Certainly, Google dominates the online search engines realm, but it’s essential to realize that there are viable alternatives out there. Despite Google’s massive presence, several other search engines exist, some of which enjoy substantial popularity on their own terms. These alternatives might not seem prominent when measured against Google’s colossal stature. Some of them even have a historical feel, reminiscent of the early days of the internet. Others carve out their niche in specific regions like China, South Korea, or the Czech Republic. Let’s explore some of the top search engines globally.
Google,
Back in 1996, Sergey Brin and Larry Page birthed Google, a search engine that would eventually reshape the digital landscape. An interesting twist occurred in 1999 when they offered to sell Google to Excite, a move that Excite would regret for the next two decades. Rejecting the offer at $750,000, Excite missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime. Fast forward to today, Google and its parent company Alphabet have amassed a mind-boggling worth of over $750 billion.
This success story has made Larry Page, the CEO of Alphabet, the eighth-richest individual globally, boasting a net worth of approximately $53.5 billion. His partner in innovation, Sergey Brin, who serves as Alphabet’s President, holds the ninth position among the world’s wealthiest, with a reported net worth of around $52.1 billion.
Adding a touch of trivia, the name “Google” finds its origins in the term “googol,” denoting the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, a nod to the vastness of information the search engine aimed to organize. Google has transcended its initial role as a search engine. Over time, it has expanded its horizons, creating a myriad of software solutions such as Google Drive, acquiring platforms like YouTube, and venturing into hardware with smartphones, laptops, and even self-driving cars.
Furthermore, Google’s influence extends beyond its own domain. It powers other search engines, including the sixth largest globally, Ask. Constantly evolving, Google continually updates its search engine results page, providing users with a diverse range of useful content formats, including the popular Google’s Featured Snippets.
Bing,
owned by Microsoft, stands as the world’s second-largest search engine, commanding an 8.04 percent market share. Although it pales in comparison to Google, Bing maintains a respectable presence in numerous countries. It traces its roots back to the earlier search engines MSN Search and Windows Live Search. Similar to Google, Bing categorizes search results into tabs like images, videos, maps, and news. Unlike Google, Bing’s homepage always showcases a striking image alongside news stories.
In a pivotal move in July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! struck a deal, enabling Bing to power Yahoo!’s search engine, which presently ranks as the fourth largest globally. Despite its smaller size, businesses should not underestimate Bing’s potential reach.
Moving to the third spot is Baidu, with a 7.34 percent market share. This Chinese search engine, founded in 2000 and headquartered in Beijing, dominates the Chinese market with a staggering 74.73 percent share as of February 2019. In stark contrast, Google has merely secured 2 percent of China’s search engine market.
Baidu not only serves as China’s largest search engine but also stands as one of the world’s prominent artificial intelligence and internet service companies. However, its influence is primarily confined within China; it has minimal impact outside the country’s borders.
It’s essential to recognize the unique landscape of the Chinese internet. China operates the most elaborate online censorship system globally, famously known as “The Great Firewall of China.” For Western search engines like Google to penetrate the Chinese market, they must navigate intricate and stringent censorship laws and regulations.
secures the fourth spot among the world’s largest search engines, holding a 3.39 percent share of the global market. The company’s journey is a blend of intrigue and regret. Founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, the website initially bore the name “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web” before transforming into Yahoo!, representing “Yet Another Hierarchical Organized Oracle.”
Yahoo!’s ascent was swift; its web services, particularly Yahoo! Mail, pushed its valuation to a staggering $125 billion in 2000. However, the tides turned unfavorably. In a pivotal moment, Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, offered to sell Google to Yahoo! in 1998 for a mere $1,000,000, an offer Yahoo! declined.
Despite its early advantage and ample resources, Yahoo! Mail lost ground to Gmail, Yahoo! Answers was overshadowed by Quora, and Yahoo!’s Flickr was outshone by Instagram. Presently, Yahoo!’s search engine relies on Microsoft’s Bing search engine, resulting in strikingly similar results from both platforms.
Yandex
Securing the fifth position on the top 10 search engines list, Yandex boasts a global market share of 1.53 percent. Notably, it reigns supreme as the most popular search engine in Russia, commanding 55% of the country’s total search traffic, closely trailed by Google. Yandex’s popularity also extends to regions like Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkey.
Apart from its search capabilities, Yandex offers an array of services, surpassing 70 in number. Among its offerings is Yandex Disk, a cloud-based storage service akin to Google Drive. The name “Yandex,” adopted in 1993, is an acronym for “Yet Another iNDEXer.”
One of Yandex’s distinctive strengths lies in its ability to decipher the nuances of Russian language usage. Russian, with its intricate system of inflections, presents a challenge for search engines. In this language, words can take on over 20 different endings to convey their relationships, making precise searches complex. According to MIT linguistics professor David Pesetsky, Yandex’s capability to navigate these complexities stands as a significant advantage for Russian-language users.
Ask
Ranking as the sixth largest search engine globally, Ask holds a mere 0.72 percent market share, which is 100 times smaller than Google and 10 times smaller than Bing. Originating in California in 1996, it was conceived by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen under the name “Ask Jeeves.” Unlike other search engines, Ask’s unique vision was to function as a question-and-answer service akin to a virtual concierge, inspired by P.G. Wodehouse’s character Jeeves the butler.
In 2006, the company underwent rebranding, shedding the “Jeeves” from its name and becoming “Ask.” However, by 2010, Ask.com withdrew from the competitive search engine market. Faced with insurmountable competition, especially from highly successful search engines like Google, Ask.com shifted its focus away from search services.
DuckDuckGo,
the seventh largest search engine globally, holds a 0.39 percent share of the market, distinguishing itself through its unwavering commitment to user privacy. In contrast to Google, which has faced numerous privacy concerns due to its extensive data tracking and targeted advertising practices, DuckDuckGo provides a sanctuary for those uneasy about their online data being harvested.
Their tagline, “Privacy, simplified,” encapsulates their mission as “The Internet privacy company,” empowering users to reclaim control over their personal information without any compromises. Unlike other search engines, DuckDuckGo does not store user data or subject users to incessant targeted ads. For instance, you won’t find yourself bombarded with shoe advertisements for weeks just because you once looked at a pair of shoes online.
In fact, they’ve made switching to their service seamless, offering a Google Chrome extension for easy integration. With 27.4 million daily search queries and a consistent growth trajectory, DuckDuckGo stands as the ideal solution for anyone prioritizing the safeguarding of their personal information and online browsing activity.
Naver,
the eighth most prominent search engine globally, accounting for a 0.13 percent market share. This Korean search engine dominates its home market, claiming an impressive 75 percent of South Korea’s search traffic and earning the moniker “The Google of South Korea.”
Naver’s origins trace back to 1999 when it emerged as Korea’s inaugural web portal with its proprietary search engine. Over the years, the Naver corporation has diversified its services, offering an array of features including an email client, encyclopedia, children’s search engine, and a news web portal.
While Naver thrives within South Korea, its expansion on the international stage seems uncertain in the foreseeable future, given its stronghold primarily within its domestic market.
AOL,
once a trailblazer in the early days of the internet, now commands a mere 0.06 percent of the global search engine market share. Originating in 1985 as “America Online,” this New York City-based web portal and service provider played a pivotal role in the internet’s nascent years during the mid-1990s. In its prime, AOL offered dial-up services, a web portal, email, and instant messaging, connecting users through the nostalgic era of dial-up internet, characterized by the iconic sound of phone lines connecting.
A significant milestone occurred in 2000 when AOL acquired Time Warner for a staggering $165 billion, marking its zenith. During this period, AOL had its own search engine called NetFind, later rebranded as “AOL Search” in 1999. However, AOL’s supremacy waned over time with the emergence of fierce competitors, notably Google, leading AOL to shift its focus toward acquiring prominent online media companies. Notable acquisitions included TechCrunch in 2010 for $25 million and The Huffington Post in 2011 for $315 million, among others.
In 2015, Verizon Communications acquired AOL for $4.4 billion, cementing its place in the annals of internet history. Today, AOL Search endures, albeit as a minuscule fraction of AOL and Verizon’s sprawling business empire.
Seznam
Bringing up the rear in our rundown of top global search engines is Seznam. This search engine and web portal have carved out a significant niche in the Czech Republic, where it was the go-to choice until Google entered the scene. Presently, Google dominates the Czech market with an 84 percent share, leaving Seznam and other competitors to contend for the remaining 16 percent.
Seznam has its origins in Prague, founded by Ivo Lukačovič in 1996. Initially a basic search engine and online directory, it rapidly expanded its offerings. By 2001, Seznam had evolved into a comprehensive platform, encompassing financial, social, and political news, television programs, dictionaries, maps, weather forecasts, and a plethora of other services.
Today, Seznam operates more than 15 distinct internet services and associated brands, continuing to play a vital role in the digital landscape, especially within its home country of the Czech Republic.
Ecosia
While not among the most widely used search engines globally, Ecosia stands out for its unique approach. Operating from Berlin, Germany, this search engine utilizes advertising revenue to plant trees worldwide, benefitting people, the environment, and local economies. Every search made contributes to this noble cause, allowing users to make a positive impact on the environment simply by using the platform.
Ecosia proudly displays its environmental achievements on its homepage, with over 51 million trees planted by its users to date. Additionally, the search engine provides users with an individual counter, quantifying the number of trees their searches have helped plant.
Beyond its environmental initiatives, Ecosia offers a compelling search experience. Powered by Microsoft Bing and enhanced with Ecosia’s proprietary algorithms, the search engine delivers relevant results and advertisements while championing a greener planet.
Artmotion Search engine does not borrow results from other search engines but has its own results based on its listings and is not a simple directory. Our search engine is a spider, (crawler), are used by Internet to collect information about web sites and individual web pages. Artmotion S.E need information from all the sites and pages; otherwise they wouldn’t know what pages to display in response to a search query or with what priority.
Artmotion S.E. crawls the Internet and creates web queues for further exploration. As a particular Web site is covered by the search engine, the spider reads all the text, hyperlinks, meta tags (meta tags are specially formatted keywords that are inserted into the web page in a way that is designed to find and use it our crawler) and encodes. Using this information, the spider provides a profile to the search engine. The Artmotion spider then collects additional information by following the hyperlinks to the webpage, which gives it a better collection of data about those pages.
