DuckDuckGo Search Skill

Overview

This skill provides web search capabilities using the DuckDuckGo search engine via the duckduckgo-search Python package. It enables text, image, video, and news searches with various filtering options.

Installation

pip install -U duckduckgo_search

Core Functionality

Text Search

from duckduckgo_search import DDGS

# Basic text search
results = DDGS().text("python programming", max_results=10)

# Advanced text search with filters
results = DDGS().text(
    keywords="python programming",
    region="us-en",           # Region: us-en, uk-en, cn-zh, etc.
    safesearch="moderate",    # on, moderate, off
    timelimit="m",           # d (day), w (week), m (month), y (year)
    backend="auto",          # auto, html, lite, bing
    max_results=10
)

Image Search

from duckduckgo_search import DDGS

results = DDGS().images(
    keywords="butterfly",
    region="wt-wt",
    safesearch="off",
    size=None,               # Small, Medium, Large, Wallpaper
    color="Monochrome",      # Color filters
    type_image=None,         # photo, clipart, gif, transparent, line
    layout=None,             # Square, Tall, Wide
    license_image=None,      # any, Public, Share, ShareCommercially, Modify, ModifyCommercially
    max_results=100
)

Video Search

from duckduckgo_search import DDGS

results = DDGS().videos(
    keywords="cars",
    region="wt-wt",
    safesearch="off",
    timelimit="w",
    resolution="high",       # high, standard
    duration="medium",      # short, medium, long
    license_videos=None,    # creativeCommon, youtube
    max_results=50
)

News Search

from duckduckgo_search import DDGS

results = DDGS().news(
    keywords="technology",
    region="us-en",
    safesearch="moderate",
    timelimit="d",          # d, w, m
    max_results=20
)

Available Regions

Search Operators

Use DuckDuckGo search operators for advanced queries:

Proxy Support

# Using Tor Browser
ddgs = DDGS(proxy="tb", timeout=20)

# Using custom proxy
ddgs = DDGS(proxy="socks5://user:password@host:port", timeout=20)

# Via environment variable
import os
os.environ["DDGS_PROXY"] = "socks5://user:password@host:port"

Error Handling

from duckduckgo_search import DDGS
from duckduckgo_search.exceptions import (
    DuckDuckGoSearchException,
    RatelimitException,
    TimeoutException,
    ConversationLimitException,
)

try:
    results = DDGS().text("query", max_results=10)
except RatelimitException:
    print("Rate limit exceeded. Try using a proxy or waiting.")
except TimeoutException:
    print("Request timed out.")
except DuckDuckGoSearchException as e:
    print(f"Search error: {e}")

CLI Usage

# Text search
ddgs text -k "python tutorial"

# Search with region
ddgs text -k "news" -r cn-zh

# Search and save to CSV
ddgs text -k "research filetype:pdf" -m 50 -o results.csv

# Image search
ddgs images -k "landscape" -m 100 -d

# News search
ddgs news -k "technology" -m 50 -t d -o json

Result Format

Text Search Results

{
    "title": "Page Title",
    "href": "https://example.com",
    "body": "Page description..."
}

Image Search Results

{
    "title": "Image Title",
    "image": "https://original-image-url.jpg",
    "thumbnail": "https://thumbnail-url.jpg",
    "url": "https://source-page.com",
    "height": 3860,
    "width": 4044,
    "source": "Bing"
}

Video Search Results

{
    "content": "https://youtube.com/watch?v=...",
    "title": "Video Title",
    "description": "Video description...",
    "duration": "8:22",
    "provider": "YouTube",
    "published": "2024-07-03"
}

News Search Results

{
    "date": "2024-07-03T16:25:22+00:00",
    "title": "News Headline",
    "body": "News article description...",
    "url": "https://news-site.com/article",
    "image": "https://image-url.jpg",
    "source": "News Source Name"
}

Best Practices

1. Use context manager for proper resource cleanup:

   with DDGS() as ddgs:
       results = ddgs.text("query")
   

2. Set reasonable max_results to avoid long wait times

3. Use region parameter for localized results

4. Implement retry logic for rate limiting:

   import time
   
   for attempt in range(3):
       try:
           results = DDGS().text("query", max_results=10)
           break
       except RatelimitException:
           time.sleep(2 ** attempt)
   

5. Use proxies for high-volume searches to avoid IP blocks

Notes

• This library is for educational purposes only
• Not intended for commercial use
• Respect DuckDuckGo's Terms of Service
• Package has been renamed to ddgs (use pip install ddgs for newer version)