Top Search Engines

Auction Certified always get emails asking about what people think of the best search engine, Google is almost always the first one that comes to mind. However, Google is far from the only search engine available today. While it’s certainly the reigning champ, there are other platforms that offer a lot to users—the genre of your business and services reflects largely where you should be listed. Other Search Engines than Google.

Microsoft Bing Search Engine


1. Bing might be a long way off from dethroning Google, the fat cat of search engines, but that doesn’t mean it’s hurting as the runner-up these days. As the second biggest Google-style search engine in the world, Bing has claimed, as of July 2022, almost 9 percent of searches worldwide, according to Statista. Especially considering that around 5 billion people use the internet today (Statista). While a 9 percent market share may not be much compared to Google’s whopping 83 percent, it’s still very significant when one considers scale. The picture gets even better for Bing when you look at US-based searches. (1) Visual appeal, (2) excellent local searches, and (3) amazing video search According to some sources, now that Yahoo Search uses Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Bing accounts for approximately 30 percent of all US-based searches. Some figures state that Bing has significantly less US-based market share than 30 percent. Auction Certified encourages their certified Auction House to place them selves on Bing, Get Listed there! Bing will continue to be a substantial player in the global search engine market and the US one. It has a high YouTube focus, which makes it especially appealing to those who watch YouTube regularly.

2. Baidu, Did you know that a whopping 81 percent of Baidu’s traffic comes from China? (Market.us). Did you also know that at present (this number is subject to change) Baidu dominates 75 percent of the Chinese market? With stats like these, it’s clear why Baidu is known as the Google of China. Here’s another mind-blowing fact about Baidu’s current Chinese dominance. As of March 2022, the mobile app had an incredible 632 million monthly active users (Statista). Thanks to its extremely strong position in China, Baidu accounts for an impressive 7 percent of global searches. Baidu’s first-quarter revenue in 2022 was over 4 billion USD (Statista).

3. Yahoo Search

Auction Certified saw that Yahoo Search owned a little over 3 percent of global search engine market share as of April 2022 (Oberlo). Presently, Statcounter presents a different figure for the underdog search engine—namely 1.3 percent of global market share. While Yahoo Search might not have nearly the same reach as Google, the company as a whole still receives roughly 700 million visits every month (Market.us). This is worth noting since Auction Certified indicates the platform’s staying power and the fact that Yahoo’s websites, coupled with Yahoo Search, still act as a compelling draw to many users.

4. Yandex

If you haven’t heard of Yandex before, then you might be surprised to learn that it’s Russia’s biggest search engine. It’s also Google’s closest competitor in the country. In July 2018, Yandex accounted for 55 percent of all searches in Russia, with Google trailing close behind. Fast-forward to June 2022, and Yandex still maintained a strong stance, accounting for nearly 50 percent of Russian-based searches (StatCounter). Auction Certified does agree that if your products and services would benefit from being listed on Yandex they feel that this effort would not go unwasted.

5. DuckDuckGo

Auction Certified recognizes the privacy-focused search engine, DuckDuckGo, and there is a very good reason why. There have been rumors about Google privacy violations and unscrupulous selling of user data have become commonplace, prompting more and more people to seek viable alternatives. Auction Certified has observed this slow trend with our own friends and families as many people we know move away from only using Google and instead prefer to diversify their searches among different search engines. Their have been concerns about censorship here on this search engine.

6. Ask

Although not everyone remembers this search engine, Ask is responsible today for 0.72 percent of searches worldwide, according to Oberlo. Since Ask was one of the first question-answering search engines, most people who use it today do so to ask simple, straight forward questions.

7. Naver

As the number one search engine in South Korea, Naver is more than a search engine. It’s a multi-use platform. Meanwhile, the platform presently accounts for 26 percent of search engine market share in South Korea (Statcounter).

8. AOL Search

We’ve all heard of AOL, one of America’s first and biggest web service providers. The company brings to mind the early days of the internet. This move cemented AOL’s use of Google’s search engine technology for years until Verizon acquired AOL in 2015 under the condition that AOL would use Bing as its default search engine for 10 years, a date which began in January 2016. CNBC states that, “There are still 1.5 million people paying a monthly subscription service fee for AOL.”

9. Seznam

Despite Google’s dominance in the Czech Republic, Seznam, which was founded in 1996, was the country’s main search engine throughout the late 90s and early 2000s. During Seznam’s reign, it actually became so popular that its name was forever synonymized with the internet among Czechs. While Seznam was and certainly still is an extremely well-known search engine inside the small Central European country, its fortunes changed drastically during the advent of the smartphone. As millions of Czech users transitioned to mobile, Google had the financial backing and infrastructure in place to capitalize on the landscape shift, allowing them to dominate mobile searches inside the country. This is why Seznam only accounted for 14 percent of searches within the Czech Republic from June 2021 to June 2022 (Statcounter).

10. Sogou

While Sogou only (currently) owns 12 percent of the Chinese market, it has a solid userbase and, due to its merger in 2021 with multinational conglomerate, Tencent, has tons of financial backing. Auction Certified anticipates big things from this search engine. At present, Sogou is responsible for 0.03 percent of the global search engine market and receives around 650 million monthly visitors. Sogou is also responsible for approximately 32 percent of mobile searches in China, which makes it the third most popular mobile search engine in the country (Statista).11. Ecosia While not as private as other search engines on this list (Ecosia searches and IP addresses take 7 days to be anonymized, according to the company’s Privacy page), this environmentally friendly search engine is our second favorite private search engine.

11. Ecosia

For those unfamiliar with Ecosia, its main goal is to plant trees with the money generated from search ads. Their website claims, as of July 29th 2022, to have planted over 154 million trees. Benefits of Ecosia include (1) no selling of data to advertisers, (2) encrypting your searches, and (3) no Google Analytics or other third-party tracking tools.

12. Searx

Auction certified finds this an intriguing open-source metasearch engine that aggregates results from dozens of search engines and appears to offer a substantial degree of privacy to users.Benefits of Searx include (1) allowing proxy searches, (2) not sharing your data with third parties, and (3) excellent customization options.

13. Search Encrypt – Red Flag Warning

Please note that there are rumors that Search Encrypt is that it might be a Chinese search hijacking tool. Please make your own determination

14. Gibiru

Gibiru is a private search engine that earns revenue via commissions. To ensure they maintain a straightforward and honest economic model, the makers of this search engine have promised never to sell user data to third parties. Benefits of Gibiru include (1) no cookies on your device, (2) no search logs or IP addresses, and (3) a powerful mobile app called Gibiru Wormhole that allows for private mobile browsing.

15. MetaGer

MetaGer is a non-profit search engine that is highly committed to both data protection and transparent data collection. Benefits of MetaGer include (1) complete control of your personal data, (2) proxy searches, and (3) circumventing censorship by aggregating results from multiple search engines.

16. Brave

Founded by two industry powerhouses (1) Brian Bondy, a former Senior Software Engineer at Mozilla, and (2) Brendan Eich, co-founder of Mozilla Firefox and JavaScript, Brave Search has a lot going for it. Benefits of Brave Search include (1) cookie control and other data shields, (2) sending Do Not Track requests while browsing, and (3) advanced customization and personalization features.

17. Swisscows

As one of the most family-friendly search engines around, Swisscows is a great choice for those who want privacy and a wholesome search experience. Benefits of Swisscows include (1) safe searches for families with kids, i.e., no violent or pornographic content, (2) anonymous searches, and (3) a unique index for German-language searches, which means no relying on Google.

18. Mojeek

As an independent search engine with its own crawler, Mojeek is an excellent choice for users who want a private search experience in addition to unbiased and censorship-free search results. (1) A strict no tracking policy, (2) an agenda-free search index that is free from censorship and bias, and (3) unique, emotion-based search options, i.e., you can search topics by five different emotions—love, happy, awe, sad, and angry.

19. Startpage

Claiming to be the “world’s most private search engine,” Startpage believes it can offer users unparalleled privacy in an increasingly data-driven world. Benefits of Startpage include (1) no cookies or 3rd party trackers, (2) the ability to browse sites privately with Anonymous View, and (3) un-profiled search results. Although Auctions Certified found Startpage to be easy and enjoyable to use, keep in mind that it was acquired by a US-based ad-tech company back in 2019.Suggestions are proceeding with caution when using this search engine.

20-21. Gigablast and Private.sh

Although Gigablast might not be very well known, the privacy-focused search engine has its own index of over a billion pages and receives well over 100k visits per month. What’s interesting about Gigablast is that it has partnered with Private Internet Access (now Kape Technologies), a world-class VPN solutions provider, to create a cryptographically-secured search engine. The new search engine is called private.sh. While the inner workings of Gigablast and Private.sh are complex, the way these search engines work is by scrambling your IP address and search queries. Other private search engines know both your search query and IP address, which presents a big problem since anyone with enough knowledge and skill can trace your searches back to you. Gigablast and Private.sh go to significant lengths to ensure that no one party can access your identifying information by following a multi-step data scrubbing, forwarding, and encrypting process.

22. YaCy

As a decentralized, peer-to-peer, open-source search engine, YaCy offers a fascinating alternative to those who have keen technical skills and an interest in an exotic form of search.Benefits of YaCy include (1) starting your own web crawl, (2) no search request storage, and (3) creating a search portal for your web pages.

23. YouTube

You’re probably not surprised to find YouTube on this list. It’s one of the most popular video search engines in the world, after all. Did you know, for instance, that YouTube receives over 3 billion searches a month or that 100 hours of video are uploaded to the platform every minute (Mushroom Networks)? If you’re curious to know what people are searching for on YouTube, so far in 2022, the platform’s most popular searches have been as follows: “BTS,” which accounts for 16.7 million searches, and “Pewdiepie,” which accounts for approximately 16.5 million searches (PageTraffic). Smart TV’s have helped increase their numbers substantially creating an easy access for views.

24. TikTok

Did you know that in the latter half of 2021, TikTok temporarily surpassed Google and Facebook as the top web domain in the world? This shocking turn of events has proved beyond doubt that Chinese companies like ByteDance, the developer behind TikTok, understand what audiences want to see. Indeed TikTok has been so successful that it’s now replacing Google as the go-to source of information for many people. Take this famous tweet from Claude Lukyamuzi as an example: “I don’t Google anymore I TikTok.” No wonder TikTok had over 650 million real users in 2021 (Insider Intelligence).

25. Facebook

This list wouldn’t be complete without Facebook, which garners an incredible 1.25 billion viewers per month through Facebook Watch (EarthWeb). Here are some interesting facts about Facebook and Facebook Watch: (1) Facebook gets at least 8 billion video views per day, according to Business Insider. Please note that this figure from Business Insider is from 2015, so the daily views are likely higher now in 2022. (2) There are 1 billion Stories shared on Facebook every day, according to Facebook’s Stories Ads page. (3) American users spend approximately 30 minutes a day on Facebook (Statista). While not all of this time is spent on Facebook Watch, around half of it is. CEO Mark Zuckerberg once stated during an earnings call that video is responsible for about half the time users spend on Facebook.

26. Dailymotion

Founded and headquartered in Paris, France, Dailymotion is a video-sharing platform that gets over 100 million visits a month (as of 2022) and is available in 183 languages. Some interesting facts about this search engine are that (1) its monthly traffic in June 2022 was over 300 million, according to Semrush, (2) its biggest audience is in the United States, and (3) it was once banned in India.

27. Vimeo

Vimeo is a paid video-sharing platform that offers a higher bitrate and better sound quality than YouTube and also offers (arguably) better quality content. Some interesting facts about this powerful video search engine are that (1) it has 260 million users, (2) 1.7 million of those users are paying subscribers, according to GlobeNewswire, and (3) 350k videos are added to the platform every day.

28. Pexels

Some might not think of Pexels as a video search engine, but it isThe popular stock photo and video website has a large selection of videos that visitors can use for their own purposes. (1) It provides a wide selection of royalty-free stock videos that can be downloaded and used for free, (2) the Pexels website had nearly 30 million visits in May 2022, according to Similarweb, and (3) India is the country that uses Pexels the most.

29. Kiddle

Kiddle is a visual search engine that seeks to offer a safe video search experience for families with children. Some interesting facts about Kiddle are that (1) it displays carefully curated results from Kiddle editors that are easy for children to read and understand, (2) it deletes user search logs every 24 hours, and (3) it allows parents and teachers to submit keyword blocking requests.

30. Twitch

Twitch is an interactive livestreaming service with a massive audience. Although not like most other video search engines, Twitch is certainly worth mentioning here due to its popularity—it receives roughly 140 million unique visitors each month, according to Backlinko. The platform has a wide variety of videos available, from gaming events to cooking shows.

31. Dogpile

Dogpile is a metasearch engine that gathers data from multiple sources, including Google and Yahoo, to generate search results. Its ability to effectively source information makes it unique among metasearch engines. There are many competitors trying to do the same thing, but Dogpile stands out as one of the best. (1) It received 1.2 million visits in June 2022 (Semrush). (2) It is one of the oldest metasearch engines in the world, having been launched in November of 1996. (3) It is owned by Infospace Holdings LLC, a System1 company, which is quite telling. System1 is the owner of MapQuest, Answers, and HowStuffWorks and is quite a big player in the online advertisement and marketing acquisition sectors.

32. Shutterstock

Similar to Pexels, Shutterstock is both a stock photo hub and a video search engine. (1) On July 31, 2022, their website had a cache of 25,384,987 royalty-free stock videos. (2) On the same date, their website also had a mind-blowing 396,414,585 stock photos, vectors, and illustrations available for use. (3) As of third quarter 2021, Shutterstock had 336k paying subscribers (Shutterstock).

33. Presearch

Presearch is a decentralized search engine that utilizes blockchain technology to increase user privacy and reward users for doing searches. As of June 2022, Presearch had almost 3.8 million registered users.

34. Desearch

As the world’s first crypto-focused search engine, Desearch seeks to offer users a secure search experience and reward them every time they view advertisements. The goal of Desearch is to put power back into the hands of users.

35. Timpi

As the world’s first fully decentralized search engine, Timpi hopes to offer users robust privacy and unbiased search results. Timpi’s public beta will start in Dec 2022, according to their website.

36. LinkedIn

LinkedIn, as you probably know, is a popular social network that caters to businesses and professionals seeking employment or business connections. The platform’s search engine is dedicated to this purpose and allows users to search for job opportunities, companies, and colleagues in nearly every conceivable industry. In 2021, LinkedIn had 850 million members plus (Influencer Marketing Hub).

37. Instagram

With 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram is one of the top social networks in the world. It also has an amazing search engine. Easy search engine navigation and other factors, such as its straightforward monetization program, are why this platform is so successful.

38. Twitter

The legendary social networking and microblogging platform is both famous and infamous and has been involved in many controversies over the years, the latest being its feud with Elon Musk. Today, Twitter has a giant userbase of 396 million people (Backlinko). Regarding Twitter’s search engine, it allows users to keep up with trending events and the latest news.

39. Reddit

As “the front page of the internet,” Reddit is another social media platform that everyone has heard of. The intriguing thing about Reddit is that it is structured around subreddit communities instead of individual profiles, which makes it a lot different from other social media platforms. Presently, Reddit has 430 million monthly active users (Business of Apps).

40. Snapchat

With over 347 million daily active users as of first quarter 2022, Snapchat’s popularity is unquestionable. Snapchat was the first platform to popularize the vertical video format, although its competitors like TikTok and Instagram were quick to adapt and capitalize on it.

41. WeChat

Originally designed to be an instant messaging app, WeChat has since metamorphosized into a “super app” with its own powerful search engine. With around 1.2 billion MAUs as of first quarter 2022, this all-in-one platform certainly deserves to be on the list.

42. Quora

Quora is a unique social network in that it’s based on knowledge rather than entertainment. The platform’s approach, though admirable, does present challenges for its search engine. In order to create a smooth, seamless experience for its users, Quora has been forced to develop an advanced search engine that can parse user intent, sort through hundreds of thousands of topics, and keep up with an ever-changing content landscape. This is no easy feat, but by all accounts, Quora has succeeded. Currently has around 300 million MAUs, according to Ryan Browne, the company’s VP of Revenue.

43. Pinterest

Pinterest is one of our personal favorite image-based search engines due to its simplicity. But we also like the platform’s creator-friendly policies. Although Pinterest saw a decline in its userbase in 2021, some sources state that it still has around 454 million MAUs, making it one of the largest image-heavy search engines in the world. A press release from Pinterest puts the figure for monthly active users at 433 million.

44. Flickr

Auction Certified sees Flickr’s main thrust is to help users find photos from professional and amateur photographers. With over 60 million monthly users and tens of billions of photos stored on their server, Flickr is an excellent website to source material for personal use or for your business.

45. Getty Images

While the number of monthly active users for Getty Images is unclear, the image-based search engine had around 20 million website visits in April 2022 alone (Craft), making it one of the more popular image search platforms in the world. With hundreds of millions of images and videos broken into two categories, Creative and Editorial, Getty Images offers higher quality content than many of its competitors.

46. TinEye

As one of the more unusual image-based search engines, TinEye’s core aim is to help users find out if any of their photos are being used online. As such, TinEye is actually a reverse image search engine. Reverse image searches are fairly difficult to do correctly, but with nearly 8 million visits in June 2022 alone (Similarweb), the company is clearly doing something right.

47. Openverse (formerly CC Search)

Openverse is perhaps THE best Creative Commons search engine ever built due to its catalog of over 600 million items, which visitors can repurpose and reuse.

48. Internet Archive

Internet Archive is a non-profit library that offers universal access to digitized materials. The organization’s goal is to catalog the entire history of the internet and provide a digestible search experience so that users can find what they’re looking for. Although this is a tall order, Internet Archive has made significant strides toward achieving its aim, and it now has a library of over 725 billion web pages. At present, Internet Archive has around 15,500,000 users.

49. Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is a media library dedicated to free content. According to Wikimedia Foundation, the Commons is, “The world’s largest free-to-use-library of illustrations, photos, drawings, videos and music.” Currently, the Commons has 11,369,223 users in total.

50. Yep

While Yep might be brand new, it’s a serious project with strong financial backing and active indexing. In fact, according to Search Engine Land, Yep adds 30 million web pages a day while dropping 20 million. Similarweb, meanwhile, states that Yep received 142k visits in June 2022.

51. Neeva

Neeva is an ad-free search engine that was created by Google executives Sridhar Ramaswamy (ex-SVP of Ads at Google) and Vivek Raghunathan (ex-VP of Monetization at YouTube), who wanted to fix the mistakes they made with Google and create an “uncorrupted” search engine.