Often, marketers tend to focus their efforts on Google in order to drive traffic. This is understandable considering that Google is undoubtedly the most popular Search Engine, holding over 84% of the search market share.
It’s important to acknowledge that due to its popularity, Google also presents the greatest challenge when it comes to achieving high rankings. By solely concentrating on Google, you may be overlooking valuable opportunities for traffic from other search engines.
In this discussion, we will explore the top 11 search engines worldwide, which will allow you to explore additional potential sources of traffic during your next SEO meeting.
Note: To compile our list, we have analyzed the global market share of search engines on both desktop and mobile platforms from April 2022 to April 2023.
Top Search Engines
- Bing
- Yahoo!
- Yandex
- DuckDuckGo
- Baidu
- Ask.com
- Naver
- Ecosia
- AOL
- Internet Archive
1. Google
With a staggering 84% share of the search market, Google undeniably reigns supreme as the most popular search engine. Furthermore, Google captures nearly 95% of mobile traffic.
Given its massive user base, Google is an attractive option for capturing organic and paid search traffic. However, the downside is the intense competition for the same traffic. Additionally, Google’s algorithm incorporates features like featured snippets, which aim to fulfill users’ needs directly on Google, potentially reducing the click-through rates to websites.
2. Bing
Bing, Google’s main contender, accounts for 7% of desktop searches in the United States, but only 1.5% of mobile searches. Yahoo, the third-largest search engine in the U.S., is powered by Bing.
Bing’s search pages bear a striking resemblance to Google’s, featuring similar categories and a white background with blue links and green URLs. In addition to its search functionality, Bing offers a program called “Rewards,” where users can earn points by searching or shopping on the engine, which can be redeemed for gift cards and charitable donations.
3. Yahoo!
Yahoo! may not have the sleekest search engine interface, but it still holds the third spot on our list, with just over 2% of the global market share.
Powered by Bing, Yahoo! delivers search results that are remarkably similar to those of Bing. However, it remains an important search engine in its own right, boasting over 600 million monthly users worldwide.
4. Yandex
Yandex, the Russian search engine, commands approximately 2% of the global market share. However, it holds the top spot as the most widely used search engine in Russia, with Google in second place. If you have global business interests and wish to target Russian customers, there are some key considerations.
Yandex offers various quality indicators or badges that can accompany search results, with the site quality index (SQI) being one of the most prominent, which indicates the usefulness of your site to users.
Similar to Google, Yandex takes into account users’ local intent and displays region-dependent results. To account for this, you will need to configure the site region using Yandex’s webmaster tools.
5. DuckDuckGo
For those concerned about targeted ads or the storage of search data, DuckDuckGo provides a viable alternative. It positions itself as “The search engine that doesn’t track you.”
DuckDuckGo does not track, collect, or store any user information, providing a safe search experience without being bombarded by personalized ads. While ads are still present on DuckDuckGo, they are not tailored to individual users.
With nearly 94 million daily direct searches as of 2022, DuckDuckGo is gradually gaining traction in the search market. Its clean interface and single search page make navigation easier compared to other search engines.
6. Baidu
Baidu, China’s largest search engine, commands over 40% of the Chinese search market. Its interface resembles that of Google (except for the Mandarin language), featuring a white background, blue links, and green URLs. Like Google, Baidu aims to incorporate more rich features in its search engine results pages (SERPs).
If you aim to appeal to the Asian market, Baidu is a search engine worth considering. However, it’s worth noting that Baidu censors certain images and blocks pro-democracy websites. When comparing search results, Google provides a more comprehensive list of results.
7. Ask.com
Formerly known as Ask Jeeves, Ask.com is a search engine designed to answer questions. According to Ask.com, its mission is to enable curious individuals to find the information they need.
Ask.com’s interface bears similarities to Yahoo’s interface. Unlike Yahoo, however, which relies on Bing, Ask.com functions as its own standalone search engine. The majority of Ask.com’s traffic originates from users in the United States, accounting for 53% of its total traffic.
8. Naver
Naver, South Korea’s second most popular search engine, captures nearly 34% of the search engine market share. Naver’s interface is entirely in Korean, lacking an English version of the website.
Naver goes beyond being a simple search engine, offering users access to news content, search suggestions, and more. It operates as a localized search engine, meaning it does not crawl and index the entire Internet. If you are targeting the South Korean market, ensure that your SEO aligns with Naver’s criteria.
9. Ecosia
Ecosia is recognized as “the search engine that plants trees.” With each search conducted through Ecosia’s webpage or its free browser extension, the company uses the generated profit to plant trees in vulnerable areas. To date, Ecosia has funded the planting of 170 million trees.
While Ecosia is gaining popularity worldwide, it enjoys particular success in Germany, where the company is headquartered. Globally, Ecosia has captured 0.11% of the search engine market share. Similar to Yahoo!, Ecosia relies on Bing for its search results.
10. AOL
AOL, once known as America Online, functions as both an online media company and a search engine. Its website interface features a search bar alongside national news articles, local news, and weather updates.
The majority of AOL’s traffic originates from the United States, accounting for 85.7% of its total traffic.
11. Internet Archive
Internet Archive stands as a unique type of search engine. As the name implies, it serves as a free archive of books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
Rather than focusing on ranking within this search engine, users can create a free account and upload their own content to the archives.
Internet Archive’s audience is primarily located in the United States, although the search engine is growing in popularity in other countries such as Great Britain and India.
Emerging Search Engine Trends
In the near future, Ahrefs may introduce a new competitor to the top search engines, as they have announced their work on developing their own search engine.
Currently in beta, called Yep, this search engine differentiates itself by sharing 90% of its ad revenue with content creators. Yep aims to incentivize more individuals to share their knowledge and high-quality content.
Google consistently prioritizes good content, as evidenced by updates like the 2022 Helpful Content Update.
Frost highlights that Google’s update sends a clear signal favoring content written by humans over content generated by computers, which is ironic given that most search engine results pages (SERPs) are algorithmically generated.
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