> I've always wondered how DDG can be as profitable as Google if they take into account less information when showing you ads
AFAIK, no one has conclusively shown that highly targeted ads perform better than interest-based ones (as in, putting ads for cars in car magazines). In fact, I'm under the impression that "we don't really know what we are doing" is the ad industry's secret.
The Atlantic calls this Wanamaker's Paradox[1], in honor of a retailer that said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half". If DDG is right and showing ads based on your search terms is enough, then you'd expect them to get ahead of Google, because they would have similar profits with less overhead.
Of course, there is much more to Google's dominance than "because they show better ads", so I don't think "efficiency gap" is the best way to look at it anyway.
AFAIK, no one has conclusively shown that highly targeted ads perform better than interest-based ones (as in, putting ads for cars in car magazines). In fact, I'm under the impression that "we don't really know what we are doing" is the ad industry's secret.
The Atlantic calls this Wanamaker's Paradox[1], in honor of a retailer that said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half". If DDG is right and showing ads based on your search terms is enough, then you'd expect them to get ahead of Google, because they would have similar profits with less overhead.
Of course, there is much more to Google's dominance than "because they show better ads", so I don't think "efficiency gap" is the best way to look at it anyway.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/a-dange...