Search engines are online tools that allow users to search for content on the internet. Including written content, videos, and images.
Google is the most well-known option. But we’ve listed more search engines below (in no particular order) that provide useful alternatives, cover local markets, cater to niche use cases, and more.
1. Google
At the very top of our list of search engines is Google. It’s generally considered the world’s best search engine. And it has 91% market share as of July 2024.
Not only is it the world’s most popular search engine, but it’s also the world’s most visited website, with over 132 billion monthly visits.
Google uses a vast number of algorithms (also called “ranking systems”) to provide users with fast and accurate search results. It also offers other popular services—like Google Maps, YouTube, and Gmail.
Google's search engine results pages (SERPs) are typically populated with various SERP features (like featured snippets, People Also Ask sections, and knowledge panels), based on the type of search query.
In February 2023, Google introduced its AI-powered search assistant called Bard (later renamed Gemini).
Google has faced many criticisms over the years. Some of the most common are related to the amount of data it collects about its users. That's why privacy concerns are a common reason users seek Google alternatives.
2. Bing
Created by Microsoft in 2009, Bing is the second most popular search engine in the world. But that equated to just 3.74% market share in July 2024.
Bing's strength lies in its multimedia search capabilities—namely, advanced image and video search results.
Another interesting feature is its rewards program. Every Bing search earns you points that can go toward gift cards and charitable donations.
In 2023, Bing became the first mainstream search engine to introduce an AI-powered search assistant, called Copilot.
Further reading: Bing vs. Google
3. DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine that prioritizes user privacy, seeing 3 billion monthly searches. It doesn’t track, collect, or store any of your data. It still uses non-personalized ads, though.
DuckDuckGo offers features like search operators and advanced commands, which allow you to speed up your search.
For example, if you type "!a family tents" into DuckDuckGo's search bar, you'll land directly on Amazon’s results page with family tents.
The search results come from a variety of sources, including its own crawler and other search engines (but not Google).
4. Ecosia
Ecosia is a search engine that donates a portion of its ad revenue to tree-planting initiatives around the world.
Ecosia is a not-for-profit company that earns money from Microsoft Bing advertisements shown in its search results. Every month, it shares its financial results and how it spent the money.
Ecosia’s search engine uses Bing and Google as data sources. Besides standard types of results (plus images, shopping, videos, etc.), it also offers quick links that will redirect your search query to different pages. Such as Wikipedia, Amazon, and Google.
When you search with Ecosia, a tree icon at the top right tells you how many trees your searches have helped plant.
5. Yahoo!
Launched in 1995, Yahoo! is one of the oldest search engines on the internet.
Microsoft's Bing powers Yahoo’s search results. So, you'll probably notice some similarities.
Besides serving as a web search engine, Yahoo has also evolved into a web portal. It offers various types of content. From what’s trending and the biggest news stories, to the weather forecast and sports results.
6. YouTube
YouTube is the most popular video sharing platform on the web. With 500+ hours of content being uploaded to the platform every minute.
This makes it the best search engine for videos.
Users can search through videos on the platform by using the search box at the top of the page.
For each query, YouTube provides a search results page consisting of two types of results: short-form (called Shorts) and long-form videos.
Users can filter the results by date, type, and features (e.g., 3D, 4K video, etc.)
7. TikTok
TikTok is a popular social media and video hosting platform focused on short-form video content. Making it another useful search engine for finding video content.
It’s available in 40 languages and used by 1.5 billion people globally.
Users can search for videos, channels, and live streams through the platform. TikTok will also recommend videos to users based on their interests and watch history.
8. Startpage
Startpage is another search engine that focuses on user privacy and security. This includes no recording of personal data and search history, no profiling of users, and removal of IP addresses from Startpage's servers.
It sources its search results from Google and Bing. Which makes it a popular alternative for those who value privacy but still want the accuracy of these larger search engines’ results.
The company also offers a secure email platform called StartMail.
9. Baidu
Baidu is China’s largest search engine, with 57.76% market share in the country as of July 2024.
Similarly to Google, Baidu offers a wide range of services. This includes maps, news, an encyclopedia, and a cloud storage service.
Baidu’s search algorithm is tailored to the Chinese language and culture. So, if you’re not targeting the Chinese market, it may not be relevant to you.
But if you are, check how your website ranks in Baidu with Semrush’s Position Tracking tool.
10. Yandex
Yandex is the largest search engine in Russia, with just under 68% market share as of July 2024. It’s also used in other countries, including Belarus, Turkey, and Kazakhstan.
Besides the Russian version, Yandex also has a global English version at yandex.com.
The tech company behind Yandex offers many other products and services, including maps, a voice assistant, a ride-hailing service, a web browser, and a music streaming service.
In 2023, Yandex's code leaked, including a list of ranking factors used in its search algorithm. This led to many analyses and interpretations by experts in the field.
11. Naver
Naver is a web portal and search engine. It’s the second most popular search engine in its native South Korea, with 42.89% of local market share as of July 2024.
However, other sources claim that it’s the top search engine in the country in 2024, with around 58% share of monthly active users.
Either way, Naver was reportedly losing users to AI chatbot services, such as Google Bard (now Gemini), Microsoft Bing, and ChatGPT.
12. Qwant
Qwant is a search engine that doesn’t track its users. Making it one of the best search engines for people concerned about privacy.
Like other free search engines, Qwant funds itself through ads. But, because there are no cookies, Qwant’s advertisers cannot target ads to specific users.
While Qwant is a French search engine, it does offer an English-language version. Qwant relies on Bing for much of its search results.
13. Brave Search
Brave Search is a privacy-focused search engine that offers an anonymous search experience. You can use it within or outside of the Brave web browser.
Its AI summary feature (highlighted above) can also provide direct answers in search results.
Unlike some other smaller search engines, Brave uses its own web index and algorithms. But you may be able to enable a “Google fallback” option. This means Brave will also check Google to provide more accurate results.
14. Swisscows
Swisscows is a privacy-oriented search engine founded in 2014. It has its own web crawler and index, but it also uses Bing as a data source.
A unique feature of this search engine is its family-friendliness. It filters for inappropriate content and adult-themed results.
In addition to the search engine, Swisscows provides services like an email client, a virtual private network (VPN), and a privacy-focused messenger.
15. Ask.com
Originally called Ask Jeeves, Ask.com is a search engine and a Q&A (questions & answers) website founded in 1996.
The idea behind Ask.com was to allow users to ask questions. Which the platform would then provide an answer to in everyday language.
Now, it functions as a traditional search engine combined with a news platform.
At the very top of the website is the search bar. Where users can type in a query and get access to search results pages that are similar to Google’s.
Although often with lots of related searches towards the top, as you can see in the image above. Rather than at the bottom, like on Google.
But the biggest part of the Ask.com homepage is filled with links to various articles.
16. Lycos
Lycos is a search engine that originally started as a research project at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It was one of the main competitors to Yahoo, back when Yahoo was the most popular search engine in the world.
Lycos’s homepage is fairly simple and features a small search box at its center.
Users can type in search queries and get presented with a fairly straightforward search results page that includes eight to 10 results.
At the bottom of the search results page, Lycos suggests a number of related searches users might want to perform.
17. Seznam
Seznam is a web portal. And the second most popular search engine in its native Czechia, with 12.78% local market share in July 2024.
It has a web crawler called SeznamBot. And a faster version called FreshBot (predominantly used for news websites).
You can read about the latest developments to the search engine on the Seznam Blog. But not all posts are available in English.
18. Internet Archive
The Internet Archive offers users a way to search through its large library of movies, music, books, software, and more.
It can search through metadata, captions, transcripts, text content, and archived websites.
The platform also offers advanced search options, allowing users to search for files by title, creator, description, media type, and other fields.
19. Shenma
Shenma is a Chinese mobile-only search engine launched by Alibaba and UCWeb.
Shenma was built to challenge Baidu’s market share and capitalize on users increasingly using mobile over desktop for their search needs. This means mobile SEO is particularly important to website owners looking to rank high in Shenma’s search results.
20. Dogpile
Dogpile is a meta search engine. Meaning it collects results from many of the top search engines (including Google and Bing), and aims to compile the best ones.
Its name comes from the rugby term “dogpile,” which refers to players piling on top of each other.
Dogpile has a canine mascot named Arfie, which is why users click a button titled “Go Fetch!” to perform a search.
21. AOL
AOL is a web portal and search engine owned by Yahoo. Its search results are powered by Bing.
Like Yahoo, AOL is part of the Bing search network. This means publishers can advertise across all three search engines. Along with related properties, like MSN.com.
Further reading: Learn more about advertising on search engines with our pay-per-click (PPC) guide.
22. BASE
BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) is a specialized search engine designed to help users find academic papers.
It can search through more than 350 million documents from over 11,000 providers.
BASE supports more than 20 languages. And it allows you to sort results by title, author, and date. It only indexes results that have been checked by qualified personnel at the Bielefeld University Library.
23. ResearchGate
ResearchGate is a social network and search engine for researchers and scientists.
You can use it to search through 160 million publication pages from 25 million authors. Topics range from medicine and biology to engineering, psychology, law, computer science, and more.
Keep in mind that to get access to many of the papers, you need to request a copy from the author through ResearchGate.
24. WolframAlpha
WolframAlpha is a search and answer engine developed by Wolfram Research. It can answer questions and solve equations using data from a wide variety of sources.
Apart from providing answers to questions and equations, it can also serve relevant visualizations.
The basic version of WolframAlpha is available for free. There’s also a paid version with added features, like practice problems with step-by-step solutions.
The Future of Search Engines
The advancement of AI technology is starting to bring major changes in the way search engines work. For example, in 2024, Google started rolling out its AI Overviews feature to users in the U.S. The feature is designed to provide AI-generated answers to queries, even complex ones.
This way, users have a quicker way to get answers to their questions.
Many search engines are certainly moving in the direction of AI-powered results.
This could potentially have an impact on websites that rely on organic (unpaid) search traffic.
Why?
Because more and more users may get answers to their questions directly on the search results page. Without having to click on a search engine listing. This could ultimately result in fewer people visiting websites from organic search.
Here’s what the AI summary looks like in Bing:
But AI results are unlikely to replace all search results any time soon.
And so search engine optimization (SEO) is still vital for businesses looking to expand their online presence. And boost their organic visibility.
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