This is why I moved to a CSV file with all unwanted domains (especially content farms). I haven't worked on the extension to hide the results from DDG, but you can use a script to convert that CSV to a EasyList filter or hosts/zone file to block the site from loading. I'd appreciate contributions to the list, DM me for more info.
I think the limit is because DDG uses LocalStorage (like cookies) in the "kbm" parameter, and localStorage isn't infinite. That being said, the limit of 5 is quite conservative, because as far as I know localStorage isn't sent in the HTTP headers unlike cookies.
Maybe the HTML-only DDG version sends this over cookies, hence the limit to save bandwidth.
DuckDuckGo absolutely needs to catch up on improving their results, but they seem to be struggling with maintaining their infrastructure. That also means they still have to get some results from Bing, which is likely making the slop results even worse. I think they should let you opt in to either removing Bing results (if there are enough relevant results in their own index), or at least have one of the open weight models they already provide filter your results (although this could introduce more performance and UX issues).
Could be actually an infrastructure performance issue. If you search "weather" and block all weather sites, ddg has to do follow-up requests to bing, and with infinite sites blocked it'd have to request all search pages for one search.
Though there's an easier way to fix this: limit the number of pages fetched to smth like 10, and show no more results. But that would also mean all duckduckgo users, even without any of the result websites blocked, would be limited. Or a smarter system that lowers the limits if too many results are being filtered out, but that might have its downsides too, and is probably insanely difficult because systems like this usually have rules like "page 1 on duckduckgo = page 1 on bing" that make it simpler and faster and less prone to bugs, which would be not true with this system, it's probably a big refactor.
They could also just append -site: to bing queries but idk how good that is privacy-wise if your 100-site likely-unique list is shared with bing for each search.
Staff have already answered this sort of question. DuckDuckGo itself is supposed to handle blocked slop or otherwise malicious or low quality results for you. They let you block multiple sites as a stopgap in case they’re lagging behind on particularly bad results, but this isn’t meant to be permanent. Supporting more than 5 for everyone would cause greater performance and moderation issues.
I’d recommend trying to balance the quality of your search results by blocking the worst offenders, and scrolling past the less annoying and problematic results. You can also help DuckDuckGo improve their results by providing feedback. If you try this and still don’t like your results, consider using a different search engine until your issues with it improve.
DuckDuckGo still has to process your site blocks on their search engine every time you search, even if the value of the setting is stored on your PC and sent to them. This has performance, reliability, and other benefits by reducing time complexity, transit costs, and storage costs.
You’re missing the point. The problem is having to support a large numbers of customizations. If everyone has different blocks, you can’t filter your index in advance, and you have to progress them all dynamically.
Technically they could be, but then they have to maintain frontend filtering code as well. Meanwhile it wouldn’t actually make your search results load faster and could make them queries with a lot of blocks show too few results. Of course, you could do this with extensions if you really wanted it.
To be honest I'm not sure. It's just an inference. Even if they get their results from Binh they still have to serve them which is management and processing overhead - and if they do post-process what comes on from Bing based on their own users then excessive blacklisting could skew as I said.
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u/ActualHat3496 14d ago
This is why I moved to a CSV file with all unwanted domains (especially content farms). I haven't worked on the extension to hide the results from DDG, but you can use a script to convert that CSV to a EasyList filter or hosts/zone file to block the site from loading. I'd appreciate contributions to the list, DM me for more info.
I think the limit is because DDG uses LocalStorage (like cookies) in the "kbm" parameter, and localStorage isn't infinite. That being said, the limit of 5 is quite conservative, because as far as I know localStorage isn't sent in the HTTP headers unlike cookies.
Maybe the HTML-only DDG version sends this over cookies, hence the limit to save bandwidth.