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Comment by puredemo | Hacker News Reader

I've said this for a long time, but I think the biggest thing holding back DDG from truly widespread adoption is the name and branding.

No one is ever going to 'dukgo' someone. Searching is a verb, the naming conventions used with DDG in its current form just don't fly. I'd love to talk shop with Gabriel about the identity decisions, and whether he is open to pivoting the brand identity now that the service is getting more well known..

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Before Google we never Altavista'd or Yahoo'd anything, I don't see why this has to be a problem.

Also, please stop abusing the word "pivot" :(

Right, before Google.. but maybe that's the point: they never became as ubiquitous as Google.

Give you a hint, why. Which one of those companies dominates search? Which are dead or also rans?

I agree. Google became a verb because the search engine was successful, not the other way around. Furthermore:

- Microsoft spent pots of cash trying to verbify their search engine with their "bing and decide" commercials. As far as I know, this hasn't worked for them.

- IIRC Google themselves tend to use the form "do a Google search" - or they risk losing their trademark.

- Duck Duck Go is a catchy name - three punchy syllables. (I've recently become a fan of The Name Inspector's blog).

- And people should definitely stop using "pivot" when they just mean "change". Or "disruptive" when they mean "new". It's the startup equivalent of the crystal healers who use words like "quantum" to sound more intelligent.

Or 'impact' when they mean 'affect', though sadly the battle is lost on that one...

But my disruptive agile cloud startup is going to pivot into being more of a social media cloud platform!!1!1oneone

I've got the exact same feeling. Duck Duck Go looks and sounds quirky (and not in a good way for me).

Feelin the same way, but I'll be trying this anyway. I'd rather have it ugly and honest than good looking and insidious.

DuckDuckGo is a good enough name. Penetrating market share is incredibly difficult in the search market. Microsoft is spending billions of dollars each year marketing Bing to the masses and it still only has about 14% market share. It takes time, technology, and money to break the mindshare of users away from Google Search. DuckDuckGo has the name, they just need the time, technology, and money to market to the mainstream.

He should just rename it "Go"...it's both shorter than Google, works great as a verb "I'm going to Go to xyz site" meaning searching on the Go search engine is akin to a behavior many people already have -- searching for sites instead of typing their url.

Plus it helpfully further confuses the word "Go", it's a programming language, a regular old verb, and a search engine!

Well, in general I like the Duck Logo and brand Now checking possible duck domains

    Duck.com redirect to google! 
    Duck.co points to a DDG community site!
    Goduck.com is for sales 
    Duck.net is blocked from work so I guess its a porn thing

What do you think will work as a good brand?

I didn't know about duck.com. Does anyone know the story behind that?

From a previous discussion on it http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2027691 here's a quote from Gabriel:

"""To be fair, it came as an asset in an unrelated acquisition (On2). But it just sat their (pointing to this Duck Corporation history page) for a long time.

I first inquired about it on 11/4/09. After several attempts, I got back a response "from management" on 3/25/10 that they didn't want to sell it. Understandable.

Now http://www.on2.com/ points to a Google explanation page about the On2 acquisition, yet http://duck.com/ points directly to Google search."""

Also discussed a little bit on the DDG community forum: http://duck.co/topic/duck-com-redirects-to-google

Thank you, that was very helpful and informative.

Duck.com redirect to google!

Huh. Well, that's fairly bizarre.

duck.net is owned by a squatter.

Agreed. He has a short URL but I'll be darned if I can remember it. Something like ddggg?

Edit: Right, ddg.gg. I guess I had it. But don't tell me it's memorable (I only recalled increasing character repetition). How do others remember it? "Duck Duck G-G-Go"? He definitely needs a short, pronounceable name.

DDG.gg

At least it's not named Blekko.

Yeah, I'll just keep on googling on DuckDuckGo. The way I make a xerox on whatever photocopier is around.

Why not just say "Duck it"?

Sounds good to me. Just Duck It! They can even create a promotion around it with a curved beak as the logo.

Maybe save up for www.[just]duck.it.

I suggested it to Gabriel, so we'll see.

What's with the name? It is derived from Duck Duck Goose, but it's not a metaphor—really. If you're wondering how you would turn that into a verb...Duck it!

From the ddg faq page: http://duckduckgo.com/faq.html

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