search volume was was having. I'll have to investigate that ...
With the volume of inputs from social networks I also was clear that we should not dump all SEO efforts on Google ...
Great Post !!!
Thanks Carlos, let me know if you find any new tricks for DuckDuckGo
In Spain DuckDuckGo is not well known, we must study how it behaves in the future, thanks to discover this new search engine
Is that true about duck search? I am not sure about that fact.
Yes, 100% agree with @Roy Hinkis SEO is not only for Google but also for Search Engines(Bing, Yahoo, Ask, etc.)
DukkeDukeGo doesn't show Good search results
DuckDuckGo has better results, promising.....Thanx
i'm interesting for this article "The alternative search engine", good job Mr. Roy hinkis ,