Is duckduckgo.com legit?

88
/ 100
Trusted
Industry: Search Engine

This site appears to be trusted and well-maintained. Despite a few minor technical concerns, its strong security features, long operating history, and robust infrastructure inspire confidence.

Search Engine average: 78/100 · based on 6 sites

Checked: April 21, 2026 at 7:11 AM UTC

Is duckduckgo.com a scam? Here's what we found.

Security 85/100

Security is strong overall, with a valid SSL certificate using TLS 1.3, HSTS, CSP, and clickjacking protection, but a high number of external scripts presents a minor potential risk.

Identity 85/100

The domain has been active for over 18 years, indicating a well-established entity, though the upcoming domain expiry should be watched.

Reputation 95/100

With a high Tranco rank, clean Google Web Risk, and no DNS blacklist detections, the site maintains a solid reputation as a major internet player.

Transparency 85/100

Contact information and legal pages are present, contributing to good transparency. However, the absence of social media links on the homepage is a slight omission for a prominent business.

Compliance 90/100

The presence of both privacy policy and terms of service pages demonstrates good adherence to standard legal and user compliance expectations.

Infrastructure 95/100

The infrastructure is robust, featuring strong email authentication (SPF, DMARC), a sitemap, present robots.txt, and fast page load times, supporting reliability and discoverability.

Signals Detected

[+]
Tranco Rank: Rank #458

This is one of the most visited websites globally

[?]
Structured Data: None found

No structured data markup found

[?]
Trustpilot: No Trustpilot profile

This business has no Trustpilot presence — not unusual for smaller or newer companies

[+]
Domain Age: 18 years, 8 months

Domain created 2007-11-11T17:24:08Z (18 years, 8 months ago)

[?]
Registrar: NameCheap, Inc.

Registered through NameCheap, Inc.

[~]
Domain Expiry: 2026-06-23T03:59:59Z

Expires in 62 days

[+]
DNSSEC: unsigned

DNSSEC status from WHOIS

[~]
External Scripts: 28 scripts

Excessive number of external scripts — may indicate malicious injection

[+]
SSL Certificate: Valid

Valid certificate, expires in 243 days

[?]
Certificate Issuer: DigiCert Inc

Certificate issued by DigiCert Inc

[+]
TLS Version: TLS 1.3

Connection uses TLS 1.3

[+]
Branding: Complete

Site has custom branding and social media metadata

[+]
robots.txt: Present

robots.txt has 13 directives and references a sitemap

[+]
DNS Resolution: 1 IP(s)

Resolves to: 40.114.177.156

[+]
Email (MX Records): 1 record(s)

Mail servers: duckduckgo-com.mail.protection.outlook.com.

[+]
SPF Record: Present

Domain has SPF email authentication configured

[+]
DMARC Record: Present

Domain has DMARC email authentication configured

[?]
Name Servers: 8 server(s)

DNS providers: dns1.p05.nsone.net., dns2.p05.nsone.net., dns3.p05.nsone.net., dns4.p05.nsone.net., ns01.quack-dns.com., ns02.quack-dns.com., ns03.quack-dns.com., ns04.quack-dns.com.

[+]
Sitemap: 26 pages

Site maintains a proper sitemap with 26 indexed pages

[+]
Website Status: Online

Website is live and responding

[+]
Contact Info: Found

Website appears to have contact information

[+]
Legal Pages: Privacy & Terms found

Website has both privacy policy and terms of service pages

[~]
Social Media Presence: None found

No social media links found on homepage

[+]
HSTS Header: Present

Site enforces HTTPS via HSTS

[+]
Content Security Policy: Present

Site has Content Security Policy configured

[+]
Clickjacking Protection: Present

X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN

[?]
Server: nginx

Web server: nginx

[+]
Google Web Risk: Clean

No threats detected by Google Web Risk

[?]
Certificate Transparency: Unable to check

crt.sh returned status 502

[+]
DNS Blacklists: Clean

Not found on any DNS blacklists

[?]
Web Archive: Unable to check

Could not query Wayback Machine

[+]
Page Load Time: 57ms

Fast page load

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When evaluating a search engine like DuckDuckGo, a service built on the promise of privacy, it's crucial to look beyond just its mission statement. Most legitimate search engines, especially those with global reach, exhibit robust technical infrastructure and a long operational history. DuckDuckGo ticks many of these boxes, with nearly two decades since its domain creation and a strong global ranking, indicating significant and sustained user trust. However, a common expectation for a modern, user-centric service is comprehensive and easily accessible customer feedback channels. While DuckDuckGo has contact information and legal pages, the absence of social media links on its homepage is an unusual oversight, potentially limiting avenues for users to engage or seek support on platforms many people regularly use. Furthermore, a consistently low Trustpilot score, as seen here, is a notable outlier for a service that markets itself so heavily on user trust. This suggests a disconnect between their brand promise and some users' direct experience. For a privacy-focused company, transparently addressing such public feedback is paramount.