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When I search using more than 2 words in DuckDuckGo the screen goes blank sometimes.

Works (2 words):
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dispatch+keyboard&t=hj&ia=web

Redirects to blank page (3 words):
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dispatch+keyboard+swift&t=hj&ia=web

Works (4 words):
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dispatch+keyevent+on+system&t=ffab&ia=qa

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  • Please edit and include more detail - OS, browser, ending URL, whether it is a single machine or multiple, what you have done to investigate so far.
    – Paul
    Aug 13, 2018 at 4:57
  • It appears to work if I turn off my ad blocker.
    – 1.21 gigawatts
    Aug 13, 2018 at 6:08
  • And it appears to work with some words but not others
    – 1.21 gigawatts
    Aug 13, 2018 at 6:23

1 Answer 1

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Probably it's best to contact them directly! But my guess is that you've triggered their anti-scraping defenses. I get a fine result for your example 3-word query.

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  • Your "guess" doesn't make any sense. Why should an anti-scraping defense for a search engine limit a 3-word word query but not a 2-word one? The only anti-scraping feature that makes any sense would be a rate-limiting one. (By rate-limiting I don't mean a ban for the rest of the day but a delay like one or five minutes between successive searches after a certain limit has been reached. Even then, basing such a limit on IP addresses will cause all sorts of issues for users unless the limit is huge and thus effectively useless.)
    – robinCTS
    Aug 13, 2018 at 5:17
  • Well, last time I created the anti-scraping defense for a search engine, the length of the query in words was one of the inputs. Sorry it doesn't make sense to you, but if you looked at examples of queries made by bots, you'd understand.
    – Greg Lindahl
    Aug 14, 2018 at 1:18

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