Though we spend more than 5 hours a day on the internet and social media, we ignore the fact that search engines are the literal heroes and saviors in the modern world. Imagine a life without Google or Yahoo! answers. As impossible it is to live without these, it is also vital for us to know and acknowledge other search engines as well, like bing and Ask.
The solution to most of life’s answers, started in the 1990s when effective information retrieval from the internet was taking over the digital world. Search engines emerged, and today, we have more than tens of these to use and choose from. Though most people prefer Google over others for most of their queries, there are other search engines too, that don’t fall in the limelight well.
This article will help you understand and realize the qualities of each of the search engines and their unique styles that make them each different from the rest of the bunch. Though most of the following search engines don’t have a bigger audience, they still are vital in the industry, and they add up to a bigger picture of the web world and digital advancements.
The first and the most important, Google is the tech giant that takes up more than 70% of the search engine market. Google processes more than two billion searches every day. Google’s personalized user interface, dominant advertising platform, Google has been able to remain the most used since the beginning of time, capturing 85% of mobile traffic.
Google comes in 123 languages, and the algorithm used by the search engine is very appealing. Google also makes sure that it improves itself to provide the best results to its users. Google also uses featured snippets that reduce multiple clicking on links by the user. Google is very accessible and can be used through any gadget.
However, Google also collects information about its users based on their searches. This information is used to make the ads more personalized, which ultimately favors their side. Google also gives too many results for one single question, making it hard for the user to check from. Apart from that, Google has never failed in keeping its users loyal as it comes with multiple other links and accounts like drive, photos, and Google plus to keep the users well informed and served.
Bing
Microsoft’s bing occupies the second position in the market of search engines, followed by Google. This engine that emerged in the year 2009, however, was a futile attempt against Google. Though it is the default search engine on all windows gadgets, the users still prefer Google and change their settings accordingly.
Bing is similar to Google as it also takes the user to a webpage with images, context, news, and maps on each search, but Bing also offers pictures and news stories that are visually appealing. Till the summer of 2009, bing was one the unnoticed MSN search. Bing ranks the home pages and crawls non-hidden and hidden content equally. Bing also offers remarkable video indexing to its users.
However, Bing’s instant search has been proved to be slower than Google’s, which is one of the reasons why Google still stands on top of the list. Bing’s results are also comparatively ad-heavy, and the rank forums low in each search result. Regardless, Bing is ranked 4th in the mobile search ranking and receives 1.3 billion visits per month.
Yahoo!
Yahoo! is not just a search engine, it is also a news aggregator, an email forum, a travel directory, a game channel, and much more. The choices that Yahoo! provides is the main reason why it holds the fourth position in search and a 2% market share. Yahoo! is the default search engine for firefox browsers, and its web portal is as famous as it bags the 11th position of most visited websites on the internet by Alexa.
Yahoo! is powered by Bing, which is the reason why the results are a lot similar on both the search engines. Yahoo! has over 600 million monthly users on mobile and over a billion total users, which is quite remarkable for a less sleek search engine. Yahoo! was one of the most prominent players in the search engines market initially, but most users found it outdated.
Yahoo’s ads aren’t labeled as ads, which is quite a problem for a few users. Users also complain that the search results aren’t dated, which shows that the search engine lacks the feature of being updated. However, the Yahoo! offers to search verticles instead of the web to its users, which is a significant boost to the search engine.
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is the first-ever search engine that comes with a promise of complete online privacy, assuring its users that none of their activities are being tracked. The results are faster than that of Google, and DuckDuckGo also provides a piece of zero-click information that lets users find all the answers on the very first page itself.
DuckDuckGo has a neat interface, with only one search page. This system makes it easier for users to navigate than other search engines. Although DuckDuckGo doesn’t make ads that are based on the suggestions from the user’s search, it isn’t very possible to escape ads on this platform as well. The advertisements that are displayed on DuckDuckGo are syndicated via Bing.
DuckDuckGo also comes with an additional feature called bangs, that allows the users to search within a website in DuckDuckGo by just typing a prefix. However, just like Yahoo!, the results on this search engine are not dated either, but there is an optional one-month search window for the users.
Naver
This Korean search engine might sound entirely unfamiliar to you if you’re not from Korea, but it substitutes 75% of the market share in ‘South Korea.’ Naver is also referred to as the Google of South Korea. The user interface of Naver is very similar to Yahoo! ’s, but the homepage is much crowded than that of Google.
The homepage contains a lot of images, banners, and flash sections, but since the search algorithm is built on the language of Korean, most Koreans still prefer this search page. Not just in South Korea, this search engine is also popular in China, Japan, Canada, and the USA after becoming the first web portal to use its search engine in Korea.
One other thing that is unique about Naver is that it has a children’s search engine, a news web portal, and an encyclopedia. Naver seems authentic as it is very familiar with the Korean web and the language, thus providing better and relevant results quickly.
Baidu
Baidu is china’s biggest search engine, which caps over 75% of china’s search engine market. Except for being in mandarin, Baidu is very similar to Google, which relies on ads and makes rich features on the user interface. The design is very same in both the search engines, aesthetically, with a white background, green URLs, and blue links. Google only has a 2% market in China.
Baidu has its own critical specifications, as it censors individual images and pro-democracy websites. On the other hand, Google is very liberal and lets its users google anything and limit censorship as much as it can. Baidu also delivers results that involve a website, images, audio files, cloud storage, maps, news, and much more to its users.
When comparing results on google and Baidu, users would find it most similar except that there is a much more comprehensive results list on Google. Despite being available only in Mandarin, Baidu is also accessible worldwide. It is even being used actively in Taiwan, the USA, and Hong kong.
Yandex
Yandex originated in Russia and is the most popular search engine in the country. Yandex captures more than 53% of Russian internet users. This search engine is available in English, and Cyrillic incorporates it. This search engine provides services like Yandex Maps, Yandex Music, Yandex money, translator, and other services to its users.
Yandex is also very popular and has a motive presence in Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, and Kazakhstan. It is the fifth most popular search engine all over the world. Yandex provides similar services to google, with images, websites, videos, and news in a personalized and clean interface. The search engines also offer cloud storage services that enable its users to search for files for Yandex’s search bars.
Yandex also offers mobile apps and extra special features to its users. It provides a broad perspective for users outside the USA about controversial topics and provides a better interface when compared to google.
ASK
Ask was founded in the year 1995 and was previously known as Ask Jeeves. Ask was made solely to answer simple questions and format questions. However, this search engine also allows for natural language searches.
Ask has been rated as the best search engine for older people or the audience that is comfortable with using primary search engines, with finding answers quickly. The search engine has a very user-friendly interface, with cleaner search rates and result pages. The search results also display the questions that are frequently asked to boost up researches. The answers are based on the archive data in the search engine that has resulted in outdated results when compared to Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Ask has 0.35% of search traffic, and most of its sponsored search results are powered by google. Ask also provides users with additional features like “smart answers,” which use a modest language to answer someone’s search questions.
The internet archive search
The internet archive search has been the most favorite search engine for a long time web lovers since its establishment. This unique search engine gives the users a perspective of an older webpage by virtually traveling back in time. The archive takes shots of the entire worldwide web of years before the current ones. This brings in a historical context and stays different from the ones that already are.
The internet archive search lets the users search texts, news, archived websites, and much more. The results are quite faster when compared to other search engines, despite going back in time. An advanced search is also available to do lookups following the current generation. However, to use the advanced search, a necessary learning curve is required. One other giant flaw in this search engine is that the amount of vast archived content can look a little too much.
Due to the current market being taken over by fast and user-friendly search engines like Google and Bing, it is quite challenging to adapt to the internet archive search.
