According to a statista.com report from July 2020, Google maintains nearly 87% of the market share. That’s one giant piece of the search engine pie! But what about users who make up the other 13%? You can get insights from a few of them in this article. Read on to learn what made them leave Google and where they went instead.
Willie Greer
Table of Contents
Plant Trees While You Search the Web
I have refrained from using Google ever since I learned about this site called “Ecosia“. It’s basically another search engine that allows you to plant trees for every corresponding search. When you use Ecosia, you are helping in reforesting the planet since its ad revenue is utilized to plant trees in places that need it the most. As their saying goes, “Plant trees while you search the web.”
As per statistics, Ecosia has planted more than 70 million trees worldwide and has invested in long term projects and tree-planting organizations. Like I always say, it is our social obligation to give back to the environment and this is one little step in doing so.
Ecosia
A while ago, I switched to an alternative search engine on my personal laptop, as I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that Google is constantly taking note of everything I do online. Before I made the switch, I explored some options, but one that stood out from the rest was Ecosia.
Ecosia is a green search engine, which donates 80% of its profits to NPOs that focus on reforestation. As of July 2020, they have planted over 100 million trees, which has led to the removal of over 50,000 metric tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each month. On average, the search engine can fund the planting of 75 new trees each minute, which accumulates to 108,000 trees per day. They do all this only from the advertising revenue they get. I liked the idea of “going green” with my searches very much, as I believe that in today’s complicated world it is our duty to help the environment out in any way we can.
Snezhina Piskova
Samantha Moss
DuckDuckGo
Some say Google is overrated, and sometimes you need an alternative source of information. As for me, I use DuckDuckGo. Not only does it keep my searches private, but it also keeps my searches confidential from the U.S. government and other entities who track searches. And I also found that the search results that DuckDuckGo gives are way better than Google’s. Not only that, but it is not littered with Google ads, products, and services that Google wants me to buy and waste my time on.
There is nothing more secure to me than privacy. In the case of Google, it is undoubtedly the biggest search engine due to its innovation. Still, there is the fact is it collects user data to provide them a better experience. We get personalization at the expense of letting them use our data! Contrarily, in the case of DuckDuckGo, it does not save user-related data. Every user gets the same search results against specific keywords.
The use of cookies is less, too, i.e., nill as compared to Google. It uses cookies only in some places where necessary.
Moreover, the abundance of open-source technologies and projects assist in private search results. By using it on my mobile and personal and work-related laptops, I remain at peace that my data is secure.
Julian Goldie
Julian Goldie, Founder of JulianGoldie.com
Eddie Johnson
Eddie Johnson is a husband and father, bodybuilder, writer, and editor. He is also passionate about health and nutrition and shares knowledge at Anabolic Bodies.
I switched over to DuckDuckGo a while back. I like DuckDuckGo over Google because it doesn’t show me endless ads. The guys at DuckDuckGo don’t save any of your data or track your searches, and they even block other site trackers. They give you the security of searching anonymously. With DuckDuckGo, I know my searches are not influenced by my search history and are not filtered so I get broader results.
Best Search Engine Alternatives
Google has amassed a global market share of 87% and is a dominant search engine with personalized user experience and ever-evolving algorithms. People mostly use Google because it gives better search results than other search engines.
Best Search engine alternatives:
Several Google alternatives can be used for a better search experience, to include:
- Bing
- Yandex
- CC Search
- Swisscows
- DuckDuckGo
- Start Page
- Gibiru
And many more search engines. However, I use DuckDuckGo.
DuckDuckGo
The main reason to choose this search engine is that it does not collect or copy my personal information. I can peacefully search for anything I want without getting worried about my privacy concerns. I recommend the search engine to everyone who wishes to keep their browsing habits and personal information private.
Gintaras Steponkus
Scot J Chrisman
Microsoft’s Search Engine
As someone who works by helping people get the digital presence that they want, I always try to look for alternatives to the mainstream. Doing this has proven benefits, like discoveries that would never have occurred if I had not explored other options.
One of these discoveries is undeniably Bing, which is Microsoft’s search engine. While I really love Google, Bing is a very, very close second. My favorite part about Bing is the rewards system, which gives you points for every search you make. I mean, getting rewarded while learning through the search results, that’s just wow, considering that the results I’m getting are almost always the same.
I have used Bing as my primary search engine for years now. The results have parity with Google, and if I don’t like what I find I can fall back to Google. It also gives me slightly different results from what others find when I am researching for articles. That helps me find more unique resources.
The other reason I lean more on Bing is SEO. I work in that area, and I don’t want to have my clicks influence the placement on Google. Clicks on links are signals to move potential competing pages higher than my own pages.
Finally, you have to like the Bing reward points. I earn and cash them in for gift cards each month. Plus the daily questions and polls help expose me to new topics and fun information.
Chris Love
Hung Nguyen
Yandex
One search engine that dominates search traffic for an entire population is Yandex: Over 60% of people in Russia use the platform.
Yandex did get a 7-year headstart over Google Russia, way back in 1997. However, I think the main reason for its success relies on its algorithm, which understands, aggregates, and displays search results for the Russian language much more effectively. Google, on the other hand, focuses primarily on English.
On top of that, one ubiquitous user practice, especially for those that live abroad, is to enter Russian search terms using the Latin alphabet, i.e., users phonetically spell out Russian words using Latin characters. This case is prevalent for those that do not use a Cyrillic keyboard or second-generation Russians that live abroad that can comprehend and speak but not write the language very well. Yandex can decipher these search queries and rank the most relevant results accordingly.
On top of the search engine, Yandex is the largest tech company in Russia. As a “web portal”—Yandex has its own email service, news section, maps, music streaming service, etc. All of this helps to continuously acquire and retain users from Russia, and neighboring Russian-speaking countries.
StartPage
Google Search has made its way to the top as the most effective and popular search engine on the world wide web. Personally, it has been my partner for almost all research that I have [performed] in formulating marketing strategies. However, there are people who have stopped using it, primarily because of the fear of having privacy-risk issues that Google might expose later on.
StartPage has been my best choice so far as I have tried to test alternative search engines. Claiming to be “the world’s most private search engine,” it has lived up to my expectations. Though it uses the same results from Google, StartPage does not track and store search history and information. I also love the feature on its search results page, wherein it includes an “Anonymous View” call-to-action that protects users from website fingerprinting, cookies, trackers or any other privacy-invading plug-ins from the internet.
Norhanie Pangulima
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