Today, there are several alternative web search engines that can provide quality results, like Google.

Some of them are region-specific, and some are accessible to a global audience.

However, the search functionalities of the top search engines remain the same.

So this post is going to get frequent updates as the answer to “what are the top search engines” are susceptible to changes over time. You can also find different types of search engines that people use as alternative search engines.

 How do Search Engines work?

Search engines have three primary functions:

• Crawl:  Explore the Internet for content on each URL they find.
•  Index: Store and organize the content found during the crawling process. 
•  Rank: Display content that will best answer a searcher’s query, ranked by most relevant to least relevant.

 Top 10 Most Popular Search Engines In The World (2022 Updated List)

1. Google

Google is, without a doubt, a cut above all the other competitors in the search engine landscape when it comes to user engagement.

This is one of the reasons why Google has crowned the title the “most used search engine.”

If you’re concerned about privacy, Google is not the search engine for you, at least in 2022.

If Google continues to run the show without giving credit to websites and without asking for the user’s consent before sharing their data, Google’s omnipotence as the most used search engine may be short-lived. 

2. Microsoft Bing

The surrounding hype ends soon after you realize that it owns just 2.39% of the total market share. That means it will take a long time for Microsoft Bing to beat Google’s share of 92%.

Microsoft was never willing to give up on something that they knew was a gold mine with miles still to be explored.

In 2006, Microsoft rechristened MSN to Live Search.

Even though they tried making it the default search engine for their popular browser Internet Explorer (now Edge), the users were never happy. 

In 2009, Microsoft finally rebranded Live Search to Bing.

So that was the history of Microsoft Bing, and it’s one of the best search engine alternatives out there that can compete against Google’s megalomania – a true alternative search engine. 

In addition to this, the homepage of Microsoft Bing is much trendier with dynamic background images, unlike the plain white offered in Google. 

3. Yahoo Search

The search engine is now powered by Bing, which essentially means Yahoo gives the same results that Bing displays. 

It’s hard for Yahoo to make a comeback.

However, it’s important to note that Yahoo was the first search engine that inspired and envisioned the possibilities of the search.

During the initial days, Yahoo worked more like a search directory that required manual entry of the information. 

In 2001, Yahoo approached Inktomi to share its searchable index and then later Google in 2002.

 

In 2002, an attempt was made by Yahoo to buy Google.

However, there was an internal disagreement regarding the buyout cost, which was $1 billion.

By the time the red tapes were cleared, the price of Google had rocketed to $3 billion, marking it as the biggest missed-out opportunity of the 21st Century. 

To be frank, Yahoo! seems to have given up the race to become one of the Google alternative search engines.

4. Baidu

 

Founded by Robin Li in China, Baidu has a lot of similarities with Google.

Baidu is the top search engine for Chinese citizens as the government has put an indefinite blockade, popularly known as the Great Firewall, on all Google services. 

Currently, Baidu has a market share of 63.56% in China, beating Google and other Chinese search engines such as Sogou and Shenma by miles.

However, Alibaba is putting in a tough fight with Baidu for product related search market.  

Baidu has been emulating Google, not only with the principle of providing quality search results, but also services and features that matter to the users. 

Like Google, Baidu also has a minimalistic homepage. But unlike Google during its formative years, Baidu was selling its space for ads as early as 2004. 

In addition to this, Baidu is also into AI and voice-assisted search.

As of 2019, Baidu performs an average of 2.37 billion voice searches per month, thanks to the popularity of its DuerOS voice assistant. 

According to the latest figures, Baidu has 174 million daily active users and has already become the Google alternative search engine in China.

5. DuckDuckGo

If you’re concerned about the privacy of your data, DuckDuckGo is the search engine that you should be using.

Founded by Gabriel Weinberg in 2008, DuckDuckGo has earned itself a name as a non-profit search engine. 

If Google highlights the personalized search experience as its USP, DuckDuckGo does the opposite.

It’s known that Google gives a personalized search experience at the cost of taking advantage of your user data. 

This is exactly what DuckDuckGo doesn’t do.

It doesn’t collect your data, and as a result, the search results remain the same for you and your friends. 

DuckDuckGo has several features including maps, weather, news, images, videos, local business answers, products and shopping, flight information, calculator, sports score, currency conversion and much more.

According to DuckGoDuck’s public traffic data, the daily searches of the privacy-focused search engine have gone down below 100 million searches. After trending over the 100-million mark since January 2021, it is now falling beneath the margin.

While there’s been a decline in the number of daily searches since the beginning of 2022, the figure has come under 100 million searches since April 2022 and is falling for three consecutive months now.

Privacy has been the primary focus of DuckDuckGo from the start, and it is because of this that they have managed to reach this milestone. 

Compared to Google, this success might seem modest. However, the success of DuckDuckGo has paved the way for other search engines that concentrate on an underserved user base. 

Even though DuckDuckGo still has miles to go before it can challenge Google, it is gradually closing on other popular search engines like Yahoo! and Bing.

6. Yandex

The founders of Yandex – Arkady Volozh and Arkady Borkovsky, came up with the idea of a web search engine software back in 1993.

They named it Yet Another Indexer, which later came to be known as Yandex. 

Looking at history, Yandex was the first search engine that was monetized to sell ads.

They started delivering contextual advertisements on the search engine results page in 1998, two years ahead of Google. 

Yandex is in very close competition with its US-counterpart Google when it comes to the market share.

The Russian Search engine market share is spread more or less equally between Google and Yandex. 

Till July 2019, Yandex had a clear win over Google in Russia.

Until 2006, Yandex was the most popular search engine in Russia.

Since Google decided to penetrate the Russian search industry, Yandex has been facing intense competition. 

7. Ask