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According to Statcounter, almost 9 in 10 internet users living currently in the U.S. see the search results provided by Google whenever they need to look something up or do online shopping.
It isn’t any different in Europe, where Google has 92,24% of the search engine market share:
Even though Google dominates the market globally, there are some world regions where it isn’t considered the go-to search engine. More interestingly, there are some people – quite many as you’re going to find out in a moment – who simply prefer to use other search engines than the currently undisputed search giant.
Take Bing or DuckDuckGo, for example. For some users, those search engines are considered superior simply because, to them, one offers a better search experience and the other less user behavior tracking.
That’s why focusing solely on optimizing your website for Google may result in losing the chance to reach more people who would love to buy your product or service.
To put it differently, despite Google’s immense popularity, trying to reach your target audience through other top search engines is worth the effort. In a moment you’ll understand what is at stake.
Ok, let’s think outside the… Google, and see what are the best search engines whose policy/user experience/resources seem to be more appealing to various groups of internet users.
The Best Search Engine for Particular Groups of Users
Truth be told, there is no such thing as the best search engine. Or to put it differently, the best search engine is the one your target audience uses.
Although Google clearly dominates the search engine market share, ignoring for example Bing users wouldn’t be a wise strategic move – in 2022 it received over 1.2 billion visits a month! Not to mention Baidu or Yandex, which are the two most popular search engines in China and Russia respectively.
Read also: Foreign Search Engines – Alternatives to Google
So, let’s go through a list of the best search engines now. In a moment you’ll recognize their strongest and weakest points (mainly from the SEO and e-commerce store owner’s perspective).
Also, you’re going to get the estimated number of active monthly users, which helps you realize how many people actually type queries into a given search bar. Finally, you will get an insight into what groups of people are targeted by a particular search engine company.
By the time you finish reading this article, you will have understood which search engine is the right fit for your online business given the targeted audience and location.
Founded: 1998
Headquarters: USA
Backend ownership: Google
Monthly users: 80 billion
The undisputed king of search engines, Google has been ruling the global market for many long years. Surprisingly, it’s not only the most popular search engine but it’s also the most-visited website in general. Apart from providing users with relevant search results, Google also offers software products (e.g. Gmail, Google Meets, and Google Workspace), infrastructure (Google Cloud), and platforms (Google Maps, Google Flights).
This means it’s pretty omniscient. It also offers numerous built-in tools and resources such as a calculator, currency converter, and weather forecast.
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DuckDuckGo
Founded: 2008
Headquarters: USA
Backend ownership: Bing
Monthly users: 106 million
It can’t be denied, DuckDuckGo is primarily known for being a strong privacy promoter. Reportedly, it’s a go-to search engine for those who are discouraged by pervasive advertising and profiling. Interestingly, the majority of people browsing the internet via DuckDuckGo are male, accounting for 73% of all users.
Most of the traffic comes from English-speaking countries (USA, UK, and Canada).
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Bing
Founded: 2009
Headquarters: USA
Backend ownership: Bing
Monthly users: 1 billion
Launched and operated by Microsoft, Bing has always been one of the most recognizable search engines worldwide. Currently, Bing provides its users with a wide range of search services, including web, image, maps, and video. One of the biggest advantages of Microsoft Bing is its reward program – user is given points every time they search.
Those points can be redeemed by making purchases in places like Amazon, Burger King, and Starbucks.
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Yahoo!
Founded: 1994
Headquarters: USA
Backend ownership: Bing
Monthly users: 700 million
In the pre-Google era, Yahoo! was the search engine most internet users go to daily. This is a portal, meaning people use it not only to search for stuff but also to read the news. Due to some problems with compromised data records, this company has been facing decreasing customer satisfaction in the USA.
This, however, doesn’t discourage over 700 million users living in Asia from looking up information on Yahoo! monthly. Actually, this search engine gets impressively high traffic from people living in Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
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Baidu
Founded: 2000
Headquarters: China
Backend ownership: Baidu
Monthly users: 648 million
Baidu is the go-to search engine for Chinese people. Its popularity in this country is so huge that Baidu is said to be “the Chinese Google.” Even though it can be accessed from all corners of the world, this search engine focuses solely on satisfying the search intent of people living in China.
Interestingly, every search result is expressed in Mandarin, even if a query is in English. Baidu keeps expanding its company by introducing new products and services, including those powered by AI.
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Yandex
Founded: 2000
Headquarters: Russia
Backend ownership: Yandex
Monthly users: 104 million
Like Yahoo!, the homepage of Yandex offers definitely more than just a search bar. Being one of the most popular websites in Russia, this portal brings together numerous built-ins such as games, images, videos, mail, and maps. This means that Yandex is more than just a search engine – it’s a web-based platform combining various types of media.
Since this browser is designed primarily for the Russian audience, it has the best capabilities to pull out relevant search results written in Cyrillic.
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Ecosia
Founded: 2009
Headquarters: Germany
Backend ownership: Bing
Monthly users: 15 million
This search engine comes into existence to fight back against the climate crisis with every search. Ecosia cares for users’ privacy and the environment. It exhibits the latter by using 80% of its income to plant trees all around the world.
Transparency seems to be one of Ecosia’s main priorities, therefore the company publishes monthly financial reports and tree-planting proofs. Undoubtedly, Ecosia is marketed as a search engine created for people who value sustainability and love nature.
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Google Scholar
Founded: 2004
Headquarters: USA
Backend ownership: Google
The main characteristic feature of this search engine is the database it uses to display search results – it looks through conference and legal papers, academic books, and all sorts of academic resources. Most documents found on Google Scholar are free, however, it may happen that once a user is directed to a publisher page (which is pretty common), they may be asked to pay for access to the full article.
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Internet Archive
Founded:1996
Headquarters: USA
Backend ownership: own collection of uploaded media
Truth be told, Internet Archive is less of a search engine per se, but more of a massive online library storing countless numbers of websites, software, books, and other types of documented material. Unlike other search engines, its main source of income isn’t generated by ads, but rather by donations and payments that have to be made to access certain items.
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How to Choose the Best Search Engine
As we settled earlier, the best search engine is basically the search engine your target audience uses, which basically comes down to their preferences, location, and sometimes even beliefs.
Let’s recap briefly what we’ve found out so far:
- The best search engine for those valuing privacy is probably DuckDuckGo.
- The best search engine for those speaking Mandarin and living in China is probably Baidu.
- The best search engine for those who care for the environment and make sustainable choices is probably Ecosia.
- The best search engine for those who do research or want to access scientific data is probably Google Scholar and Internet Archive.
- The best search engine for those who like being rewarded for their activities (collecting points) and/or expressing a dose of antipathy to Google is probably Bing.
- The best search engine for those living in Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Hong Kong is probably Yahoo! – provided they are reluctant to use Google, of course.
- The best search engine for those living in Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, as well as those using the Cyrillic alphabet, is probably Yandex.
- The best search engine for the rest of internet users is Google.
Once again, the above list is just a very general summary of the search engines your target audience can be reached. Treat it as the starting point of your market research.
The Best Search Engine in 2023 – The Takeaway
Whenever you need to learn something, check something out, or buy something online, you probably grab your phone and open either Chrome or Safari whose search results are powered by Google.
That’s totally normal for you, however, are you sure your prospects use the same search engine as you?
To help your online business thrive, you need to make your products and services available in the same places your audience is. Therefore, knowing the characteristic features of Google’s alternatives is a wise thing to do for every online business owner.
This applies especially to the e-commerce business owners who think about doing International SEO, trying to rank for certain counties and/or among certain audiences.
The good news is that all search engines’ main goal is to bring their users the most relevant results. This means that you need to:
- create quality content
- use white-hat SEO
- polish the elements comprising technical SEO
- make sure your website accessibility is at the highest level
- and, optionally, pick the right cloud hosting for your website
as these elements help rank your website well on top search engines. This in turn opens new opportunities to gain more traffic.
Naturally, if you happen to need help with any of the above, we will be more than happy to assist you – just send us a short message and we will reach back to you shortly.
In closing, let me leave you with one thought, or rather a piece of advice, which is…
Think beyond Google.
This is an update of an article published in 2019.