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The 20 Alternatives to Google Search
Jun
The times, they’re a’changin.
Within the early years, AOL, Lycos, and Ask Jeeves were essentially the most distinguished search engines like google and yahoo on the net (and most of us frolicked on old-fashioned forums). But now Google owns roughly 85% of the worldwide search market.
For just about all of us, it’s the default search engine on each our desktop and mobile browsers.
But the reality is that there are tons of different search engines like google and yahoo on the market just waiting for you. So if you happen to’re feeling a bit Googled out these days (perhaps you’re feeling prefer it’s not returning relevant results aren’t in addition to it used to), just know that you just’re not alone.
While Google search stays the dominant web search option, recent (and old) competitors are difficult its top spot. For you, as a user, this is nice news. More search options means more pressure on Google (and competitors) to step up their game and deliver higher results, higher experience, and a more human-centered business approach.
Luckily, there are tons of options for you to think about. We’ll break them down into groups – highlighting notable examples of Google alternatives you could need to keep handy for future search needs.
Mainstream General Search Engines
1. Microsoft Bing
Microsoft’s search engine provides web, image, and video search, with special features like Microsoft Rewards and Bing for Good, allowing users to earn points and support charitable causes. As well as, Bing’s visual search feature allows users to go looking using images slightly than text.
But Bing made big waves recently with its ChatGPT-like AI search features.
The “recent” Bing offers a conversational interface where users can ask questions, get results, and refine them further. The AI will mechanically generate a response, linking to relevant sources and web sites within the text.
Even though it’s a pain for the website positioning folks within the room, this might prove to be Microsoft’s big leg-up after years of struggling to capture market share from Google, whose own chat-search experience, Bard, is seen as a little bit of a flop.
2. Yahoo Search + AOL
I’m going to group these two options together because, while technically independent search engines like google and yahoo, they’re each powered by Microsoft Bing.
Which means that when using them to go looking the net, it is best to expect to see the identical results and a really similar results page.
Yahoo might be best referred to as a homepage news site, offering information like local weather forecasts and trending searches.
Long-time web powerhouse AOL remains to be available as each an internet portal and search engine offering news, email, and various online services.
(Sorry, we’re all out of AOL free trial CDs in the intervening time!)
3. Lycos
One other throwback to the early days of the web — Lycos is a classic search engine that evolved to supply a variety of online services, making it a flexible tool for users looking for to go looking the net, communicate, and host web sites.
You’ll notice that Lycos even consolidated a few of our favourite sites and services from yesteryear, like Tripod and Angelfire.
In case you’re in search of a retro experience using what was one of the crucial popular search engines like google and yahoo within the late ‘90s, then you definately can’t go improper here — Perhaps Lycos can be the subsequent search engine to launch an modern product, get a whole glow-up, and skyrocket back into the highlight?
Revolutionary and AI-Powered Search Engines
Legacy matters, but as of 2023, there may be an arms race afoot. Dozens of corporations, old and recent, are competing to dominate the search engine market by going beyond advanced search to supply recent, modern, and AI-powered search experiences.
From chat options to personalized search results, let’s have a look at some emerging recent players on this space.
4. You.com
In case you’re in search of something that’s not Google but looks like it, then You.com is a fairly good place to begin.
This AI-powered search engine offers a chat interface and a conventional search engine results page (SERP) that appears very much like Google. So, you’ll feel comfortable with the familiar features and interfaces.
You.com also touts its personal and personal modes, which permit for anonymous searching.
Since You.com is an AI company, there are additional tools beyond its search engine. YouCode and YouWrite are AI tools for helping you write text and code. Additionally they offer a Google Chrome extension that means that you can add an AI-powered search bar to your browser.
5. ChatGPT
Anyone who’s been on the web within the last yr probably knows about ChatGPT.
This modern product created by OpenAI offers a chatbot-like interface where you may ask questions and get answers based on the Large Language Model (LLM) that powers the tool. Nevertheless, I hesitate to think about this a “search engine” exactly because, for essentially the most part, it doesn’t search the live web for information.
That being said, it will possibly definitely replace a search engine for specific use cases like collecting information or researching a subject.
And, as I’m writing this text, they recently announced Plugins for ChatGPT, including a browser plugin that enables the AI to go looking the live web and return real-time results. So it’s getting closer to a full-blown search engine substitute each day.
Whilst you won’t be typing in search terms like you’d on Google, you may pose a matter and get a fairly good answer. Just watch out to not trust the response without fact-checking it first.
6. Perplexity AI
Perplexity AI is just like the anti-search engine. Moderately than returning an enormous list of search results, Perplexity uses advanced AI algorithms and natural language understanding to wade through those results and return a response – much like how ChatGPT works.
Perplexity seems higher geared toward users in search of instructions or specific information and who need to see the underlying sources of the info being returned.
It’s great for synthesizing steps from long and winding articles like those recipes that at all times appear to ramble on about astrophysics before teaching you tips on how to boil water. (Is that the most important reason they invented AI? To skip past the junk at the highest of those articles?)
7. Waldo
You’ll have to come to a decision how you’re feeling about Waldo, however it should be top-of-the-line search engines like google and yahoo for conducting research and finding statistics.
Billed as part search engine and part research assistant, Waldo uses AI to return search results after which supply ready-made filters that make it easier to quickly find information.
Most notably, it will possibly sift through the outcomes on the page and return specific kinds of information – like data points, quotes, or links.
It might probably also quickly filter specific sources like scholarly journals, news sites, and more.
This does make it pretty handy if you happen to’re looking for specific kinds of information or researching a subject that requires you to dig into data or find primary sources.
Revenue-Sharing and Cause-Based Search Engines
Many search engines like google and yahoo are on a quest not only to return good results but to alter the world – or, at the least, the world of web search – along the way in which.
Here’s an inventory of cause-based search engines like google and yahoo and options with an underlying economic goal beyond profit.
8. Ecosia
Ecosia, “goals to make a positive impact on the environment while providing users with a robust and efficient search experience.” Their mission to combat deforestation and climate change makes it a well-liked alternative for eco-conscious users.
Every search helps to plant trees, and that’s pretty neat.
The corporate donates at the least 80% of its ad revenue to non-profit organizations focused on tree planting and reforestation efforts across the globe. Through the use of Ecosia as their search engine, users contribute to those environmental initiatives, turning their on a regular basis online searches right into a greener and more sustainable activity.
9. Yep.com
Yep is a novel search engine created by the team behind the website positioning tool, Ahrefs.
Their goal is to change the underlying economics of web search – making it more lucrative for content creators by sharing the ad revenue they generate directly with the people and firms that appear within the search results.
They’ve a 90/10 revenue-sharing model where 90% of all money goes back to those content creators who populate the organic search results.
It’s value noting that some early adopters of Yep have identified that there could also be some bias in the outcomes that favor the search engine’s parent company.
Privacy-Focused Search Engines
One other big reason people defect from using Google is concerns over tracking and privacy. As you almost certainly know, Google’s business model is built on selling promoting, which suggests selling user data collected from cookies, browsing behavior, and search history.
Not everyone seems to be a fan.
Luckily, many recent corporations have built solutions to rival the world’s largest search engine while specializing in user privacy online. These search engines like google and yahoo generally encrypt user and browser data, block trackers and cookies, or otherwise shield users from commonly used tracking and identification features.
10. DuckDuckGo
Probably the best-known privacy-focused search engine is DuckDuckGo.
The search engine is built on a foundation of maintaining user privacy, ensuring that no personal information is collected, stored, or shared. Consequently, DuckDuckGo users can enjoy a more private and anonymous browsing experience. Additionally they offer a Google Chrome extension that helps further anonymize your browsing behavior by blocking trackers and cookies.
In response to this website, DuckDuckGo averaged nearly 100,000,000 searches per day in 2022 and so they claim about 2.5% of the entire US search market.
DuckDuckGo uses, partly, the Bing API in its search results. Nevertheless it doesn’t personalize the SERP.
It’s also value noting that DuckDuckGo explicitly excludes results from “content mills” and web sites with “excessive promoting.”
11. Brave (Browser with Integrated Search)
Brave is a browser with a built-in search engine focused on user privacy. It offers fast and secure browsing that you just’d get from Google Chrome. In truth, it’s built on an open-source foundation of Chrome called Chromium with features like ad-blocking and tracker blocking, making it an important alternative for users who want a non-public and seamless browsing experience.
Brave makes money by selling ads that appear in certain parts of the browser – just like the recent tab window. Additionally they offer Brave Rewards for viewing or interacting with ads.
12. Gibiru
Gibiru provides “uncensored search results” without collecting personal data like logging users’ IP addresses or search queries.
The outcomes of such “uncensoring” is usually a bit mixed. Since Gibiru means that you can see the outcomes that could be censored by other search engines like google and yahoo, you may compare the sites and sources that is perhaps withheld by mainstream searches. They’re generally less top-secret-hidden-information kind of web sites and more low-quality-internet-cruft form of pages which are filtered by most search algorithms.
Gibiru delivers results and makes money primarily through affiliate internet marketing on privacy-focused products like VPNs.
13. Presearch
Presearch is a decentralized search engine built on blockchain technology.
They incentivize users with PRE tokens and mix each privacy and crypto-based rewards.
Presearch provides search results from multiple sources and allows users to decide on their preferred search providers with the goal of making a more decentralized web ecosystem that’s less reliant on dominant search engines like google and yahoo.
In case you’re wondering, the worth of the PRE token is about $0.06 as of writing.
14. StartPage
StartPage is sort of a protective jacket for Google. Billing itself as, “the world’s most private search engine,” their service actually returns Google’s own search results but without the tracking codes, cookies, and snippets.
It’s a superb tool for getting the identical results you’re used to seeing from Google while adding a protective layer of privacy. Obviously, the downside here is that you just won’t see any personalized or localized search results based in your personal information — It really works kind of like connecting to a VPN.
StartPage is a freely accessible search engine. You may as well add their Chrome extension, which adds extra privacy features like blocking trackers and cookies around the net. The extension also provides a metric called a Privacy Rating for every website, letting you understand how likely your information is to be tracked or sold.
15. Swisscows
Swisscows is comparable to StartPage in that they depend on certainly one of the main search engines like google and yahoo to assist their operation work. On this case, it’s Bing. So Swisscows’ search is (at the least partially) powered by Bing.
But they don’t collect information, so that they only pass your search query anonymously to Bing’s search engine.
Swisscows prides itself on being a family-friendly, privacy-focused search engine based in Switzerland. It utilizes semantic search technology to offer relevant results while filtering out adult content. Swisscows doesn’t track users’ search queries or store personal data, allowing them to serve “anonymized ads” powered by Bing, based only in your search query and no other identifying information.
16. searX
In case you actually need to unplug from the Matrix, why don’t you simply create your very own search engine?
searX is a self-hosted, open-source metasearch engine that gives search results from multiple sources without tracking users’ activities. Users can select which sources they need searX to go looking, allowing for a customizable search experience.
Because it’s also available as a self-hosted service, individuals can run their very own instances for a fair more private and secure experience. searX is popular amongst privacy advocates and tech-savvy users looking for an independent and customizable search engine (or constructing your personal!)
17. Neeva
Ad-free search engine focused on user privacy and data protection. Neeva offers a free-to-use search engine founded by former Google executives. Neeva’s biggest focus is shifting search to free results from the influence of advertisers.
This implies they generate income by selling subscriptions on to users slightly than selling the user’s data and search behavior to advertisers.
Users may also join for a free account to access other search tools powered by Neeva (including their recent AI results).
They provide a paid subscription that unlocks additional ad-free products like an integrated password manager. By charging a subscription fee, Neeva can give attention to delivering essentially the most relevant search results without the necessity to monetize through ads.
18. Qwant
Qwant is a French-based company that’s, essentially, attempting to create a cookieless version of Google.
They provide search monetized only through contextual promoting (with no additional tracking) and deliver “unbiased” search results without filtering or personalizing content based on user browsing history.
Additionally they offer Qwant Maps, Qwant Junior (a search engine designed specifically for kids, ensuring a protected browsing experience for younger users,) and other privacy-focused alternatives to Google services.
In case you’re in search of more of a full-sweep alternative to Meta’s whole business, this can be a place to begin.
19. Mojeek
Mojeek offers search results from its own independent index, meaning it crawls and stores web pages independently. It provides unique results that aren’t influenced by other search engines like google and yahoo.
That makes it certainly one of the few options on this list that doesn’t depend on one other search engine database when returning results.
20. Search Encrypt
A search engine that uses local encryption to guard users’ search data.
Which means that your search history is shielded from being tracked or monitored by third parties. They provide each their very own search engine and a browser extension that may capture and redirect your searches to maintain your search terms private and anonymous.
They monetize traffic with search ads that appear on the outcomes page, much like Google and other search engines like google and yahoo.
You may as well compare results by trying your search on certainly one of the opposite search engines like google and yahoo (Google, Yahoo, Bing) with a single click.
Honorable Mentions: 5 More Search Engines to Consider
Searching the net is great. But what about whenever you’re in search of something a bit more specific?
Sometimes you ought to find greater than just pages on Wikipedia and Amazon.
Listed here are another ways you may search the net for information from various sources, in various formats, and more.
1. Facebook Search
Chances are you’ll not consider Facebook as a search engine, however the search feature is amazingly powerful for locating people, pages, and content.
2. Twitter
Perhaps one of the best “real-time” search engine on the net is Twitter. You possibly can quickly find up-to-the-second information on public conversations, influential figures, current events, breaking news, and more.
Nevertheless it is also a robust historical archive – helpful for digging deep right into a topic, understanding the sentiment around it, and uncovering recent sources.
Using advanced search features, it’s also possible to use it to search out specific kinds of content like videos or links.
3. Flickr (Image Search)
Flickr was once the preeminent website for all things photography.
Its popularity waned over time, however it still has a gobsmackingly-large catalog of photography that’s been uploaded and shared (sometimes with a Creative Commons license) from all around the world.
4. Pinterest (Image and Idea Search)
Pinterest is a thriving (although sometimes forgotten) corner of social media. Hundreds of thousands of users proceed to depend on Pinterest to share and discover all types of content, emphasizing images and other visual media.
This is very interesting if you happen to’re in search of ideas or inspiration which may be difficult to search out using traditional search.
As an illustration, you may search for “green front room ideas” and immediately see lots of of visual results that may make it easier to narrow down what you want and construct a group of images to reference later whenever you’re perfecting your ideal living space.
5. The Web Archive (Digital Library)
Part time machine. Part web search.
The Web Archive offers a digital library of historical and archived digital content. It features a wealth of resources, including books, audio, and web pages.
In fact, what makes it truly special is that it catalogs snapshots of web pages over time. So you may see, visually, how web pages checked out different points in history. This will be particularly useful for research where it’s essential to see how information has modified over time.
Let’s Construct the Web Together
Hopefully, you found this list of Google alternatives helpful.
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