The best search engines are used by millions of people each day. They’ve become a part of our daily lives. Whether your looking a new recipe, streaming your favorite TV show, or just looking for the latest news; you’re probably using a search engine.
You may just be typing in a keyword like “News”, or “Recipes”. Or you may be more specific and search longer strings such as “Latest news in NY”, or “Best recipes for summer”. The top search engines of today have evolved into powerful tools that know exactly what you are looking for.
Through their complex algorithms, the best search engines display the most relevant result first. They’ve been so good at ranking the best websites accordingly, that the first result displayed in a search engine has a click through rate of 32% on average. That means that 32% of people that type in a keyword or phrase on a search engine find what they need almost immediately.
The best search engines of today have also been heavily focusing on mobile devices. Our lives have become so dependent on smart phones and tablets, that they now account for a majority of internet searches.
Below are the top 10 search engines used today.
1.) Google
It’s no surprise that Google takes the number one spot on our list. It’s clearly the best search engine in the world because it accounts for over 65% of all internet searches. As of 2015, Google accounted for over 100 Billion searches monthly, and averaged 2.3 million searches each second.
Google is most everyone’s search engine of choice, and we can see why. It’s the default search engine for many browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox and Chrome. But Google isn’t only responsible for the world’s largest search engine. They have other products, such as Gmail and Google Docs. But their search engine is definitely what they are known for.
2.) Bing
The second popular search engine in the world is Bing. It’s owned by Microsoft, and started it’s life out as MSN search and later Windows Live search.
As of 2015, Bing accounts for 21% of all search engine queries. It has an appealing user interface that has a unique image each day. Accompanying the featured image are a few web links related to it. It’s a nice and easy way to learn something new each day.
The Bing search engine is integrated well with Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Users are able to search directly from their desktop through the Cortana app.
3.) Yahoo!
Coming in at number three is a well known search engine. Yahoo has had troubles in recent years, but they still maintain a spot as one of the most popular search engines in the world. Yahoo accounted for 12.5% of search engine queries in 2015.
An interesting fact is that Yahoo search is actually powered by Bing. In 2009, the two struck a deal that allowed Yahoo to utilize the bing search engine core capabilities, while still maintaining the use of their signature interface.
This was a well thought out move on Yahoo’s part as the Bing search engine is top-notch.
4.) Baidu
Many Westerners may not know number four on our list, but Baidu is the largest search engine in China. It account’s for almost 60% of Chinese search engine queries.
Baidu is not only a search engine, but they offer other popular services. Baidu Baike is an online encyclopedia much like Wikipedia. They also host a music service calls Baidu Music that has over 150 million active users.
5.) Ask.com
This one will probably throw you for a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Ask.com is next on the list. It was formerly known as “AskJeeves.com”, until sending Jeeves into retirement.
Ask.com currently sees 100 million users per month globally. In 2010, they decided to shut down their search engine service, and focus on their signature question based search model.
6.) AOL
Believe it or not, AOL is still one of the most popular search engines in the world. It dates back to 1991. While it used to be extremely popular among internet users, Aol has declined to only account less than 1% of today’s search engine queries.
In 2015, AOL was acquired by Verizon Communications in a deal that was worth an estimated $4.4Billion.
7.) Yandex
Yandex is a Russian company that hosts the largest search engine in Russia. It accounts for about 60% of all internet searches in the country.
Like most of the other top internet search engines, Yandex offers other services such as Email, Mobile Apps, and Advertising.
8.) DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a lesser known search engine, but it has grown in popularity since it’s founding in 2008.
It’s unique because it is a search engine that emphasizes user privacy and protection. DuckDuckGo places an emphasis on quality over quantity, therefore they return much fewer results compared to the other top search engines.
In 2014, DuckDuckGo was added as a default search engine choice in Safari and Mozilla web browsers.
9.) Lycos
Lycos is a search engine that was created in 1994. It started it’s life as a research project by Michael Loren Mauldin of Carnegie Mellon University.
It quickly grew into a large advertising supported supported search engine, and it became the most visited website in the world in 1999.
10.) ChaCha
ChaCha.com is a bit of a unique take on the concept of the search engine. It is a human-guided search engine where users can ask questions, and receive answers that are researched by real people.
Independent contractors are paid $.02 per question answered. It was launched in 2006. Despite it being one of the top search engines in the world, it never gained enough traction to make it any higher up the list.
Conclusion
Search engines have carved a very prominent role in most of our lives. They can be used for work, school, and personal matters. There are many of them out there, but most of us only know of Google. This list of the top 10 search engines in the world should have given you a broad spectrum of what is actually out there.
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