Say goodbye to Google: 14 alternative search engines

Search Engine Watch ^ | Feb. 25, 2016 | Christopher Ratcliff

[EliRoom8]

Right now though maybe we should be paying more attention to the alternatives. Maybe our daily lives and, for some of us, careers shouldn’t need to balance on the fickle algorithm changes of the world’s most valuable company.

Let’s see what else is out there in the non-Google world. It’s not that scary, I promise. Although you may want to bring a coat.

Bing -- Microsoft’s search engine is the second most popular search engine in the world, with 15.8% of the search market.

DuckDuckGo --The key feature of DuckDuckGo is that it doesn’t retain its users’ data, so it won’t track you or manipulate results based on your behaviour.

Quora -- As (others) gets better and better at answering more complicated questions, it will never be able to match the personal touch available with Quora.

Dogpile -- may look like a search engine you cobbled together with clip-art, but that’s rather the point as it pulls in and ‘curates’ results from various different engines including Google, Yandex and Yahoo, but removes all the ads.

[Sans-Culotte]

Bing is pretty good.

I switched to Bing a year or two ago. I love the daily desktop photos.

[AndyTheBear]

BTW, Google used its control of AdWords to crush an alternative approach to search by a small company called Asterpix with a service called SearchLight. Here is a blog by a customer illustrating how the big Google did it

[AndyTheBear]

....what that blogger didn't know is that Google changed its policies in regarding ad revenue so Asterpix could not split the AdSense revenue with customers--which was the only way Asterpix had to monetize its search engine.

At first Google had no problem with Asterpix's arrangement, but changed its policy specifically to destroy it when they saw that Searchlight was growing virally....based on a model that split revenue with those that put the SearchLight search term cloud javascript tags in their own web pages.

This approach to search was better for eveybody...except the big Google....so they decided to be evil after all.

[IronJack]

I agree Mapquest is losing ground. If they don’t step up their game, they’ll be out of business in five years.

But for the time being, at least they’re an alternative to the vile Google.

[Chickensoup]

Bump

[Chickensoup]

I use startpage because I don’t want google searching as a response to my previous searches.

However it still uses the compromised google algorithms
.

Need a platform that does not use google.

[fella]

BTTT!

[Bikkuri]

Startpage and ixquick are the same company, they just use different algorithms for the results ;-)

[mass55th]

I’ve been using Bing for quite a while now. I enjoy the daily photos on their home page, and they celebrate the holidays with an awesome home-page photograph. Sometimes they offer animated home pages, along with the sounds of their featured topics. I also use them to get points towards rewards while doing searches on my laptop, and my iPhone. The points I use to get free Amazon gift cards for myself.

[EliRoom8]

I’m going to start using them more often. The pictures on their search page are excellent and understated — not cute, not look-at-me, not aren’t we clever at Google.

[ex91B10]

What about the play store? Do they get a piece of all the paid applications?

[AndyTheBear]

Yeah I think that is how it works. The PlayStore wasn’t really a thing back when I worked at Google, and I haven’t followed the company closely afterward.

[reed13k]

I like Duck Duck Go and Dogpile. Use’em both on oddball searches just to see how the results differ.

[reed13k]

Hows that point/reward thing work? I’d be interested possibly.

[mass55th]

This article is written by someone who switched from Google to Bing (Microsoft Rewards), and his reasons why:

4 Reasons I Switched From Google to Bing

You can earn points for doing searches using Bing on your computer and cell phone. There are different levels you can achieve, and redemption goals you can choose. I'm Level 2. My redemption goal is an Amazon $5.00 gift card. I can earn 150 points a day by searching with Bing on my laptop, plus another 100 a day by searching with Bing on my iPhone. Plus, they regularly have other offers where you can earn extra points, and they periodically send emails to you that give you the opportunity to earn more points.

There are several different rewards that you can exchange your points for. I always redeem my points for Amazon gift cards. For 5250 points, I can get a $5.00 Amazon gift card. I usually save up my points and redeem my points to get multiple $5.00 gift cards at one time, which I then add to my gift card account on Amazon. They also offer other rewards that you can exchange your points for.

If you don't have a Microsoft Account, you can sign up at the link below. It's free:

Microsoft Rewards

Hope this helps.

[reed13k]

thanks!