- Visibility47
- Citations0
- Sentiment92
- Site quality80
- AI readiness29
AI assistants name DuckDuckGo in 60% of answers, much more often than the typical company in its sector, which is named in 10% of answers. Its overall score is 49 out of 100, ranking 22nd of 2,047 companies. The website passes 3 of 14 technical checks for how ready it is for AI tools.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the technology market: none named DuckDuckGo. AI assistants named it in 36 of 60 answers (60.0%). The typical technology company is named in 10.0% of answers. By how often it is named, DuckDuckGo ranks 9 of 273 in its sector.
Every dot is a company in the study. Hover one to see it; click to open its report.
This companySame sectorEvery other companyNever named
Five parts, each scored out of 100.
How often AI assistants name the company
How often AI uses the company's own website as a source
How positively AI describes the company
How well built the website's own pages are
How easily AI tools can read and use the website
Visibility is calculated from the answers on this page. How the score is built.
273 companies in this sector. The line on each bar is the typical company.
An answer that names the company
“How does a privacy-first browser differ from a standard browser in terms of tracking prevention?”
I can answer this based on my existing knowledge about how privacy-focused browsers differ from standard browsers.
Key Differences in Tracking Prevention
Standard Browsers:
Often allow third-party cookies and trackers by default
May share browsing data with their parent companies or partners
Typically implement minimal built-in tracking prevention
Rely on users to manually enable privacy features
May use browsing data for targeted advertising or analytics
Privacy-First Browsers:
Privacy-first browsers like Brave, DuckDuckGo, and Firefox (with enhanced privacy settings) …
The AI’s answer as we received it, shortened and not checked for accuracy.
How the mentions in these answers were split between this company and its rivals
Answers naming it, out of answers received
What this website publishes for an AI agent to read, use and buy from, on a scale of six levels.
- 0
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Level 1: Basic web presence. Two of robots.txt, a sitemap and Link headers are in place.
- Content Signals
Show every check, for your technical teamHide the checks
- study: 92.0%robots.txtPassed
A valid robots.txt with crawl rules at the site root.
- study: 86.8%SitemapPassed
An XML sitemap listing the pages, ideally referenced from robots.txt.
- study: 0.3%Link headersNot met
Send Link headers such as rel="api-catalog" or rel="describedby" on the homepage.
- study: 5.5%DNS for AI DiscoveryNot present
Advertise agent endpoints with SVCB records under _agents.
- study: 1.9%Markdown negotiationNot met
Return a markdown version when asked with Accept: text/markdown, for example at the CDN.
- study: 25.1%llms.txtNot met
Publish an llms.txt with a short summary and the key links.
- study: 93.4%AI bot rulesPartly met
Add explicit robots.txt groups for the main AI crawlers.
- study: 1.4%Content SignalsNot met
Add a Content-Signal line for search, ai-input and ai-train to robots.txt.
- study: 0.2%Web Bot AuthNot present
Only relevant if you run your own agents or crawlers: publish a signing key directory.
- study: 0.3%API CatalogNot met
List public APIs in a linkset at /.well-known/api-catalog.
- study: 11.8%OAuth discoveryNot met
Publish OpenID Connect or OAuth server metadata under /.well-known.
- study: 10.3%OAuth Protected ResourceNot met
Serve protected resource metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.
- study: 0.0%auth.mdNot met
Publish an auth.md describing how agents sign in.
- study: 0.2%MCP Server CardNot met
Offer an MCP server and publish its server card under /.well-known.
- study: 0.1%A2A Agent CardNot met
Publish an agent card at /.well-known/agent-card.json.
- study: 0.2%Agent SkillsNot met
Publish a skills index with the main tasks agents can do.
- study: 33.7%WebMCPCould not check
Register key actions such as search or cart as WebMCP tools.
- study: 0.1%ARD manifestNot met
Publish an ai-catalog.json listing every agent interface.
Score 25 of 100 · 97% of checks could run · checked on October 5, 2026 · duckduckgo.com · 2,047 companies scanned
3 of 14 passed. This list is for your technical team. The percentage is how many companies in the study pass each check.
These 14 checks ran during the audit and are what the AI readiness part of the overall score counts. The scan above ran later and is stricter on Link headers and Markdown, so a check can pass here and not there.
Show the 14 checksHide them
- Passedrobots.txt publishedstudy: 85.0%
- PassedXML sitemapstudy: 73.2%
- Not metHTTP Link headers (RFC 8288)study: 29.0%
- Not metMarkdown content negotiationstudy: 8.3%
- Not metllms.txt publishedstudy: 21.7%
- PassedToken budget (page weight)study: 95.2%
- Not metExplicit AI bot rulesstudy: 13.0%
- Not metAPI Catalog (.well-known/api-catalog)study: 0.2%
- Not metOAuth Authorization Server discoverystudy: 10.1%
- Not metOAuth Protected Resource discoverystudy: 9.3%
- Not metMCP Server Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metA2A Agent Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metWebMCP toolsstudy: 4.2%
- Not metAgent Skills declaredstudy: 0.0%
This website sets no rules for any AI crawler by name, like 84% of the websites whose rules we could read. Every AI crawler follows its general rules.
- GPTBotpartly
- ClaudeBotpartly
- Anthropic-AIpartly
- Google-Extendedpartly
- Applebot-Extendedpartly
- Meta-ExternalAgentpartly
- FacebookBotpartly
- Bytespiderpartly
- CCBotpartly
- Diffbotpartly
- Omgilibotpartly
- OAI-SearchBotpartly
- Claude-SearchBotpartly
- PerplexityBotpartly
- Applebotpartly
- Amazonbotpartly
- YouBotpartly
- ChatGPT-Userpartly
- Claude-Userpartly
- Perplexity-Userpartly
- DuckAssistBotpartly
- MistralAI-Userpartly
Read from the website’s own rules file (robots.txt). An asterisk marks a crawler the file names. The rest follow its general rules. “Partly” means only some pages are blocked.
How many times each website was listed as a source in these answers
In the study as Large private companies. One of the most visited websites in the United States (Similarweb, August 2026).
- How does a privacy-first browser differ from a standard browser in terms of tracking prevention?
- Which search engines are most trusted for anonymous internet browsing in the US?
- What options exist for browsers that don’t collect user data or browsing history?
- Does a privacy-first search engine really keep your online searches more secure than mainstream options?
- Why am I still seeing targeted ads after using a privacy-focused search engine?
- Best ways to control personal data exposure when searching online
- Do any privacy-first internet tools offer premium features, and are they worth the cost?
- Alternatives to mainstream search engines for people concerned about privacy
- Are privacy-focused browsers and search tools in the US free, or do they require a subscription?
- Top browser tools that help block trackers and preserve privacy while browsing in the US
- Is it worth switching to a privacy-focused browser for everyday internet use?
- How can privacy browsers help with anonymous research or sensitive searches?
- Privacy search engines vs regular search engines—what are the key differences?
- What are the best privacy-focused search engines for protecting personal information online?
- How can I fix issues with my privacy browser not blocking trackers effectively?
Columns, left to right: OpenAI, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini. The AI assistants often disagree. Across the study, on 40% of the questions where a company is named, only one of the four names it.
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<a href="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/duckduckgo.com"><img src="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/badges/duckduckgo.com.svg" alt="Overall score 49 of 100, US AI Visibility Study 2026" width="280" height="64"></a>