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Alternative Search Engines
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There’s no doubt – Google is the most popular search engine. It’s estimated that Google processes approximately 5.5 billion online searches per day. The high quality of Google’s search results makes users switch from other search engines to Google. Both the engine and the entire colossal network of services have almost monopolized the digital marketing market. Positioning a business website on Google or using the Google Ads system, and – subsequently – Google Display Network and Display & Video 360 are nowadays more a necessity than a choice at certain stages of business development.
However, many marketers and SEO specialists simply forget the fact that the Google network, although by far the most popular, does not handle the whole digital search traffic. One of the most important internet marketing commandments is definitely “make your brand be (almost) everywhere”. Therefore, the presence of the brand’s website in other search engines is also important – it allows to attract traffic and potential customers using sources that are sometimes ignored by the competition. A niche can sometimes become a marketer’s friend – maybe not always the closest one, but certainly an important ally.
Let’s talk about the best Google alternative search engines. How do they work and how many search queries do they receive daily? We have prepared an alternative search engines list. Find out what are the most popular search engines after Google.
Curious to discover what the search engine market has to offer?
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Google Search Engine Alternative #1: Microsoft Bing
The second search engine in the world, processing nearly 900 million search terms per day. Bing has been set up as an evolutionary form of previous Microsoft services – Live Search and even older MSN Search. It can be said that Microsoft has done a simple rebranding. The name of the search engine is sometimes ironically referred to as an abbreviation of Bing Is Not Google, which allegedly functions as an inside company joke.
Bing is built-into Windows – the most popular desktop OS in the world. Thanks to the contract between Microsoft and Yahoo, Bing also fuels the “ancient” search engines veteran. Naturally, for obvious reasons, Bing supports search using the Microsoft Cortana virtual assistant. Less obvious, however, is the fact that Amazon Alexa also uses Bing as its primary search engine.
Bing is a part of a larger set of services for digital marketing and e-commerce, called Microsoft Advertising. It works in a similar way as Google Ads – has millions of users (potential customers) and huge sales potential. However, even in its basic form, it is worth taking care of proper positioning in Bing – it is a service gathering a huge number of users around the world – in 2021, it has been about 1 billion visits per month.
Bing is the default search engine in Microsoft Edge and can be chosen as the main search engine in other browsers: Firefox, Google Chrome, Vivaldi, and Safari.
Useful tools for marketers:
Google Search Engine Alternative #2: Yandex
An alternative search engine to Google is Yandex, which has been present on the digital market since 1990, but in its final form – as yandex.ru – it appeared in 1997. Yandex is therefore a few months older than Google. According to one theory, the name Yandex is quite autoironical and originates from the abbreviation of Yet Another Indexer.
As a search engine aimed at the Russian-language market, it has been quite successful, currently serving over 50% of traffic related to digital searching in the territory of the Russian Federation. What is not surprising, among all search engines, Yandex is the best when it comes to processing Cyrillic characters. Yandex is not just a search engine. Similarly to Google and Microsoft, Yandex offers a number of other options and functionalities – from a web browser to a GPS-based navigation system, cloud storage space, to a display advertising network.
The version for the Russian market can be found at yandex.ru, while the “western” version is available at yandex.com.
If your (potential) customers are located – to simplify – in Eastern Europe (excluding Ukraine – due to the political situation, access to Yandex has been officially banned), then you cannot afford to underestimate the value of a search engine used by tens of millions of Internet users. Yandex also supports the Yandex.Direct network, which is a system that displays ads, among others, on the search network – similar to Google and Bing.
Yandex can be set as a default search engine in Microsoft Edge and in Google Chrome (after adding it manually to the list).
Useful tools for marketers:
- Yandex Webmaster Tools
- Yandex Metrica – the equivalent of Google Analytics, and just like GA is completely free
- Yandex.Direct
Google Search Engine Alternative #3: DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is another example of alternative search engines to Google. It was released in 2008 and its name originates from a popular game for children. Apart from the main URL (duckduckgo.com), the search engine is also available at the easier-to-enter addresses duck.com and ddg.gg. DuckDuckGo is gaining market share slowly but is growing steadily. In 2021 nearly 100 million web searches daily were done with DuckDuckGo.
DuckDuckGo is based on a significantly different model than Google or Bing. DDG does not collect users’ data and does not show profiled search results. Every user gets the same SERPs, regardless of search history or other activities on the Web. Focus on privacy protection is the main reason why DuckDuckGo is steadily increasing its popularity – some users do not feel comfortable with the fact that various websites, search engines, and applications collect a lot of search data, even if it is anonymised and theoretically does not allow for the identification of a specific user.
Such mechanics has both advantages and disadvantages. The users are thus cut off from the content which statistically fits best their search intent (or at least they do not get it right away). When it comes to searching for products or information, profiling makes it easier to find the “right” data quickly.
DuckDuckGo mainly uses its own solutions, such as the DuckDuckBot crawler, but also many external sources – including Bing. This means that optimizing the website to best meet the requirements of Microsoft’s search engine also helps in positioning the site in DDG. The above-mentioned Bing Webmaster Tools can give you a helping hand – you can use it to check errors on the website and find some useful tips.
If you run a local business, be sure your brand is included in Apple Maps – DuckDuckGo uses AM’s database, so your business will be shown to users of both search engines.
In Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, DuckDuckGo is set as one of the default search engines.
Google Search Engine Alternative #4: Amazon
What can be interesting, when it comes to searching for products, Google has been looking up to another champion – Amazon. According to Jumpshot reports, the e-commerce giant achieved 54% of internet shopping traffic in the second quarter of 2018. Mozilla Firefox has allowed the use of Amazon Search as the default search engine a few years ago.
In general, Amazon does not matter much for the service sector or websites based on content but when it comes to the typical product sales on the Web, Amazon is a place to be for producers and stores.
Google Search Engine Alternative #5: YouTube
In many cases, YouTube is also a valuable source of traffic. Although it is not a sales platform, as the largest video site in the world, YouTube is an ideal place for increasing brand awareness. Millions of customers look for reviews there, watch unboxing videos, and discuss product quality or customer service in the commentary section. Therefore, it is worth at least monitoring the buzz around the brand on YouTube, and remembering about the presence on the platform and proper brand exposure.
Alternative Search Engines to Google
Google, as the leading search engine, has a lot of sites in its index and picks up new sites faster than any other engine. This is one of the major reasons why people move from other search engines to Google. However, there are many alternative search engines to Google, which have a lot to offer. In addition to the ones mentioned above, we can also name others.
Alternative search engines list
- Startpage
- Onesearch,
- Search Encrypt
- Swisscows
- Brave Search
- CCSearch
- Gibiru
- Neeva
Most of them put a lot of emphasis on protecting users’ privacy in their communication. Of course, it is just the tip of the “search engine market” iceberg.
Are those search engines better than Google? As always – it depends on the user’s needs, habits, digital competencies, and attitude to data collection.
What is your favourite search engine? Is Google the best search engine? Can any other search engine compete with it?