What is a Search Engine? Most Popular Search Engines

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The internet, which has an important role in human life today, is actively used by a very wide audience. The leading role in these usage habits is queries made through search engines. So, what is a search engine and what does it do?
A search engine, which helps Internet users navigate the Internet based on a search query, is an online tool designed to provide access to the relevant pages of the websites needed. In this way, anyone who wishes can do research on the subjects they are curious about with the search engine and access the relevant website pages effortlessly.
Websites that aim to be accessible to people who widely use such search engines optimize their pages in accordance with the general principles of various search engines around the world in order to rank high in the list of search results. Let’s talk a little bit about the most popular search engines.
Google is an extremely powerful US joint-stock company that invests heavily in search engines, which are extensively equipped with online information sharing and advertising technologies and are used to search for information via the internet. Google is also one of the most widely used search engines. Google, which develops both products and services with the Internet and fully offers these products and services to the people under its roof, generates most of its earnings through advertising earnings from Google Adwords. Google has long been the search engine of choice for everyone, big and small, for all kinds of searches. It always manages to gain appreciation with its speed, quality and services.
In January 2020, Microsoft sites were used in a quarter of all search queries in the US, and the Bing search engine has made a name for itself. In many ways, it is claimed to offer a much more ideal use case than Google and is said to perform satisfactorily.
Bing, also known as Bing Search Engine, is one of the search engines developed by Microsoft. Bing is generally known for its website for search engine purposes. People who want to use the Bing search engine can also prefer the Bing mobile application. This search engine can also be used very conveniently with Microsoft Edge. In Edge, Bing is automatically accessible when using the Edge search bar to search the web, as it is the browser’s accepted search engine.
Especially for beginners, Bing offers a rewards program that allows users to collect points while searching. These points can be easily redeemed in both Microsoft and Windows stores. The search engine, which is also appreciated for its visual search technology, responds to needs by offering a flawless user experience.
Another most curious and preferred search engine worldwide is Yandex. Particularly ideal for those looking for a search perspective outside the United States, Yandex is used by more than 45% of Russian internet users and is also widely used in countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Ukraine. It is also possible to benefit from the additional technological tools offered by this search engine, which is very easy to use.
CC Search is considered to be the first place to go when it comes to searching specifically for content, and is equipped with almost all copyright-free content. In this way, anyone can effortlessly access and benefit from the content they need. For example, an internet user preparing a blog post can access various visuals to use in this content, and when creating a video, they can make use of music as they wish. The way it works is quite simple: CC Search pulls results from frequently used platforms such as Soundcloud, Wikimedia and Flickr, and then displays the results labeled as Creative Commons material.
Emerging as a unique option among search engines, Swisscows is described as particularly family-friendly. Respecting the privacy of internet users and never collecting or storing data, the search engine is also proud not to track them. Using artificial intelligence in such searches ensures that the content needed is accessed. Additionally, Swisscows, which promises to provide surprisingly accurate answers to questions over time, stands out as a highly popular search engine.
The DuckDuckGo search engine is also one of the options that does not collect or store your personal information. Thus, internet users who search without feeling any anxiety find the opportunity to act comfortably. This search engine, which is one of the first addresses of people who do not want to deal with the fear of being monitored on their computers, is actively preferred by those who are reluctant to share their browsing habits and personal information.
StarPage offers answers from Google, making it the perfect choice for those who can’t give up on using Google’s search results. It both allows Google data to be utilized and prevents internet users’ search histories from being tracked and stored. This ensures efficient querying and prevents personal data from being accessed. In addition, this platform, which offers HTTPS support as well as a URL generator and a proxy service, eliminates the need for cookie collection, especially thanks to the URL generator service, and performs the remembering process in a way that increases the privacy of your settings.
Widely used around the world and a favorite among privacy-conscious internet users, Search Encrypt is a highly unique search engine that uses local encryption to keep your searches private. In this process, the search engine uses a cipher known as Secure Sockets Layer, but also prefers encryption methods including AES-256 encryption, creating a tremendous combination. When Internet users make a query on a search engine, the Search Encrypt system retrieves results from a network of search partners and transmits the requested information. One of the most advantageous aspects of this search engine is that it ensures that information remains private even if someone else has local access to the computer.
In addition to these, search engines such as Gibiru, OneSearch, Wiki.com, Boardreader, giveWater, Ekoru, Ecosia, Twitter, SlideShare, Internet Archive, Brave, Neeva, WolframAlpha are also widely preferred options. By examining all of these, you can make your choice and enjoy the advantage of a pleasant and productive user experience.
Baidu is known as the Google of China. It is the most used search engine in China. It therefore has an extremely high unique visitor rate per month. Baidu works through the user. At Baidu, all the details are tailored to the user. Baidu offers many specialized platforms for users. Some of these are; pay per click (PPR), searching on the internet, searching for images, music or videos.
Founded in 1995 as a portal by Stanford University students Jerry Yang and David Filo, Yahoo initially served only as a search engine. Over time, it came to the forefront with e-mail, instant messaging and similar services. In 2008, Microsoft made a $44.6 billion acquisition offer for Yahoo, which has 12,000 employees. But Yahoo rejects this offer. Today, it is among the most preferred search engine types.
WolframAlpha works a little differently from the usual search engine concept. WolframAlpha is a search engine option for finding data from the internet and calculating search criteria. WolframAlpha is a type of systematically structured search engine that is both mathematical and knowledge-based. It uses a computerized software program called Mathematica, which is preferred in many departments such as scientific, mathematical and engineering fields. When viewed from this perspective, it provides users with a different experience.
Ask is a question-based search engine founded in 1996 under the name Ask Jevees. In the Ask search engine, users perform their searches directly through questions, not through words or phrases as in other search engines. In order for the internet service, which was rapidly rising in later periods, to be shorter and more memorable, and to be able to easily compete with its competitors, its name was changed to “Ask”, which means “Ask” in Turkish.
Extensively supported by Yahoo, Goodsearch donates half of its revenue to foundations and schools. It gets the most traffic from the USA, Britain and Canada. On average, the GoodSearch search engine has more than 7.1 million monthly visitors. Goodsearch, also known as Goodsearch, is a search engine with good intentions, and includes a variety of features such as surveys, online shopping and charity. People who advertise on this search engine also donate to social responsibility projects.
Yippy presents the search results of users with filtering options as they wish. Inappropriate content can also be flagged in this search engine. It has different categories, such as images, news, web, blogs or job ads, which are not available on many alternative search engines. It does not track search queries, even if it offers a lot of features like Google. It also does not show customized ads to users.
AOL Search was initially only available to those who had a full AOL subscription. It then becomes a full-fledged all-access search engine. The main web search results of the AOL search engine are also powered by Google. AOL’s search page is both bare and uncluttered. The search bar is located exactly in the center of the page. The text on the search bar is presented in several options from the beginning with related tabs such as web, video, image, audio, shopping or news.
Ecosia is a search engine that uses part of its profits to plant trees around the world. The eco-friendly option is also one of the default search engines, especially recently in Google Chrome. Ecosia also ranks among Bing, DuckDuckGo and Google and as one of the numerous search engine options available to users. Presenting itself as an ethical alternative to Google or Bing, Ecosia uses on average half of its total revenue to help plant trees. Existing Chrome users can easily change their default browser to Ecosia from March 17, 2020. People interested in this search engine can also install the Ecosia extension, which is compatible with all major browsers, from the company’s website.
Ixquick, one of the most remarkable search engines of recent times, is basically no different from other search engine options. However, Ixquick’s search results are a bit more accurate and comprehensive. Ixquick does not log the IP address of users. This search engine works with meta-search logic. It also weeds out irrelevant web pages. Ixquick searches in a total of 17 different languages. It also has an international telephone directory. Ixquick uses 6 proprietary classification algorithms when performing video searches.
Dogpile is also a metasearch search engine. It gets results from multiple search engines and directories. It also combines its results with the user. Dogpile currently receives results from Bing, Yahoo, Google and other search engines.
SearXNG is a fork of SearXNG and aggregates results from more than 70 sources. It is known as an internet metasearch engine that aggregates all the results from various search services and databases and provides them for free. Users are not tracked through searches on Searx. It is also not profiled.
Search engine spider, also known as crawler, is a type of software developed for search engine types such as Google to find what is going on on the web. The web world is an extremely large area. So you need something to navigate this space and see what is being offered to the web every second of every day. This is where the spiders come in. This spider, which looks at users’ information, tracks all the hyperlinks on each page once the page loads. This “spider” software goes through the sites available on the web one by one. As a result of this navigation, users’ information is also accessed.
Excite is an American web portal operated by IAC, providing a variety of outsourced content including news, weather, metasearch, and a user homepage. The original Excite company was founded in 1994. Two years later, it went public. Excite was an extremely popular site on the Internet in the 1990s. The company later merged with broadband provider @Home Network, but went bankrupt in 2001. Both Excite’s portal and services were acquired by iWon and Ask Jeeves. The website subsequently experienced a major decline in popularity.
Alhea; It is a type of search engine that can be installed automatically when downloading any file with the internet, which is not welcomed by users and efforts are being made to remove it. Receiving the most traffic from Poland, Brazil and India, Alhea has an average visitor rate of around 7.9 million.
Mywebsearch is also a type of search engine that can be installed on browsers unintentionally through downloaded programs such as Alhea. It receives the highest traffic from the Philippines, India and Indonesia. It is actively used by an average of more than 4 million visitors per month.
Infospace is a search engine option that has successfully built its own network. It aims to bring together the data on websites broadcasting around the world with users. It also receives the highest traffic rates from Mexico, Argentina, and India. The average monthly unique visitor count of this search engine is more than 12.2 million.
Contenko is also among the search engine types that have attracted attention recently. It receives the highest percentage of visitors from the Philippines, India and Brazil. Contenko.com; It is also known for implementing all developments in the technological field extremely quickly. When we look at the previous 6-month period, it is possible to see that there was an extremely serious increase in visitors. The monthly unique visitor rate of this search engine is more than 3.4 million on average.
Boardreader is a search engine built to search for data on platforms such as Reddit or StumbleUpon. It receives the highest percentage of visitors from Russia, the USA and Taiwan. The boardreader.com search engine, which has an average of 2.7 million unique visitors per month, has been gaining momentum rapidly in recent years.

Since 2003, info.com, which has been serving very actively, is a type of search engine that focuses especially on the e-commerce sector. It receives the highest number of visitors from Canada, the USA and India. The info.com search engine, which averages more than 4 million unique visitors per month, has been losing traffic recently.

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Melisa Yılmaz
Merhaba ben Melisa Gülşan Yılmaz. Bilgisayar Mühendisliği bölümünden mezun olduktan sonra Mobitek Performans Ajansı’nda başladım. Yaklaşık 2 yıldır burada SEO Uzmanı olarak çalışıyorum. Blog yazılarımda edindiğim deneyimleri paylaşarak faydalı ve bilgilendirici içerikler sunmayı hedefliyorum.
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