Search engines are one of the most useful and powerful tools on the internet today. Using algorithms, databases, and
Since the resulting list is ordered, it stands to reason that there are certain principles guiding how links are ordered on that list, and this system is particularly important to consider for individuals trying to generate more traffic for their website or ecommerce business.
In a nutshell, links appear higher in a search engine’s results page based on the number of other pages linking to them, the quality of the pages doing the linking, and the number and position of links on the linking page. If many
If you’re interested in learning more about the web’s best search engines, keep reading! In this article, we’ll cover internet search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo by digging into their history, capabilities, and key statistics. We’ll even cover some search engines other than Google that you might not be as familiar with, like Baidu and Yandex. Since all of these search engines are free to use, you can try out each one and decide for yourself which search engine you think is best.
How many times have you heard someone say just Google it? Google is so ubiquitous that it is one of the few companies whose name has been adopted into modern parlance as a verb. In 2006, Google was added to the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb meaning to use the Google search engine to find information on the internet.
Did you know that the name Google was created by intentionally misspelling googol, a mathematical term that represents the number one followed by
Page and Brin first launched a search engine called BackRub on Stanford University’s private network in August of 1996. In 1998, the pair changed the name to Google and incorporated because they realized that their search engine would become more useful as the internet continued to grow.
Eric Schmidt joined Google as its CEO in 2001 and guided the company through the acquisition of YouTube and the development of features like Google Docs and Gmail.
By 2004, Google had risen to a high level of profitability due to its capability for web advertising, and the company went public with stock shares priced at
Today, Google holds a staggering 85 percent of the worldwide market share. This means
Try to Google Google. Sounds weird.
One downside of Google is the quantity of information it collects about its users. Experts have raised privacy concerns over Google’s amassing of user data, which it also shares with
Bing
When thinking about search engines other than Google, Bing or Yahoo are typically the search engines that come to
Bing is a search engine that was launched in 2009 by Microsoft. While Microsoft previously had a search engine called Live Search, it was not able to keep up with competitors Google and Yahoo!. Bing was created to offer an enhanced search engine that could potentially close the gap between Microsoft and other search engine creators.
Bing was marketed as a decision engine, a search engine designed to display more information in its results list than its competitors. Bing’s search engine provided more detailed link previews, suggested alternate searches, and originally showed a user’s search history on the left side of the page.
In some cases, Bing was able to display enough information on the results page to answer your question, which meant you wouldn’t have to click through a number of links to get the answers you needed.
Today, Bing is worth four billion dollars and sees
For example, Bing’s visual and video search options allow users greater flexibility and produce more accurate results. When searching for images, Bing allows users to find similar images to something you’ve uploaded, dragged from your desktop, or even snapped a picture with your phone or webcam. They also have more prompts to explore images, which can help you find visuals that you didn’t know how to search for.
Well, that’s a lot of info here!
Bing’s video search is well organized, allowing users to scroll horizontally through thumbnails. Once you’ve found the video you want, Bing’s search engine allows you to play the video in
Yahoo!
The exclamation point in Yahoo!’s name isn’t the only thing to get excited about when it comes to this internet search engine. Yahoo! Comes in a percentage point below Bing with a market share of 2.5 percent and roughly
Like Google, Yahoo! was founded at Stanford University. Jerry Yang and David Filo developed the search engine in 1994, originally calling it Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web. As opposed to a searchable database, the Guide was an organized directory of websites.
Yang and Filo soon realized that brevity was an important factor to consider when naming a website and utilizing the internet, so they shortened their site’s name to Yahoo!, which was a
Yahoo!’s market value was at an
In 2009, Yahoo! formed a deal with Microsoft to use Bing to power the search engine on its portal site. While this deal lapsed for a period of time, as of October 2019 Yahoo! is once again powered by Bing. While still functionally a search engine, what this means is that Yahoo! is technically a portal site, which delivers Bing’s search engine results to users.
Yahoo! It’s yahoo! Or is it?
Today, Yahoo! has an estimated net worth of five billion dollars. One of their most popular features is their news aggregating portal, which ranked ninth in online traffic for a news and media site. When it comes to deciding the best internet search engine, Yahoo! might not be most people’s top choice, but the site still holds onto a large share of the market and offers other helpful features that users enjoy.
Yandex
While we’ve been discussing internet search engines owned by US based companies, there are also search engines popular in countries outside of the US that control a significant portion of the worldwide market share. Coming in at 1.27 percent is the Russian search engine Yandex. While this may seem like a small portion of the worldwide market, Yandex is the leading search engine within Russia, with sixty to seventy million visits every day. Yandex often rivals and exceeds Google as the best search engine in Russia, and the site is accessible to US users as well.
Yandex was created by Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich. The name, like Yahoo!, is a
Like Google, Yandex offers email services, online advertising, a maps service, data management, and analytics. Yandex has even partnered with Uber to create Yandex.Taxi. Today, the company is valued at nearly
In Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Ukraine, and several other countries, Yandex is Google’s primary competitor, typically occupying the second place position in terms of market shares. This may be due to a large number of
Wow, that’s a lot of free space! You won’t see this in other search engines.
What gives Yandex an edge, particularly in Russia, is that the site was designed for Russian language and grammar. Russian nouns are gendered and there are other grammatical nuances that alter the meaning of a word or phrase, which Google cannot interpret as readily as a search engine designed specifically for the language.
For Russian speaking individuals, or those internet users looking to access a more global search engine, Yandex is likely the best search engine available.
Baidu
Rounding out our list is a search engine based in China. Baidu’s search engine currently controls around 1 percent of the global market shares. Baidu was incorporated by Robin Li and Eric Xu in 2000 and is one of the world’s largest AI and internet companies. In China, Baidu controls over 75 percent of the market share and attracts more than
The search engine’s name can be translated to mean a hundred times or countless times and is derived from a quote from the last line of Xin Qiji’s classical poem Green Jade Table in the Lantern Festival.
The company offers the internet search engine, a maps service, and is involved in a number of other AI technologies, including a robocar concept capable of Level Five autonomous driving. While users in China make up the lion’s share of Baidu’s search engine traffic, US and Japanese users make up the second and third highest rates of traffic.
Just… not for everyone.
While Baidu may not be the search engine of choice for many US users, it’s still an important global company and search engine with a considerable market share and a net worth of over
The Best Search Engines
What makes the best search engine? You could argue that the best internet search engine has the highest number of users, the fastest time to produce results, the largest database of information, or the greatest ease of use. Ultimately, the best search engine is the one that meets your specific needs.
Based on numbers alone, Google comes out ahead as the top search engine, and there are certainly good reasons for its widespread use. Any information you’re interested in can be found with a few taps of your keys, and Google easily links to your favorite sites (and sites you didn’t even know were out there).
But other search engines offer similar capabilities and may have winning features like a sleeker look, better image search, or greater compatibility with the language you speak.
It’s also worth noting that there are great search engines out there that didn’t make this list. Search engines like DuckDuckGo with smaller market shares attract users by promising high levels of privacy and data protection. Ecosia donates the majority of its profits to planting trees, so every search there helps the environment.
The great thing about search engines is that you can research the best search engines while using the search engines you’re researching! With every search and every click, you’re getting a feel for the best search engine and can make an informed decision about which internet search engine is right for you.
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