diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index bfc0b2f00..22314ec47 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 - Support for `BranchTask` in `StructureVisualizer`.
 - `EvalEngine` for evaluating the performance of an LLM's output against a given input.
 - `BaseFileLoader.save()` method for saving an Artifact to a destination.
+- `DuckDuckGoWebSearchDriver.backend` for setting the backend to use for DuckDuckGo searches.
 
 ### Changed
 
@@ -31,6 +32,11 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 - `StructureVisualizer.query_params` for setting query parameters on the url generated by `StructureVisualizer.to_url()`.
 - Parsing `ActionCallDeltaMessageContent`s with empty string `partial_input`s.
 - `Stream` util not properly propagating thread contextvars.
+- `ValueError` with `DuckDuckGoWebSearchDriver`.
+
+### Deprecated
+
+- `DuckDuckGoWebSearchDriver`. `DuckDuckGoWebSearchDriver` relies on `duckduckgo_search` which is no longer maintained and has been archived.
 
 ## [1.0.0] - 2024-12-09
 
diff --git a/griptape/drivers/web_search/duck_duck_go_web_search_driver.py b/griptape/drivers/web_search/duck_duck_go_web_search_driver.py
index 113ca5a8a..b2ecf8205 100644
--- a/griptape/drivers/web_search/duck_duck_go_web_search_driver.py
+++ b/griptape/drivers/web_search/duck_duck_go_web_search_driver.py
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 class DuckDuckGoWebSearchDriver(BaseWebSearchDriver):
     language: str = field(default="en", kw_only=True)
     country: str = field(default="us", kw_only=True)
+    backend: str = field(default="api", kw_only=True)
     _client: DDGS = field(default=None, kw_only=True, alias="client", metadata={"serializable": False})
 
     @lazy_property()
@@ -27,7 +28,11 @@ def client(self) -> DDGS:
     def search(self, query: str, **kwargs) -> ListArtifact:
         try:
             results = self.client.text(
-                query, region=f"{self.language}-{self.country}", max_results=self.results_count, **kwargs
+                query,
+                region=f"{self.language}-{self.country}",
+                max_results=self.results_count,
+                backend=self.backend,
+                **kwargs,
             )
             return ListArtifact(
                 [
diff --git a/tests/integration/test_code_blocks.py b/tests/integration/test_code_blocks.py
index 409bdd599..11bb2ec86 100644
--- a/tests/integration/test_code_blocks.py
+++ b/tests/integration/test_code_blocks.py
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
     "docs/griptape-framework/structures/src/observability_1.py",
     "docs/griptape-framework/structures/src/observability_2.py",
     "docs/griptape-framework/data/src/loaders_9.py",
+    "docs/griptape-framework/drivers/src/web_search_drivers_3.py",
 ]