The best search engines in the world

These days, it can be effortless to search for any information. Documentaries and libraries are not as popular now as they used to be. It is much easier and faster to find everything you need on Google, which has been the leading search engine for quite some time.

A search engine is a special system that, responding through a web interface to a user’s query, displays a list of sources sorted according to relevance to that query, thus helping the user to find the information they need. To find what you need, you enter your query in the search box. The system then searches and sorts the documents based on keywords. During this process, a search results page is generated. The output includes not only text content, but also photos, videos and audio files.

The first full-fledged search engine, WebCrawler, appeared in 1994. It indexed not only page titles or file names, but also their contents. Three years later, in 1997, the most popular search engine, Google, appeared.

What types of search engines are there

• Search Engines. A crawler (robot) traverses the web, an index holds a large archive of duplicate Internet pages, and software scans the search results. Many current search engines belong to this type.
• Internet resource directories. This type of search engine gets a list of web pages. Catalogs contain the address, title and a short description of the web resource. Their advantage is in the manual verification of sites, which, in turn, affects the quality of content. And it will be higher than the results that are automatically processed by the first type of search engines.
• Hybrid search engines. These are systems that are under human control. These include Google and Yahoo! (contain two types of search engines).
• Multithreaded systems (metasystems). They do not have a search index or their own database. They create output by re-ranking other platforms. This type of search engine was considered useful when they did not yet have their own unique address and were not as smart as they are now.

Stages of search engines

Each search engine has its own algorithm of work and is secret. But the very process of searching for the necessary information is divided into 3 stages:

1. Scanning. In order for a search engine to find the necessary information among the huge number of sites, the site must be known to it. Thanks to a special robot – crawler, the search engine follows the links, covering billions of pages in the network, saves and passes on indexing.
2. Indexing. At this stage, a detailed analysis of all uploaded pages is carried out. Then data is added to the search engine database about what information is contained on the pages found. Further, all this data is studied and structured.
3. Ranking. When a user enters a query into the search box, the program selects all pages that are related to that query. They pass through the algorithms, and as a result we see a list of sites in some order. The sites that appear at the top of the list are better at answering the user’s query.

Ranking of the best search engines in the world

Below we will look at the most popular search engines and talk about them in more detail.

1st place: Google

The name “Google” comes from the English word “googol”. Google is a mathematical concept meaning 1 with 100 zeros.

It is the most visited website in the world. It is so popular that it outperforms other search engines by a factor of ten, with a current market share of 88%.

Google for any perfect search will give you the best results. There are at least 5 billion pages in the engine’s index. You can search for anything you want and still get the best results, including news, images, videos, social media topics and even calculations.

Now Google is not just a search engine. The company has long outgrown that level, creating a whole suite of programs: search, email client, calls, video calling, maps, translator. Google also owns YouTube, has developed a line of smartphones and laptops and, moreover, has created unmanned cars.

The king of search platforms is regularly busy updating search results pages by recommending a list of useful content formats such as Google Featured Snippets. This is a block with quick answers, displayed in a separate window and located at position zero of the search results.

Web site: google.com

2nd place: Microsoft Bing

It is a search engine with a 6% market share. Bing is Microsoft’s fourth attempt at creating a search engine. There was MSN in 1998, Windows Live in 2006, then Live Search in 2007, and then it was renamed Bing in 2007. And already in 2020 it was renamed again to the Microsoft Bing we know.

Just like Google, this platform filters search results by tabs such as news, images, videos, maps. The functions are similar too: there is a translator and a service for placing and managing ads. But you can always see beautiful pictures on its main page.

The main difference of the search engine is its integration into the Microsoft Office suite. This makes it possible to search for information while in the application. Microsoft Bing is useful for website owners and SEO specialists who want to rank in the engine, because many international specialists and companies focus on Google, and therefore the competition in Bing is less. Therefore, SEO and advertising here deserve attention.

Web site: bing.com

3rd place: Yahoo!

Yahoo! was one of the most popular in the late 1990s, as it launched a successful Internet search engine in 1994 and added online portals to its domain.

The market share of this search engine is 2.5%. Its difference from other search engines is that it brings popular and reliable sites to the top. This is one of the reasons why new companies do not choose Yahoo Search: it is harder to get to the first page of the output here.

The undeniable plus of Yahoo! is a convenient home page. It has various functions and search categories: mail, news, finance, weather. But the results pages look typical and do not differ much from Google.

Web site: yahoo.com

4th place: Baidu

It is the largest search engine in China with 90% of its market share. The company was founded in 2000 and is one of the largest in the world in the field of Internet services and artificial intelligence, but outside the country it has almost no influence.

Baidu is available exclusively in Chinese, although you can visit it from anywhere on the planet. It is designed to index and rank sites only in that language, which is why it has become the most popular in China. In addition to search, the web service also offers Internet TV, news, its own antivirus and actively and regularly invests in artificial intelligence research.

Baidu copies Google in many ways, although government censorship authorities constantly block it, as China operates the world’s most sophisticated and largest internet censorship project. The rules of this search engine are simple but strict. For example, if the site is not adapted for a mobile version, the program will cope with this on its own, but you will lose some of the content.

Web site: baidu.com

5th place: DuckDuckGo

This search engine ensures user privacy. It does not track your movements, store search queries, or stalk you with advertisements. This is what sets it apart from other search engines, and means that the results that appear are not biased. The relevancy of the results is quite high, but the downside is that there is no geolocation link, and consequently both UK and US sites are at the top.

The search engine has fewer features than Google. But every attempt by competitors to obtain user data is immediately blocked. Browser history is saved, but Google doesn’t get it. You can also turn on safe search at any time to avoid inappropriate content.

Web site: duckduckgo.com

6th place: Ask

This search engine was designed as a service that would simply answer questions. It does not notice forums and offers only informational sites. In the past, the results in all languages of the world were displayed, but now this platform is practically not used.

The system searches not only by keywords, but also interacts with synonyms. But the disadvantage is that the top of the output may contain links to other searches.

On the Ask homepage, besides the search bar, you can navigate to categories like TV and movies, news, culture and lifestyle.

Web site: ask.com

7th place: Naver

It is the most popular search engine in South Korea and was developed in 1999. Naver provides many other services besides search. For example, e-mail, a web news portal, an encyclopedia and a children’s search engine.

The site is quite well adapted to work in other languages. Only reliable sources appear in the results. The platform is regularly refined and improved. It even occasionally overtakes global systems, for example, Naver’s universal search appeared earlier than Google’s.

Web site: naver.com

8th place: AOL

AOL is short for “America Online.” The company began operations in 1985. Until the late 1990s, it was at the peak of popularity, but after several hacker attacks, there was a large leak of user data. Along with the data went the trust in AOL.

The system has a modest interface, similar queries are on the right side. The search engine has a secure search option and is aimed at searching pictures, videos and sites. You will see the sites with the most visitors first in the output, using Yahoo Search and YouTube results.

The platform focuses on reliable information sites, but unfortunately does not provide full coverage of the results.

Web site: aol.com

9th place: Seznam

The company appeared in 1996. This search engine is quite popular in the Czech Republic. It was the main one before Google appeared, and now it occupies a fourth part of the national market.

In addition to searching by sites, videos and images, it offers searches by products, maps and organizations. But the results are mostly aimed at Czech users, so for audiences from other countries they may not be relevant.

Seznam has a portal with a variety of news, weather, maps, dictionary, TV program, real estate information and much more. A definite plus is its focus on local interests, making it indispensable for its target audience.

Website: seznam.cz

10th place: Ecosia

The search engine was developed in Germany. The peculiarity of the company is that it gives 80% of its income to non-profit organizations that plant trees around the world. So if you want to do something good, use Ecosia’s search engine, because every search increases their contribution to saving the planet.

The pros of the platform include the fact that it deletes your logs, encodes search queries, and doesn’t sell personal data in regards to your privacy.

The minuses include the small presence of proprietary technologies. And, most likely, the system uses Microsoft Bing to work “behind the scenes”.

Web site: ecosia.org

To summarize

In this article, we looked at what search engines there are besides Google. Undoubtedly, it is still the champion, but there are niches in which other search engines deserve your attention. Before you opt for any search engine from the list, study in detail all its positive and negative sides. Our recommendation – do not fall for the pleasant interface only, be sure to pay attention to the issue of security.

Olha Tyshchenko

Editor

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