16 Little Known Search Engines
Search engines have become a constant part of our daily lives and one of the environments where we spend the most time during the day. We now consult search engines to find everything we are curious about, looking for answers or want to reach. In fact, they have become so ingrained in our daily language that the verb “Googling”, which means “to search for something on Google”, has emerged in our daily speech. The verb “Googlelamak” has become a generic verb describing internet searches not only in Turkish but all over the world.
The first search engine dates back to 1990. However, even though it dates back to 1990, the milestone year for search engines is 1998, the year Google was founded. In fact, when we take a look at gs.statcounter.com data, Google's market share is 91.86% as of January 2021. When we look at Google's market share in Turkey on the same date, this figure is 80.23%.
You can see the share of the most well-known search engines in the world market below.
Below you can see the share of the most well-known search engines in the Turkish market.
Although Google is the first name that comes to everyone's mind among search engines that date back to 1990, there are many known and unknown search engines that can be alternatives to Google [that might be too pretentious :")].
In this blog post, you can find alternative search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, and Yandex, as well as a few alternatives that you may have heard of for the first time and some basic information about these search engines.
Before we move on to alternative search engines, let's take a look at Google;
Google, the most widely used search engine by users worldwide, can be described as the leader of search engines. Offering much more than just a search engine, Google has the largest share of the search engine market.
It can be said that the search engine, whose algorithm is developed day by day by Google, the most ambitious name in every field of the digital world, is the most popular among Google products.
Let's take a look at the more interesting part of the subject without boring you, our esteemed readers, with its customizability, easy interface, online advertising, user data collection, privacy... etc. :)
As everyone knows, the story began when two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, met at Stanford University in 1995. In fact, Google first started life as a research project called “Backrub” in a student dormitory.
After deciding to use the name Google, the two first used the domain name google.stanford.edu. The domain name it uses today was exactly in 1997 and the company was officially founded in 1998. The company then moved from a student dormitory to a garage in California with a $100,000 investment.
I'll leave here the link where they tell their story without further ado. :)
If you are interested in Google's Doodles like me, you can visit this site where Google archives all its Doodles :)
Let's go back in time together for a moment;
Google's first Doodle in 1998 (themed “Burning Man Festival”)
Google's Doodle for the Anniversary of the Founding of the Republic on October 29, 2009
Why has the search for an alternative search engine to Google increased in recent years?
As Google's working principle has evolved day by day on user data and advertisements, the importance of privacy has become more important to users. With the privacy scandals in recent years, users have started looking for alternatives.
Finally, according to media reports in 2020, a class action lawsuit was filed in California by the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner on behalf of several individual consumers against Alphabet for 'unlawful surveillance and invasion of privacy'. As you know, Alphabet is a company that also includes Google. The most striking part of the lawsuit was the allegation that “the company secretly recorded Chrome browser activity, despite users enabling incognito mode”.
When it comes to privacy, DuckDuckGo is the first name in the list of alternative search engines.
DuckDuckGo
After DuckDuckGo was founded in the US in 2008, it attracted the attention of users because it is a search engine that takes care of personal data, does not save them, and does not take IP addresses.
In terms of usage policy, it can be said to be the opposite of Google. It does not collect user data through personalization. So if the user cares about their online privacy, DuckDuckGo is one of the most suitable search engines for them. DuckduckGo, which serves the user as one of the ethical search engines; It offers a result not according to user profiles, but by showing all users the same results for the searched term.
DuckDuckGo, which is programmed in Perl, has users from various countries around the world, but it is not very common in Turkey. According to gs.statcounter.com, DuckDuckGo, which emphasizes privacy and is one of the most well-known/preferred ethical search engines, has a worldwide market share of 0.66% and a Turkish market share of 0.18%.
In 2018, an interesting negotiation took place between Google and DuckDuckGo, and Google, which previously owned the Duck.com domain name, announced that it transferred this domain name to DuckDuckGo. No explanation was made about how much this transfer was for free or for free.
Microsoft Bing
Microsoft Bing, formerly known as Live Search, Windows Live Search or MSN, is Microsoft's search engine. The search engine, which started out with the slogan “Bing is for doing”, became a competitor to Google by releasing its beta version in 2009. One of the most important features that distinguishes it from Google is that it does not publish advertisements in search results. It is also very assertive about its own algorithm used in search results.
The search engine, which serves the user with Microsoft assurance, has gained the appreciation of users with its specific tools. Bing, which is especially competent in visual search, is also an alternative to Youtube with its video search optimization. With its reward program, it allows users to collect points while searching. Thanks to this feature of Bing, which is available in 40 languages around the world, users can use their points in Microsoft and Windows stores. According to data from gs.statcounter, Bing's worldwide market share as of January 2021 is 2.71% and its market share in Turkey is 1.12%.
Microsoft Bing changed its logo last year and surprised its users by choosing a very different design from the logos it has preferred so far.
Baidu
Founded in 2000, Baidu was established after Google was banned in China and has taken its place among the search engines serving worldwide. One of the most important reasons for this is that Baidu came to the forefront in the country after China, which has the world's most populous population, banned Google. However, Baidu, which does not have many users outside of China, still attracts the most traffic from China. Founded by China's largest artificial intelligence and internet company, Baidu's services include maps, access to online encyclopedias and cloud storage. Baidu has a worldwide market share of 1.13%.
Yahoo!
The search engine Yahoo!, which gained great fame between 1995, when it was founded, and the end of the 90s, is widely used worldwide. It is known that Yahoo!, which also offers services such as Yahoo Movie and Yahoo Music to the user and leaves the search engine feature in the background, is widely used especially in the USA. It does not only provide music and movie services; it also allows the user to search for jobs with its Hotjobs section. Yahoo!'s other services are Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News and Yahoo Games. In terms of market share, Yahoo! has a global market share of 1.46%. Its market share in Turkey is 1.9%.
Yahoo!, which started to provide services in many areas, wanted to be acquired by Microsoft in 2008, but this offer was rejected by the authorities and the offer of 44.6 billion dollars was rejected. In 2016, the American telecommunications company announced to the market that it bought Yahoo! for 4.83 billion dollars.
Yandex
According to gs.statcounter.com, Yandex, the search engine originating from Russia, holds a considerable share of the Russian market share with 46.04%. It is considered to serve better than Google in Russia for its language services option.
Just like Google, Yandex stands out with its ease of use and is one of the biggest competitors against Google with its other features. Yandex, which took its place in the market in Turkey with live traffic, panoramic photos, news, e-mail and 360-degree street view services, has been met with intense interest since 2011. Yandex is one of Google's biggest competitors with all the services it offers and a very large user base, so the rivalry between the two search engines can be called “the rivalry of two giants”. Its market share in Turkey is 15.83% according to gs.statcounter.com.
One of the main reasons for Yandex's growing global market share is that it is the default search engine for Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge in Turkey. Yandex is also in an agreement with Microsoft and is the search engine for MSN, Microsoft's news site.
In 2020, as a result of the embargo crisis between Huawei and Google, Yandex reached an agreement with Huawei and became the default search engine for Huawei phones in Russia and Turkey.
CC Search
CC Search was founded by Creative Commons to provide users with content that can be used without paying royalties. Creative Commons, a non-profit organization, provides users with visual services such as free content, images and videos with CC Search. With CC Search, which brings a solution to the copyright issue, which is an important issue for all kinds of content, users can easily access content that they can use without paying royalties.
CC Search benefits the user in terms of using the images within its structure without the permission of the copyright owner and without contacting him/her. For images shared with CC licenses, this eliminates the step of obtaining permission from the copyright holder.
WolframAlpha
WolframAlpha, a knowledge engine that performs mathematical calculations and was founded in 2009, basically aims to provide answers to scientific questions and mathematical calculations. When the user searches for the answer to a scientific or mathematical question, or the name of a country, a city and detailed information about it, or a date and historical events, the user gets basic, highly detailed and precise answers. An example of how WolframAlpha works is that if a user types “Kastamonu” into the search engine, they can get a detailed result about Kastamonu, including basic information about its population, its location on the map, its coordinates, local date and time.
WolframAlpha is not a search engine; it is a knowledge engine. In other words, its main competitor is Wikipedia, not Google. The aim of this knowledge engine is to provide a reliable database, just like Wikipedia. WolframAlpha brings together all known models, methods, algorithms and formulas and presents them to the user.
Ask
Ask.com is a search engine founded in 1996 in the Caucasus. The most basic fact that can be written about the search engine based on asking questions is that it was very popular among users for a while, but then its popularity declined and was replaced almost entirely by negative comments. Ask generates results based on the question the user asks, and if the user does not search with a question, it produces similar results. When any question is asked, it brings up relevant websites where the user will get the most benefit. Founded in 1996, Ask.com had a very different working principle than others with its lack of an automation system. About 100 editors presented the most appropriate results to the user according to the word they searched for. Unable to handle a laborious process any longer, Ask later switched to a classic search engine, but its market share remained at very low levels.
GoodSearch
It is a search engine powered by Yahoo. GoodSearch is known for donating half of its revenue to foundations and schools designated by users. It attracts the most traffic from the United States, Canada and Britain
In the search engine, whose working principle is based entirely on donations to schools and foundations, a certain amount is donated to specified institutions and organizations in return for each search made by the user and in accordance with the advertising policy shown to the user. The donation amount, which corresponds to the searches made throughout the year, is paid to the institutions and organizations in the form of a check in December of each year. In addition, users can support this donation in a different way by shopping through GoodShop. The amount of donations collected is also displayed on GoodSearch's homepage.
Yippy
Yippy, which allows search results and inappropriate content to be filtered according to user request, does not collect users' data, so it appeals to users who want privacy. The search engine, which has different categories such as images, web, news, blogs and job postings, takes its place among the useful search engines with all these possibilities. Not showing customized ads and not collecting data are two other features that make Yippy preferable.
Another feature of Yippy appeals to users who do not want to leave a trace on the internet. The search engine says, “We don't need to keep a record of anything because we provide our users with the safest possible environment.” In this way, Yippy stands out with its feature that can be preferred especially for children and young people by not showing bad content to the user in internet content. However, this feature is currently only available to US users.
Startpage
By paying Google for its technology, Startpage ensures that its search results are free from recording and tracking technologies. Thus, it not only serves the user by presenting the search results in the best way, but also protects user privacy. No data is stored on Startpage's servers, user profiles are not extracted and thus there is no data that can be shared with any party. With all these features, Startpage describes itself as “the world's most private search engine”. However, the fact that the user remains completely within Startpage protects their privacy. When you click on search results and leave Startpage, there may be a breach of privacy. In order to prevent this, Startpage also offers its users the possibility to search without violating their privacy with the “anonymous viewing” feature.
Since Startpage gets all of its listing results from Google, you may see Google's search ads on the listing page.
AOL Search
American Online, which has a much longer history than Google, was once known as one of the most ambitious search engines. It could not achieve worldwide success as it only focused on America. In addition, the fact that Google, which is developing day by day, could not foresee the services offered to the user is one of the biggest reasons for its lagging behind. Although the search engine is actually supported by Google with its e-mail, news and social networking services, it is also a competitor with the types of services mentioned.
Ecosia
The search engine, which follows a policy of transparency towards the user about the revenues it generates and the way it generates them, is also one of the most well-known and preferred search engines after DuckDuckGo with its attention to ethical codes. Another feature is that it follows an environmentalist policy. They announced that they planted trees with the profits they made due to their transparency policy. Planting a tree for every 45 searches, the team continues its environmentally friendly policies by reaching different parts of the world. Every search you make is counted with the counter you see above right and when the number reaches 45, you plant a tree.
In addition, the search engine's servers are powered by 100% renewable energy, meaning that supporting nature is at the forefront of Ecosia's operating principle. In addition, Ecosia keeps your information private by anonymizing user searches within 1 week and does not use third-party technologies. The fact that data cannot be sold to advertisers is also an important factor in making it preferable.
While Ecosia initially used Yahoo! search results, over time it started working with Bing and integrated Wikipedia data into its search results. Ecosia also has a mobile app and is available on both Android and iOS platforms.
Now let's add a few Metasearch search engines to the list. But before we continue with the list, let's take a look at what a Metasearch search engine is;
What is Metasearch?
Metasearch is a search engine that queries users' queries across multiple search engines and then presents the results from each of them together. The Metasearch search engine takes results from multiple search engines and indexes and combines them for the user. In other words, you make a query, the Metasearch search engine searches this query for you in many search engines and presents you with the results of each of them.
İxquick
The most important feature of ixquick, which also attracts attention in Turkey, is that it does not save any data of the users. It is also noteworthy that the search engine, whose search network and results are quite successful, does not even use cookies. In ixquick, which has the ability to be personalized according to the user's request, the user can enter their information and customize their searches if they wish. Another feature is that all traces left by user searches in ixquick storage are deleted from the search engine's data center within 90 days.
Dogpile
Dogpile, the first search engine that comes to mind when it comes to meta-search, works on the principle that the user does not see any ads, regardless of the term they are searching for. Dogpile's features also include other services such as image search, audio/video search and news. Dogpile is currently getting results from many search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing.
Searx
Searx, whose working principle is to present the results of other search engines to the user, does not profile its users. It does not store the data of its users and does not offer user data to third parties. Searx, which stands out with this aspect, also has an open source code.
