Despite the steady gains in usage, the search engine's latest record serves as a reminder of just how daunting a task it is to put a dent in Google's dominance. Even at its latest peak, DuckDuckGo handles a fraction of a percent of the 3.5 billion searches processed by Google every day. It's not just Google, either. According to NetMarketShare.com, DuckDuckGo still trails a number of other search engines in traffic, including Yahoo, Bing, and internet relic Ask.com—though it does have AOL beat. On a good day, DuckDuckGo claims about a fifth of a percent of the total search market. You can't cut a slice of the pie much thinner than that. Image: Ian Clark / Flickr
Search engine DuckDuckGo — which emphasises protecting a searcher 's privacy — has carried out more than 30 million direct searches in a single day , achieving the milestone twice in a week . DuckDuckGo claimed 16 million searches per day in January , a figure set to double by the end of the year . Despite its robust growth , the company is dwarfed by several rivals , not least behemoth Google , which notches up 3.5 billion searches daily , as well as Yahoo and Bing .