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25 Alternative Search Engines to Consider in 2024 – Here’s Why Experts Choose Them

Updated on February 16, 2024

24 Min Read
Alternative Search Engines

This year has seen a surge in online searches across the gamut. Keeping this in mind, how can you not be a part of this evolving, more localized search landscape when search has become so crucial for all categories and regions alike?

According to Internet Live Stats, Google processes over 99,000 online searches occurring per second, over 5 billion internet users performing online searches each day. This means that it isn’t ideal to limit yourself to just Google.

In addition, people have become smarter about their data privacy, and are likely to opt for more private alternative search engines, given Google’s tracking of user data. In fact, privacy is the biggest motivation for many users to switch to an alternative search engine.

search-engine-switch-motivationSource: DuckDuckGo

Besides privacy, there are other values and needs people prioritize when choosing a search engine. For instance, for people looking for  format-specific results, there are options like GIPHY and YouTube. For those who are working towards social causes and welfare, there are alternative search engines supporting their cause as well.

Another thing users struggle with is finding alternative search engines that deliver uncensored search results when they search online. With content accessibility increasingly being subjected to restrictions and internet censorship even in the world’s freest countries, many are moving away from search engines that manipulate individual searches.

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25 Alternative Search Engines You Must Consider

For all the reasons highlighted above, we provide you the best alternative search engines list that offer values like privacy, uncensored content, better search results, social connectedness, and increased visibility:

The Big 3 Alternative Search Engines

Certain search engines have moved ahead of the pack. This gives you a greater choice when it comes to choosing an alternative search engine you can optimize your content for, or even use to perform personal searches online. There are Bing, Yahoo, Baidu and Yandex.

For this article, we are skipping Baidu, the fourth-largest search engine, because only websites in Mandarin can rank on it. However, it has around 61.11% search engine market share in China, while Google has only 2.44%.

1. Bing

Bing

When it comes to attractive visuals and a well-organized search results page layout, Bing should be your ultimate choice. This feature also makes it the second most popular search engine in the world.

Bing allows you the option to watch videos by hovering over them instead of leaving the search window.  From displaying large, attractive image thumbnails, and allowing video previews, it offers a great user experience for those of you searching for images and videos.

More interesting is the fact that Bing powers most of Microsoft and Yahoo’s search functions. It allows eight auto-complete options when you are typing a search query, allowing one to have a broader view of the topic in search.

And did you know that Bing also offers a reward program? It lets you earn points with each search you perform and then you can exchange them for gift cards and buy apps and movies of your choice from Microsoft Store. In essence, Bing pays users for letting it access their data.

Bing also has access to far more social data because of its international social integration program and contract with Facebook and Twitter. As for features, it gives you options like currency conversion, translation, and flight tracking so you can use it as one, complete search engine.

Recently, Bing has also expanded its shopping options for users, which would be a game-changer for many ecommerce store owners. 

2. Yahoo!

Yahoo

People use Yahoo as an alternative search engine primarily because it is convenient. After all, it lets them have an all-rounded user experience as it offers Yahoo Answers, Email, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Plus, News, Tech Tips, Sports Scorecard and Online Shopping, among others.

Like Bing, most people will find that Yahoo is also visually engaging because it integrates with Flickr. There’s a reason it is still the third-largest search engine in the US.

Since we are speaking of Yahoo, let us shed some light on Yahoo Plus as well. Why? Because it offers you an ad-free email inbox,  customization and security features, plus premium content. So if you’re getting too many ads in your email inboxes, you can switch to Yahoo Plus.

People also use Yahoo to gain access to expert data, analysis, and a lot of information on different topics as a bonus feature. It can offer you services way beyond what a typical search engine would, and that’s why it is still the browser of choice for many searchers online.

Yahoo’s customer care service is very active in resolving problems as well. Recently, there was a problem with the search engine, and a Mcafee user complained of constantly having to switch Yahoo back into Google. This is how Yahoo responded:

3. Yandex

Yandex

Yandex is the fifth-largest search engine in the world, and the largest in Russia. Why should you use Yandex? Mainly because of its extremely clean and friendly user interface, beautiful visuals (images and videos), and free features such as Yandex Mail, News, Translate, Disk for cloud storage, AppMetrica for marketing and analytics, Map, Browser, and Ads display.

With Yandex, you don’t even have to worry about backlinking to rank your website, as its algorithm doesn’t use links as a ranking signal. People in Russia use Yandex extensively for their search queries, so much so that it has a market share of 71.28%.

Dr Bob Nicholson, Historian of Victorian Popular Culture, also finds Yandex as an excellent search engine alternative when it comes to image search. 

Private Search Engine Alternatives to Google

Privacy has become a serious concern for many people more than ever before. Users don’t want Google to track their data for advertisers every time they are on the internet.

As the introduction mentioned, more and more people are looking for uncensored, unfiltered search engines that don’t manipulate individual searches or censor controversial news and topics.

If you are in the same boat as them, we have a list of private search engine alternatives to Google that don’t censor content.

4. DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is the perfect choice when it comes to choosing a private search engine, because it doesn’t track your activity online. It gives you search results outside the filter bubble. It even shows features like local weather and restaurants without building data on you overtime.

With DuckDuckGo, you get unbiased search results that are not based on your recorded preferences but give you a much broader overview. Even when you access YouTube, Gmail or Chrome using DuckDuckGo, your privacy remains intact.

DuckDuckGo comes with a feature called “!bangs.” By using this feature and simply typing “!” you can choose to tell DuckDuckGo to search directly on a specific website. For e.g. if you want to search something on Twitter, type “!tw (your search query)” and press the search icon. It will immediately take you to twitter and show you relevant tweets.

Another great feature on DuckDuckGo is that you can easily find if a website is down by typing “Is (website’s name) down?” It will return clear-cut search results and tell you the current status of the website in an instant.

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5. Swisscows

Swisscows

If you want to have control over your personal information and securely surf the internet, then Swisscows is a really great option for you. With zero profile tracking, it neither stores your data nor your IP addresses, nor your search history.

In fact, it takes its mission of providing you complete privacy and security so seriously that it has its own servers instead of working with a third-party. And you can rest assured that it offers exactly what it says because its data centers are where the privacy policies are the most stringent in the world: the Swiss Alps – the most secure vault in Europe for your data.

This private alternative search engine also respects moral values and stresses on the importance of making the internet a decent place that cultivates morality. Hence, if you are a parent, and have school-going children, then Swisscows is the best and safe bet for family-friendly internet content.  It promotes digital media education, and puts a strict filter on violence and pornography.

Recently, Swisscows has also started working for a social cause to deliver warm meals to save childrens’ lives. If you make Swisscows your search engine, 50 search queries from you can make a child’s meal. You don’t have to pay anything, as Swisscows forwards donations from the revenue generated from ads to help children in need.

Plus, using Swisscows is incredibly simple. Just enter a question on Swisscows, let its AI understand it, and voilà! It will use semantic information recognition to answer your search query and show you related searches to give you more insight on the topic as well.

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6. Qwant

Qwant

Qwant is another European search engine that values privacy and does not need your data to serve you the best neutral and unbiased search results. It is otherwise in line with Google, with  features like Map, News, Shopping, Images, Videos and Music.

Video search results follow a similar pattern as Bing. When it comes to Music, Qwant uses AI to deliver results with details like the album name, artist and the song titles for any lyric you type in from the song.

Qwant anonymizes your IP address as well, and doesn’t track you anywhere on the web. Plus, if you type “&” with a short code before a search query, for e.g. “&w (search query)” and search on Qwant, it will directly take you to the website corresponding to that shortcode.

All in all, Qwant is a great private search engine that you can use. It has a contemporary feel to it, which is great for user experience.

7. SearX

Searx

Searx is a self-hosted and free metasearch engine, which does not profile or track you, or use cookies to deliver search results. In fact, you will be happy to know that it is secure and encrypted and brings results from around 70 search engines right in front of you.

You can easily integrate it with any search engine and watch it offer you full online anonymity.  The best thing about it is that along with privacy and security, it gives you an unfiltered, unbiased, and complete view of the internet using a unified interface. You cannot access Searx using Google Chrome because it has blocked it, but you can access it using any other browser.

8. Startpage

Startpage

When you enter a search query, Startpage neither tracks it nor records it. It does not even record your IP address. In fact, before carrying your request forward to Google, it detaches all your information from your query, so no one can snoop in and see who you are and what you are searching for on the internet.

Startpage is one of the most praised private search engines, mainly because it is from the Netherlands where privacy is protected by law. It combines results from Ixquick and Google, while keeping you anonymous and not asking you to log-in. It also has features like Startpage Proxy and Ixquick Proxy that further protect details about you or from where you are accessing a website.

9. Gibiru

Gibiru

Gibiru does not believe in selling your information to third parties. In fact, it does not even log your searches or IP addresses, so there is no user profiling at all.

What’s more interesting is the fact that it gives you two options: “all results” and “uncensored” for each category. It lets you sort videos based on freshness and duration.  Another thing to note here is that Gibiru combines its search engine with its own VPN that supplies you the IP address, so you can easily remain anonymous.

Gibiru lets you read news from unfiltered sources, which people claim is not possible with Google as it approves news first before displaying them. You see ads depending on the keywords you use, and the anti-censorship tool coupled with HTTPS 256-bit encryption promises a secure and decentralized view of the content on the internet.

10. OneSearch

OneSearch

OneSearch has a visually striking layout with its yellow and teal theme that can put a smile on anyone’s face. People find its search results better than Google’s as they are from reliable library resources.

This free, private search engine does not profile you, track cookies, or store your IP addresses or search history. It has an in-built citation feature that can help you with APA, MLA, and Chicago citations.

Even though OneSearch does not save your queries, it gives you an option to save your search results so you can get back to it anytime you like by using the ‘my favorites’ icon at the top right of the search engine. But, you will have to sign in to avail these features.

11. Infinity Search

Infinity Search

Infinity Search is a privacy based search engine designed to maximize user efficiency, while promising anonymity and data protection. It is an open-source search engine that allows you to choose the website you want search results from with the sidebar on the right.

Just enter a search query on Infinity Search and then from the various sources on the right. So if you select for Twitter, you can let Infinity Search direct you to search results on Twitter. This search engine shows search results from many other sources, and you can even add a resource to the list if you feel it is missing.

Besides this feature, another thing that makes it a good search engine is the fact that it uses its own indexing to provide search results and doesn’t rely on external sources. It displays search results directly without logging any information about you.

Alternative Search Engines That Support Crowdsourced Search Results

We all know how crowdsourcing works for marketers when it comes to collecting creative ideas from the users. Basically, the primary idea is to get user-generated content that is in line with human intelligence. When it comes to crowdsourced search results, searchers want answers from other users on the internet.

Here are the two most popular search engines that will give you crowdsourced search results.

12. Wiki.com

Wiki

Wiki.com is a crowdsourced search engine that will show you community-led search results from all Wiki-related websites and Wikimedia projects. We say this because a lot of users collaborate to create and edit content on Wiki websites on the rules and principles of collaborative trust.

Wiki.com is powered by Google Custom Search. If we come to talk about content regulation for best search results, there is usually a moderator or manager who is responsible for accepting and rejecting content changes on all Wiki websites.

One unique feature of Wiki.com is that this search engine uses thumbnails for almost all its search results and displays user namespaces as well. Overall, it is a great search engine for crowdsourced search results.

13. Boardreader

Boardreader

Boardreader is an incredibly useful search engine for social listening to see what people are discussing about a certain topic or search query on forums, message boards, blogs, news sources, and even videos.

This search engine shows you crowdsourced and uncensored search results, by displaying discussions and conversations in different forums and message boards quickly and accurately because the application uses REST API.

You can easily filter search results yourself based on your preferences regarding content freshness and language because the answers are user-generated. With Boardreader as a search engine, it is now easier than ever to know about your niche as well. You can find many vibrant communities to join while monitoring what is being said about what topic.

Boardreader is great if you are searching on a topic of interest as it will give you a broader vision and perspective around it, and even if you are a company or blog owner, you will find  Boardreader extremely helpful in knowing what the people are talking about you, your blog, or product. So, it offers a win-win for all.

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Search Engines Contributing to a Social Cause

Do you know there are search engines working to preserve the social interests of many people in the world? With each search you perform on these search engines, you walk with them to support the social cause they are a part of. You might be a part of the same social initiative or charity project too.

So, to play a more socially responsible role in society, you can use our list of three alternative search engines that contribute socially in the world.

14. GiveWater

giveWater

GiveWater is a search engine that makes it easy for the needy to access clean water. You simply have to search and install the GiveWater browser extension to help eradicate the miseries of the children and families living without clean water supply.

When you enter a search query on GiveWater and click on a paid search ad, the search provider shares a percentage of the click revenue with GiveWater. This percentage contribution is given to the charity partners in support of the social cause, and these partners use this donation to provide clean water and sanitation to the needy through various water organizations.

It was Michael Feeley who started GiveWater after reading Thirst by Scott Harrison, the founder of charity:water. His passion for search and this cause has helped many fight illnesses and focus on work and education instead of walking miles to get clean water.

15. Ekoru

Ekoru

Ekoru is a search engine that uses hydroelectricity and raises awareness about environment protection. It helps the environment by letting users reforest oceans with every search they perform. You just have to search to clean and protect the oceans from microplastics and other hazards.

Ekoru is supported by many browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and has an android app as well. It uses the same mechanism of donating from every click on sponsored ads, and donates sixty percent of its revenue to its ocean conservation partners Big Blue Ocean Cleanup and Operation Posidonia.

Ekoru’s partners collect research data on the percentage of microplastics in the ocean. They also arrange volunteer cleanup teams worldwide to clean waterways, coastal areas, and oceans. In short, Ekoru search engine is providing you with the best search results to improve your life and is simultaneously saving marine life too.

16. Ecosia

Ecosia

Ecosia is a free, alternative search engine to Google. It uses 100% renewable energy to save the environment from CO2 emissions.

When you search using this environment-friendly search engine, it uses revenue from your clicks on paid ads to plant trees. Ecosia is currently removing 1 kg of CO2 from the air with each search, but as more and more people make it their default search engine, the impact will be greater.

Besides being environment friendly and supporting a social cause, Ecosia also provides users neutral and unfiltered search results. It does not believe in limiting users to their own intelligence, but also shows them information that can challenge their current stance on a topic.

Ecosia is a complete package because it is a socially responsible plus private search engine. It does not profile you, nor does it record your IP address. It keeps you anonymous, encrypts all searches, and doesn’t sell your data to advertisers. All of these benefits make it a terrific alternative to Google.

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Search Engines That Give Format-Specific Results

There are some search engines that show search results in specific formats like images, GIFs and videos. We have listed some of them for you here.

17. YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a search engine in itself. In fact, it is the second largest one behind Google even though Google owns it. It is extremely user friendly and has exceptional video content on nearly all subjects.

Every YouTube channel is specific to a certain type of content and you can subscribe and stay informed on the topics of your interest through this format-specific search engine. It helps so many people everyday, as is confirmed by reviewing the daily shares of video content on social media.

We know for a fact that search engines favor video content more than other forms of content. Hence by writing a great title, description, and adding the right tags, one can easily seek prominence, ranking, and visibility on search engines.

18. Unsplash

Unsplash

Unsplash is an image-oriented search engine. You can search and find over 2 million of the best free search engine images for commercial use without needing to give credits.

The Unsplash community has grown so much that up till now there are 6.6 billion all-time image downloads and 48 downloads per second.

The community of photographers who give these free, beautiful images is extremely generous, which makes Unsplash a great search engine for stock photos. It lets photographers showcase their high-resolution, beautiful work, so searchers can use those images for free.

19. Creative Commons Search

Creative Common Search

Creative Commons Search is also an image-specific search engine that has a lot of free, high-resolution images for your use. It intends  to offer text, audio, and video search features  from its database of additional media types, but these features haven’t rolled out yet.

As a vibrant collaborative community, Creative Commons encourages content creators to share their work in various media formats for public use. The search engine uses Open APIs and the Common Crawl dataset to search across more than 300 million images.

20. Listen Notes

Listen Notes

Listen Notes is a leading podcast search engine used monthly by over a million people on the internet. What makes it incredible is that it allows users to search for podcast episodes on any topic or person for absolutely free while displaying relevant and quality podcasts in search results.

This format-specific search engine doesn’t require you to go through the hassles of subscribing and then spending hours to scroll and find the audio. It uses a Listen Score feature to indicate the popularity of a podcast against many on the internet. Listen Notes is the most comprehensive podcast database and it also provides a powerful podcast API to help developers.

Listen Notes started in 2017 by Wenbin Fang in San Francisco, California. It gives searchers access to all RSS-based public podcasts across the internet. This is why it is a great free tool and search engine for all users, especially advertising agencies, CEOs, influencers, or podcast apps or websites.

21. GIPHY

Giphy

GIPHY is a GIF-specific search engine. It gives you access to the largest database of GIFs that you can use to search and share GIFs across all your top social media channels such as iMessage, Facebook Messenger, and more.

This format-specific search engine will provide you GIFs, stickers, and short-form videos as well. Like any other search engine, it uses an algorithm to rank content in the search results so users try to rank their GIFs for certain keywords to get the desired views and impressions. This ensures that GIPHY provides relevant search results to help you with your visuals.

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Using Social Media as Search Engines

According to the Global Consumer Insights Survey, 50% of consumers have increased their searches and engagement on social media since pre-pandemic times. This makes social media great for any topic search.

22. Twitter

Twitter

Twitter keeps us updated about the ongoing trends in the world. The hashtag feature makes it a super useful social media platform because you can enter a hashtag and see relevant tweets on a specific topic.

You get results from experts in your field and can choose to follow and build relationships with them. It is a great platform for research and you can easily know the challenges facing everyone in your field. Perhaps, as a brand, you can grab an opportunity to fill the gaps you observe while researching on Twitter.

23. SlideShare

SlideShare

SlideShare is where everyone can share and discover knowledge by searching through professional content including infographics, presentations, videos, as well as documents.

It is a great format-specific search engine as it shows search results in the form of PowerPoint, Word, PDF, or OpenDocument format. Users can upload files privately or publicly, and SlideShare also allows content embedding on websites. Users can even search through others’ content on SlideShare, and choose to rate, comment on, and share that content.

24. Internet Archive

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a non-profit where the internet is, literally, archived. It provides access to web pages, books and texts, audio recordings, videos, images, and software programs. It lets the searchers see through even those contents that are no longer running, in case you want old information.

Internet Archive is an activist organization that aims to provide free and open access to the Internet to everyone. It is great for academic and professional research as well, and offers free downloads of the many content forms available there – books, research papers, and other texts dominate other content formats on Internet Archive.

25. Reddit

Reddit

Reddit is a forum that allows communities to come together and be part of healthy discussions on topics of interest. It allows members to contribute links, text posts, images, videos, and answers to different questions.

You can use Reddit as a search engine because it is a great and free social listening tool that also contains content that other members upvote. Humans vouch for quality posts and content so you can always be sure that the information you are reading is valuable and authentic.

On Reddit, there are many niche-specific communities as well. Depending on what your niche is, you can easily have access to all unbiased, quality information at one place. Just join relevant subreddits and use the search bar to find information related to a specific search query or keyword.

Why Do People Use Alternative Search Engines?

You now know the reasons we recommended the 25 alternative search engines above. But, it’s always best to also listen to what industry leaders have to say regarding their use of alternative search engines and why they feel that works best for them.

1. Phil Strazzulla – Founder and CEO of Select Software Reviews, Cambridge, MA

Phil Strazzulla

“As a tech CEO, I’ve found that I look at search engines a little differently than I had in the past, especially with the rise of so many alternative options. These days, when I’m looking for information on a new restaurant in my area, or want to learn a new skill, I’m less likely to go to Google. Instead, I go to YouTube and Instagram as my preferred search engines.

In recent years, YouTube has become one of the most powerful search engines available, connecting users with the content they’re looking for. There are even SEO strategies specifically for videos, so content creators can target the search terms their viewers use to find their videos. YouTube doesn’t just provide content I like to watch – it also has amazing how-tos that help contextualize whatever I want to learn, making it much better than classic search engines. High-quality content creators will even cite their sources on videos, making it easier to delve deeper into a topic.

Similarly, if I want information on a new business in my area, I’ll go to Instagram to see what others are saying about it. While I might have used Google to find that company’s website, sometimes I want a candid view of the establishment. Instagram lets me see what kind of food a restaurant serves, or what kind of work a construction company does, so I can have accurate expectations of the service I should expect. Those insights are much more valuable than the information the business has on its own site.

Many social media sites are turning into search engines of their own, which is invaluable for consumers. As a business owner, it makes the job of reputation management a bit more complicated. However, the benefits of using social media as a search tool can overcome the negatives.”

2. Harriet Chan – Co-Founder and Marketing Director of CocoFinder, Singapore

Harriet Chan

“Our company uses WolframAlpha because it is ideal for searching for expert-level answers and finding factual conclusions using its breakthrough AI technology, algorithms and knowledge. Besides, we use its computational power to track economic trends, check up-to-date stock quotes, and access historical market data. It is also helpful in managing personal finances using its sophisticated calculators and other financial tools.

We picked it because it offers results based on computation and metrics to provide website data, sports statistics, unit conversions and more. It has various categories and subcategories with valuable tools to compute data, research statistics and find answers without tracking our searches, making it great in terms of privacy.”

3. Jeff Gapinski – Co-Founder and Partner & Chief of Memorable Digital Experiences of Huemor, New York

Jeff Gapinski

“Being on the technical end of marketing, I’ve seen first hand the explosion of data and tracking for individual users. It’s kind of hypocritical, since we use this data ourselves to optimize the websites we create, but I prefer to remain anonymous wherever I can.

For this purpose,  personally, I use DuckDuckGo as my general search engine of choice instead of Google. Its results aren’t quite as good as Googles at times (maybe because they know less about me ;)) but I feel like it’s adequate enough for 95% of my searches. If there’s something out there I absolutely can’t find an answer to (like some obscure technical issue) I’ll turn back to Google for help.”

4. Chana Charach – Chief Financial Officer of INCOME.ca, Canada

Chana Charach

“There’s no doubt that Bing is behind Google in terms of user engagement, with just under 7% of the search market in the United States. It has the same basic features as Google, such as translation, rich snippets, conversion calculators, and knowledge graphs for hotels and flights, among other things. However, there are some advanced features that we are overlooking.

Bing provides a much more visual search experience. Its homepage is dominated by graphics and video, and it also offers complex features such as machine-learning forecasts for sports scores and election results. Its image search is far more powerful than Google’s, and the picture search feature includes object-detection intelligence. You can also save searches as ‘collections,’ which makes it easier to return to them later. When it comes to image searches, Bing is the most used search engine.”

5. Pooneh Ramezani – CEO of Dr.Brite, Fullerton, CA

Dr. Pooneh Ramezani

“Qwant claims to respect your privacy,’ and it is another trustworthy option for people looking for a genuine Google alternative. Unlike some of the other privacy-first search engines, Qwant emphasizes avoiding personalizing search results by combining its indexing engine with Bing results to prevent searchers from becoming trapped in a filter bubble. Because this search engine is based in Paris, it’s important to understand that European

privacy rules are often far stronger than those in other parts of the world, such as the United States.”

6. Sebastian Schaeffer – CTO and Owner of dofollow.io, Kansas City & Berlin

Sebastian Schaffer

“In addition to Google, the search engine we use most often, and which many people fail to realize has become one of the most useful out there, is Reddit.

We use Reddit because it is a highly valuable place to do keyword research. It offers a giant and diverse audience that allows you to determine how popular a topic will be and also get a better feel for tone, context and intent. You can spend 10 or 15 minutes on a niche-related subreddit for a client, or even for your own blog and content strategy, and find so many great trending content ideas based on post titles and the discussions people are having.”

7. Jabez Reuben – Owner at The Blueprints, Thailand, Philippines, and India

Jabez

“I am an entrepreneur running an SEO agency. My preference for a search engine alternative to Google is Ecosia. The browser has a secure browsing policy wherein the search data is anonymized within a week. The browser does not sell your data to third parties and the searches are also encrypted to ensure a safe browsing experience.

Another reason why I prefer Ecosia is that it is working for a very noble cause. With the money that they are able to raise from the browser, they plant trees to promote greenery in the world.”

8. Mark Coster – Co-Founder and SEO Specialist at FairyDigital, Australia

Mark Coster

“Most of the time at work, I have to use Google. Being an entire suite of tools and the primary target of SEO, it’s currently pretty indispensable in our industry. However, whenever I’m not an SEO, I am a user who strives for a better and safer way to use the internet.

SwissCows doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a great overall project. They don’t collect, track, or store any of your user data, nor do they use a cloud. Everything is based on their own servers, which live in super safe data centers somewhere in the Swiss Alps. Of course, being a small search engine, they have to affiliate with someone for search indexing, but they choose Bing over Google. It’s truly a relief when you search for video content and are served something else besides Youtube! It’s also a wonderful family option since they never ever serve any violent, abusive or problematic content.”

9. Shana Bull – Owner of Shana Bull Digital Marketing, Concord, CA

Shana Bull

“My favorite search engine is Pinterest. So many people think of it as a social network, but it’s not. It’s a visual search engine – and my go-to when I am searching for everything from traveling, to social media trends for work, to time management tips.

The visuals help me determine if I even want to click the link to get more content. They need to be well put together, easy-to-read fonts, or in terms of food/travel — eye-catchingly beautiful. I also work with clients to create ads on Pinterest, which can be more expensive than Facebook or Google, but they get better leads which leads to longer-term customers.”

10. Karl Hughes – Founder of Draft.dev, Chicago, IL

Karl Hughes

“I use a relatively new search engine called Brave Search, which is built atop DuckDuckGo. Brave itself is a forked version of the Chrome browser. There is one major reason why I use it and that’s to preserve privacy. It blocks trackers to keep your browsing anonymous.

It also includes a lot of the same features we’ve come to love about Google in terms of SEO. There is a “people also ask” featured snippets section. There are quick nav options at the top to search for terms, news, images, and more. The only thing missing that I tend to use a lot are the related keywords you find at the bottom of Google’s search results. But there are

more substantial tools for finding that information, namely Google’s additional SEO tools. Brave Search is still in Beta too, so it will improve more.”

Conclusion

Google currently dominates 92.49% of the search engine market share. This clearly shows that there are a lot of untapped opportunities when it comes to alternative search engines that best fit our needs. Whether we seek privacy, uncensored and unfiltered results, social responsibility, or we want to perform social listening and get format-specific results only, we can now choose where we want to perform a search for best results.

Q1. Are there any search engines that don’t censor content?

Search engines like StartPage, DuckDuckGo, Swisscows, Qwant, Infinity Search, Gibiru, and BoardReader do not censor data and give you unbiased, and unfiltered search results.

Q2. Is DuckDuckGo owned by Google?

DuckDuckGo is not owned by Google. In fact, it distinguishes itself from Google by not profiling its users, not filtering and personalizing search results, but rather showing the same search results to everyone.

Q3. Which search engine is best?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this. Everyone has different needs. They might require search engines specific for privacy, uncensored and unfiltered content, social responsibility, social listening, to name a few. We have mentioned the best search engines for each of these specific needs in our blog.

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Mansoor Ahmed Khan

Been in content marketing since 2014, and I still get a kick out of creating stories that resonate with the target audience and drive results. At Cloudways by DigitalOcean (a leading cloud hosting company, btw!), I lead a dream team of content creators. Together, we brainstorm, write, and churn out awesome content across all the channels: blogs, social media, emails, you name it! You can reach out to me at [email protected].

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