It is no secret that Google owns the digital world revolving around search queries, but there are other promising options available to allow businesses to rank for, and use the platform to find optimal results.
As businesses are fighting for their position in the SERP results with relentless effort, they may be missing out on many vital options available in the web world. While some search engines have played the ball game since the beginning of the digital era, some have established their presence, either locally or conceptually.
We will be exploring the top search engines, so you can discuss these potential traffic sources in your marketing plan.
Let’s start with the obvious winner if this were a game.
The popularity of Google as a search engine is much larger than all of the search engines combined. Google constitutes as much as 92.18% of the world’s search engine market share. It also continues to power Ask, the sixth most popular search engine.
What made Google the most favored search engine in the world? Although Google started much later than the first at scene in search engines, they quickly grew to be people’s favorites by holding a user-centric approach and ensuring that they receive the most accurate results.
Years down the lane, Google’s ranking algorithm continues to leverage unique avenues to enrich the user experience with the help of machine learning and continues to be the most reliable way to find the result corresponding to the user’s requirement.
2. Bing
Bing, the second largest search engine, holds a market share of 8.04% of the landscape.
Though the number is minuscule compared to Google, Bing has managed to maintain a respectable share in many parts of the world.
Similar to Google, Bing offers different formats of content for the users while the home page always welcomes the user with stunning images from around the world.
Operated by Microsoft, Bing originates from the previous search engines of the Juggernaut, like MSN and Windows Live Search, it is also the superpower behind Yahoo.
With a search volume of Bing is nearly 1.3 billion visits per month and a relatively less competent scenario, dipping your toes into Bing’s advertising and SEO is certainly worth considering.
3. Baidu
Let’s meet Baidu, the third-largest search engine with a market share of 7.34%. Although the number seems small on a global scale, Baidu has the dominant hand in China with 74%, while Google only has managed a 2% market share in the Asian Country.
With AI and Internet Service Company at the core of Baidu, they provide a localized approach to the web world in China. The search engine favors locally built websites around Chinese over others.
It is worth noting that China has the most sophisticated censored operation online, also popularly mocked as the Great Firewall of China. If your target audience is present in China, it is safe to say that you are going to have to comply and follow several sets of guidelines to reach them.
4. Yahoo!
The fourth position of the search engine relay goes to Yet Another Hierarchical Organized Oracle, shortly known as Yahoo, with a market share of 3.39%
It is often said that the first on the scene makes a mark with the audience’s attention and conduciveness. The theory was proven wrong with Yahoo. Though, they had a great run in the initial years, which involved turning down an offer from Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin to sell Google.
After being propelled to a value of 125 billion dollars in 2000, things started going downhill for Yahoo. Yahoo mail lost the game to Gmail, Flickr was replaced by Instagram, and Yahoo Answers was pushed aside by Quora.
Other Worthy Mentions –
DuckDuckGo
Despite Google’s popularity, it has always been at the fore center of criticism for tracking, monitoring, and collecting reams of data from the users. DuckDuckGo, on the other hand, is all about privacy.
If you feel uneasy about data harvesting by popular search engines, not to mention the targeted advertising, DuckDuckGo serves as a promising alternative. After all, their tagline is Privacy, Simplified.
Wolfram Alpha
For all the inquisitive minds & researchers, Wolfram Alpha is a unique search engine focused on computing answers and imparting knowledge to users. It is powered by the vast store of expert-level knowledge and algorithms to answer questions, conduct analysis and generate reports.
The list is by no means complete as many promising search engines turning up to serve the unique requirements of the users. But as far as the top two positions are concerned, it is going to take a lot of consistent effort by others to push Google and Bing aside.
