People are being more protective of their doings on the internet. Privacy-focused sites have been gaining popularity over the last few years. After Edward Snowden revealed how the US government was spying on citizens sites like DuckDuckGo have really taken off. 4 of the 10 billion searches performed through DuckDuckGo occurred in 2016 alone. It appears that this trend is not going to be slowing down anytime soon.
Full Article: https://betanews.com/2017/01/23/duckduckgo-10-billion-searches/