Many SEOs are dismissive of these other search engines. We’re not. Part of SEO is thinking about what search marketing will look like years from now and ensuring clients are in a strong position to keep growing well into the future. So while we are here to make you appear as high up as possible on Google’s search engine results pages, we pay similar attention to Google search alternatives.
Curious about your business’s presence on other search engines, or thinking about trying an alternative to Google search yourself? Get a sense of what these search engines are like in The Stellastra Effect’s in-depth guide to the wide world of search engines outside the Big G.
1. Bing
- More than 13 billion global searches per month
- Best for: Image search, AI-powered searches
Launched in 2009, Microsoft’s Bing maintains the second largest market share, both in the U.S. and globally, of all search engines behind Google. With 100 million active daily users, Bing’s user experience mirrors Google’s in many ways, as you can filter searches by images, shopping, news, or maps. Unlike Google’s home page, you’ll also see a round-up of trending news stories just below the search bar. And Bing especially stands out for its quality over quantity approach to hi-res image results.
How does Bing work?
It all starts with the “Bingbot,” the tool used to crawl the web for pages that match a user’s search terms. After the Bingbot adds these webpages to Bing’s index of third-party sites, their rich algorithms generate and rank search results based on several criteria, including relevance, freshness, quality and credibility, location, user engagement, and page load speed.
Bing features
The following features are some of the biggest draws Bing has to offer:
- Copilot: When searching through Bing, you’ll have the option to use Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered AI search bot. Copilot considers your previous searches before summarizing your results. Unlike Google, though, you won’t see Copilot summaries at the top of a typical search results page, if you’d rather opt out of AI.
- Visual and voice search: You’re not limited to text-only searches with Bing. Search using voice commands or upload an image to Bing’s visual search for help with shopping, or identifying a location. (This is a feature on Google, too.)
- InPrivate browsing: Similar to Google’s Incognito mode, Bing’s InPrivate browsing automatically clears your search history, downloads, cached files, and cookies.
2. DuckDuckGo
- More than 3 billion monthly searches globally
- Best for: User privacy
As users become increasingly (and justifiably) concerned about what’s happening with their search data, DuckDuckGo is emerging as a leader in search engine privacy. Founded in 2008 by entrepreneur Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo promises not to collect or share any personal information. Today, DuckDuckGo accounts for about 2.11% of the U.S. search engine market share.
While you may not get the extensive level of results as you would using Google or Bing, you’ll still receive relevant results and have the option to filter by news, image, or shopping searches. The maps feature, powered by Apple, is user-friendly. Local business results show information pulled from Yelp. The image search includes filters like image size, type, and color.
How does DuckDuckGo work?
DuckDuckGo’s web crawler reviews a combination traditional and crowd-sourced websites to get you relevant search results. All search requests are proxied through their own servers, anonymizing every query so your IP address and other personal information are never shared with DuckDuckGo’s third-party partners.
DuckDuckGo features
DuckDuckGo is available as a standalone browser or as a Google Chrome extension. No matter how you choose to access DuckDuckGo, you’ll get access to features such as:
- Instant Answers: Most search results will feature Instant Answers, or summaries from reputable sources, ranging from trusted sites like TripAdvisor to crowd-sourced platforms such as Wikipedia. With film searches, for example, you’ll see a movie’s synopsis along with its Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB ratings.
- Duck.ai: DuckDuckGo’s AI chatbot gives you access to multiple AI models, including GPT-4o mini and open-source Llama 3.3. Open a chat directly from the search results page and enjoy peace of mind knowing that your answers won’t be used at all in training Duck.ai. If you want to opt out of all AI use, you can choose to see AI-based results often, sometimes, on-demand, or never.
- Bangs: Know exactly which site you’re hoping to see results from? This shortcut feature is the quickest route to the best recipes on Pinterest or news on LinkedIn. The one drawback with using DuckDuckGo’s Bangs is you aren’t guaranteed the same private browsing experience, as the websites you shortcut to may be collecting your data.
3. Yahoo
- Over 700 million global monthly visitors
- Best for: News and finance
Yahoo’s first search directory was launched in 1994. It grew from a simple search tool that only scanned the Yahoo Directory, to a Google partner in 2004, and eventually to one of Google’s biggest rivals. While Yahoo may not be the search giant it once was, it accounts for around 2.54% of the U.S. search engine market share And you’ll still get pretty robust results from its search engine.
Content aggregation remains one of Yahoo’s greatest strengths, as you’ll see a summary of relevant links, trending news stories, and videos on Yahoo’s search results pages. Yahoo Finance also offers some of the most detailed answers, with features that include real-time market updates and personal finance tools.
How does Yahoo work?
Yahoo’s search engine is powered by Bing. Their own web crawler was replaced with the Microsoft search engine in 2009, although Yahoo Search was briefly powered by Google from 2015 until 2018. In short: the best practices for Bing translate to Yahoo Search.
Yahoo features
When you use Yahoo Search, you’ll get access to these tools:
- Extensive browsing filters: Yahoo may offer the most detailed categorical browsing options. Want to search for your favorite football team? Search under the Sports category, or narrow down even further by NFL or college football.
- Yahoo Shopping: This commerce tool, powered through Price Grabber, is a one-stop shop when you want to price compare across thousands of vendors and products.
- SearchScan: This add-on feature alerts you of potentially dangerous websites that might put you at risk of viruses or spyware installation.
4. ChatGPT Search
- Estimated 5 million monthly searches
- Best for: Quickly summarizing results
Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have become known for their capabilities as writing assistants, but millions are using artificial intelligence tools as their primary search engine. Although ChatGPT only accounted for 1.5% of the global search engine market share, in the second half of 2024, its overall traffic rose 182% total throughout 2024. That number is likely to grow further as ChatGPT takes concentrated efforts toward refining its search function.
In November 2024, ChatGPT officially launched ChatGPT Search, integrating the previous SearchGPT platform. Accessible to ChatGPT Plus and Team users, the enhanced search engine is designed to give you relevant search results that consider the full context of your search query. Answers are summarized with links back to the original content source, and you can ask context-based follow-up questions. While ChatGPT claims it doesn’t sell your data, your responses are saved to further train the AI model.
It’s important to remember that ChatGPT Search and similar search engines run by other LLMs, like Grok, are not immune to significant problems. Findings from the Columbia Journalism Review found that LLM tend to be “confidently incorrect” in their answers, especially when it does not have the answers you’re seeking. We recommend that you proceed with caution, and read all results with a critical eye, when using ChatGPT Search.
How does ChatGPT Search work?
ChatGPT Search, powered by OpenAi’s GPT‑4o, scours various third-party search providers and direct partners to provide answers to user queries. Much of ChatGPT Search’s functionality is based on previous feedback from SearchGPT users.
ChatGPT Search features
When using ChatGPT Search you’ll find:
- Real-time results: ChatGPT Search prioritizes timely websites and news sources.
- Multiple search page views: You’ll have different options for results page formats, such as product lists with an image for each product, or a fully text-based list underneath an image carousel.
- Voice-enabled search: Conduct your search without typing anything in. Start a voice chat with your search query and you’ll receive an audio response.
5. Perplexity.ai
- 10 million monthly users
- Best for: Answers to complex questions
The AI-driven search engine was founded in 2022 by four San Francisco engineers, with 16% of its current user base made up of U.S. searchers. The user experience is somewhat of a mix between using an LLM like ChatGPT and a traditional search engine like Google and Bing. You’ll get an AI-text summary, along with a carousel of relevant links, and an embedded map for local searches.
How does Perplexity.ai work?
In addition to traditional web crawling, Perplexity uses multiple LLMs, including GPT-4 Omni and Claude 3, to understand the full context of your query. Each answer includes a footnote link to the original source.
Perplexity.ai features
Some of the benefits of using Perplexity include:
- Understandable summaries: The conversational LLM tools make Perplexity’s answers more accessible without sacrificing accuracy.
- Private file and image search: Users can perform searches by uploading images or files, but Perplexity states all uploads will remain private.
- Opt out of AI learning: While it takes an extra step, you can choose to abstain from having your search data used to train Perplexity’s AI model. You can do this by updating “AI Data Usage” in your Account Settings.
6. DeepSeek
- 33.7 million monthly users globally
- Best for: Summarizing complex educational topics
DeepSeek is a new player in the search engine realm. Owned by Chinese-based startup High-Flyer, DeepSeek’s AI chatbot was welcomed into the search world at the end of January 2025. While there’s minimal feedback available with such a new platform, users have said it’s about equivalent to using ChatGPT search — but for no cost. DeepSeek’s app got 16 million downloads in less than 20 days on the Apple store, so its growing popularity is sure to have an impact.
Thus far, DeepSeek seems to excel at answering especially complex questions, so it may be an especially useful resource to anyone with STEM-related queries. If privacy is your priority, though, note that DeepSeek’s privacy policies have yet to be released.
How does DeepSeek work?
Natural language processing is at the center of DeepSeek’s search engine. Responses are generated based on contextual analysis and semantic understanding, using an open-source framework. Every search you make influences your future search results, as DeepSeek is constantly learning from your queries.
Deepseek features
These are some of DeepSeek’s biggest highlights so far:
- Mixture-of-Experts (MOE) architecture: DeepSeek has more than 670 billion parameters to generate responses, but typically only uses 37 billion per task, so you get a more precise response.
- Educational tools: Since DeepSeek is always learning from the data you input, it tailors answers to your individual learning style, making it a potentially great tool for academic research.
- Code generation: Aside from its search capabilities, DeepSeek’s ability to synthesize complex data makes it ideal for complex tasks like creating and reviewing code.
7. Startpage
- Approximately a quarter billion global searches conducted per month
- Best for: Private searching with Google-like features
Startpage, which launched in 2006, claims to be the most private search engine in the world. When searching through the Netherlands-based Startpage, there’s no need to worry about cookie tracking or your IP address being saved.
You’ll find a lot of the same features as with Google, including image, news, and shopping search options. The one drawback is that Startpage doesn’t have its own maps feature. If you need directions, Startpage will let you choose between Mapquest, Google, and Bing, before redirecting you to one of those platforms’ maps pages.
How does Startpage work?
Part of why Startpage is so similar to Google is because its main function is to provide actual Google search results. This means that Startpage and Google’s best practices for search visibility are the same in many respects. The difference is that everything is privatized through Startpage’s encrypted connection, so you get all of the quality information without third-party tracking.
Startpage features
Need more reasons to try Startpage? Here are some of the search engine’s best features:
- Anonymous View: If you want to remain in private browsing when you venture to one of the websites in your Startpage results, simply click the mask icon to stay in Anonymous View.
- Automated pop-up blocking: Avoid distracting pop-ups by turning on “Block Pop-Up windows” in your Settings.
- Mobile App: Startpage’s mobile app, available in iOS and Android, allows you to clear your browsing history in one click.
8. Ecosia
- 20 million monthly users globally
- Best for: Environmentally-friendly searching
Mitigating its environmental impact is at the heart of Ecosia’s mission. Ecosia donates all profits to organizations taking action against climate change. More than €90 million has been donated since Christian Kroll launched the German-based search engine in 2009. The non-profit platform is also responsible for supporting the planting of more than 227 million trees to further offset tech’s negative impact on our planet.
Ecosia’s search results pages may not be as refined in terms of aesthetics as some of its competitors, but it should get you the information you need. You can filter search results by images, news, or videos, but the map function is a simple redirect to Google. They also promise strong privacy protections with encrypted searches. They only collect data to improve search results, not to deliver personalized ads. If you want to opt out of personalization altogether, Ecosia requests your consent before delivering personalized search results.
How does Ecosia work?
Ecosia is partially powered by Bing, and partially run with its own algorithm. Its revenue is generated through ads and sponsored results. When you click a sponsored link, the revenue earned goes toward Ecosia’s tree planting program.
Ecosia features
In addition to supporting environmental restoration, here’s what you get access to when you use Ecosia:
- Green search: Ecosia highlights environmentally conscious organizations by placing a leaf icon by those companies when they appear in your search results.
- AI Chat: Ecosia’s OpenAI chatbot can answer questions and help with simple tasks and content creation. Personal data isn’t shared with OpenAI, but your chats are stored in OpenAI’s database for up to 30 days.
- Privacy Panel: Take control of your cookie settings for every site you visit from your Ecosia search. You’ll also see warnings if any unsafe sites appear in your search results.
9. Brave
- 82.7 million global monthly users
- Best for: Superior private browsing
Brave has been in the browser game since 2018, but its search engine has been competing with sites like DuckDuckGo since 2022. With a user-first approach, Brave’s biggest priorities are blocking ads and protecting user privacy. Users can filter results by images, news, and video. The map function could be a little more user-friendly, though. You’ll see an embedded map (sort of like Google Business Profile) when you try a local search, such as “cafes near me,” but there’s no dedicated map search filter.
How does Brave work?
Brave search crawls the web with help of the Well Developed Project (WDP) program, which helps improve the quality of open-source projects. You can also choose to have Brave anonymously check Google’s responses to your query for comparison.
Brave features
These are some of the best reasons to use Brave:
- Goggles: Want to run a search based on your own rules? The Goggles feature lets you set your own parameters, so instead of just seeing Brave’s initial search results, you can re-rank according to your specific search needs.
- Integrated AI: When you ask Brave a specific question, you’ll receive a succinct AI-generated summary, with easily accessible footnotes so you can immediately check the original source.
- Community-driven ranking: AI-driven learning can only go so far in enhancing search rankings. Feedback from anonymous community members helps to improve Brave’s search results even more.
10. Yandex
- 3.8 billion monthly global users
- Best for: Translating searches into other languages
Russian-based Yandex makes up 2.4% of the global search engine market, accounting for 0.21% of U.S. searches and over 72% of the market in its home country. Launched in 2010, Yandex prioritizes local results and real-time search results, so you get the most current sites ranked first, whether it’s a breaking news story or viral social post. It doesn’t have the strongest reputation for privacy, however. Yandex collects personal information, which is particularly concerning in light of a data leak the company experienced in 2023.
How does Yandex work?
Yandex search functions primarily through three steps. Yandex’s agent, or search robot, crawls the web for relevant links. Search indexing bots then add information to Yandex’s index. When a user inputs a search query, it’s sent to one of Yandex’s servers, depending on which one is least busy. Every search is conducted in parallel with all of Yandex’s tools, including their news and image indexes, so your final results feature more than just a list of links.
Yandex features
With Yandex search, you’ll also be able to access the following features:
- Yandex Translate: Request translations instantly in more than 100 languages.
- Yandex Maps: You can access multiple Yandex Maps views, including satellite images and panoramic street views. While Yandex Maps function is renowned for its detailed maps of Russian locations, the feature is somewhat lacking when trying to search for nearby businesses in the U.S. (Stick with Google Business Profile for these, instead.)
- Virus protection: Yandex’s spam and virus protection automatically flags suspicious links in your search results.
How to optimize your website for search engines other than Google
There are a few nuances to consider when optimizing your website and content for non-Google search engines. For instance, ChatGPT Search prioritizes fluctuating keywords and current content, so you might need to refresh your content more often. Verifying your website with Bing is also critical to boosting your search rankings.
But for the most part, adhering to tried and true general SEO principles can help you shoot to the top of all search engine results pages. To optimize for multiple search engines, it’s key to:
- Ensure fast load time. The faster your website loads, the more likely users are to remain on your webpage. That positive experience makes people want to visit your website, and search engines can tell. Those investments in website speed are rewarded with better results for most queries.
- Design your website for a strong user experience. Search engines like DuckDuckGo prioritize easy-to-navigate websites on web and mobile. Google famously prioritizes mobile-first, but discounting the desktop experience in favor of mobile can negatively affect performance.
- Quality content is king. Plan a content calendar that publishes information that users want to read. Forcing bad, thin, or irrelevant content won’t help your site advance on any search engine, not just Google’s.
- Keep everything fresh. Regularly update your website and content to remain at the top of search rankings. In addition to refreshing outdated content, review your site for any broken links that might be hurting your SEO.
Search engines not used in the U.S.
While many users in the U.S. use internationally-owned search engines for their most pressing questions, not all international search engines reach an American audience. These are some of the most commonly used search engines around the world:
- Baidu: China’s top search engine accounts for 70% of all domestic searches and 0.81% of the global search engine market share. Known as “the Google of China” — Google does not operate in China due to government censorship — Baidu features include a maps function and Baidu Baike, a crowd-sourced encyclopedia, equivalent to Wikipedia.
- Swisscows: Based in Switzerland, Swisscows boasts strong privacy protections, as well as family-friendly search filters. Swisscows will never store users’ IP addresses, personal data, or search queries. Swisscows is available in the U.S., but it is not popular here.
- Qwant: This French search engine makes up the fourth-largest market share in Europe. Since 2019, their partnership with Bing and integrated AI services have made Qwant an even more vigorous search tool.
Who is Google’s biggest search engine competitor?
Bing is Google’s biggest competitor, both globally and in the U.S. Although Bing’s 3.4% of the market share pales in comparison to Google’s majority share, that may change as users adjust their habits. Notably, it’s unsurprising that the competitor best equipped to challenge Google’s No. 1 standing is also owned by a large tech corporation.
Alternatives to Google search are far behind, but catching up
Although Google may never fall from its top slot in the search engine world, these alternatives are quickly gaining traction. As users increasingly seek options with better functionality and prioritize their privacy, the time is now to think about how your website performs on these search engines. After all, you still want to reach the millions of people around the world and in your backyard who use these products.
We at The Stellastra Effect are here to promote your interests on all search engines, not just the biggest one. Customers should be able to find you on every corner of the internet and Google — are you meeting them there?
