The Top 10 Search Engines Today

In SEO, the focus is so often on Google. ‘How do I rank higher in the Google SERPs?’, or ‘How can I get more rich snippets on Google?’ 

Of course, Google is one of the most popular search engines, but it’s certainly not the only one. Different search engines have different audience demographics and different pros and cons, so when you’re optimizing your website, you don’t want to miss out on a significant share of a certain market.

In this article, you will find a complete list of all top internet search engines, their pros and cons, and whether Google really is the most popular. 

What Are the Top Search Engines Today?

We made a list of the top ten search engines widely used today. Then we employed our .Trends Tool to find out just how popular they really are.

Methodology: The final list is organized by the Share of Visits during February 2022. Share of visits refers to the percentage of a competitor's traffic in the traffic volume for the market. This metric counts all traffic to a domain.

Here’s the result for the United States:

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Google and Amazon came out on top. Yahoo! and Bing also snatched a spot in the top five. These are names we all easily recognize in the internet world. 

Engines like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Baidu, and Yandex may rank lower down, but they made our top internet search engines list for important reasons. DuckDuckGo prioritizes user privacy, Ecosia is a charity search engine, and Baidu has the highest number of single-country users with its Chinese audience — though we’ll get more into the pros and cons of each one later. 

When you go one step further and look at the US market’s Growth Quadrant in the .Trends Market Explorer, you can see that search engines fall into four different categories:

Google and Amazon are considered “Established Players”, a no-brainer if we see how high they rank in the share of visits table. Ask.com and Baidu are considered “Game Changers”, and have grown at the highest rate over the last 6 months. Meanwhile, “Niche Players” like Ecosia are just finding their footing, so it’s unclear what will happen with them.

Which Search Engines Lead in Which Markets?

Got a certain market in mind? Let’s take a look at your most important search engine. Here are the countries that have the biggest share of the search engine market as of February 2022 according to our Market Explorer tool:

The United States is by far the biggest player with a market share of 36.95%, followed at a great distance by India with 5.48%. South Korea comes next with 4.26%. Just a step behind the podium is the United Kingdom with 3.97%. 

Using the .Trends Market Explorer tool, we have broken down which search engines lead three of the top markets. For the United States market, see the first chart at the top of the page.

India

South Korea

United Kingdom

Although there is some fluctuation in rankings, Google remains firmly in first place across all markets, while Yahoo! and Amazon jostle for second and third. Perhaps most interesting is that while Yandex remains in lower spots for most of the above countries, in India it jumps to 7^th — making it something to consider if you’re working with this market. 

The Niche Players

Given that Baidu is a Chinese search engine, Yandex is a Russian search engine, and Ecosia started in Germany, let’s take a closer look at where they rank in their respective markets. 

In February 2022 in China, Russia, and Germany, the search engines rank as follows:

China

Russia

Germany

It’s fair to assume, based on this, that you do want to optimize your website for Google regardless of your market — except perhaps for China. However, if you want to target the Russian market, you can’t afford to ignore Yandex. 

Which Search Engine Is the Most Popular on Social Media?

But what about the general population of internet users? Who ranks first then? 

Here are the top search engines based on their Twitter followings:

Unsurprisingly, Google and Amazon remain on top. However, DuckDuckGo has surpassed both Yahoo and Bing, jumping two places up in the market share ranking. Ecosia also moved two places up, while Yandex sank to the bottom. This could indicate a difference in demographic between search engine users in general and search engine users who are active on Twitter. 

What Are the Pros and Cons of Different Search Engines?

How do we explain the big difference in market shares among search engines? And how does that relate to how they’re ranked on trust pilot, or which one is most followed on Twitter?

Let’s find out by taking a look at their pros and cons. 

Google

The pros

Its size and reputation.

• As of June 2021, Google had 87.76% of the search market share.
• With the highest number of Twitter followers and its great spot on Trustpilot, Google is clearly popular with the general public. 

Its extra features.

• It has free extra features like Google Maps, Google Books, and Google Scholar.
• It integrates seamlessly with other Google accounts — Analytics, Gmail, YouTube, etc. — making it very convenient for users who want to do more than just search.

The cons

It sells data to third parties.

It takes data from emails (and uses it to show users relevant ads).

DuckDuckGo

The pros

Its privacy.

• Perhaps the biggest and most unique pro of DuckDuckGo is that it doesn’t track, collect or store any of your data — this means ultimate privacy.

Its size.

• DuckDuckGo has had 81,404 daily searches in 2021 so far — a massive increase from their daily searches in 2020 of 23,654. Clearly, this search engine is growing quickly and is worth keeping an eye on.

Its transparency.

• You know you’re seeing the same results as anyone who does the same search because there’s no targeting or profiling that influences their results

Its easily customizable interface.

• The interface is easy to customize to your wants and needs. 
• DuckDuckGo also features infinite scrolling, which means no annoying clicking through to the next page of the results. 

The cons

Its privacy (funnily enough!).

• Since DuckDuckGo doesn’t collect and store any of your data, users won’t benefit from personalized ads.

It lacks personalization.

• Because DuckDuckGo doesn’t save your search history, it can’t offer you as much personalization as other search engines.

It doesn't have many extra features.

• DuckDuckGo doesn’t have all the extra features that Google, for example, offers, meaning that users have to leave the search engine to check their emails.

Yahoo!

The pros

Its size.

• Yahoo! is the 3^rd biggest search engine for desktop users worldwide (as of June 2021), giving it a wide enough reach. 

Its interface.

• Yahoo! greets you with everything you need — from what’s trending to the biggest news stories, to the weather forecast and sports results.

Its results.

• Yahoo! has some specialized searches. For example, when you search for a type of food, it will immediately present you with recipes:

The cons

Its results.

• Yahoo! is powered by Bing, so there may be some crossover in results.

Its ads. 

• The homepage is cluttered with ads.
• Ads in the search results fill the page above the fold and are often poorly labeled. It’s hard to tell which results are paid and which are organic. 

Its privacy.

• Like Google, Yahoo! sells user data to third parties. 

Its interface.

• The home screen presents you with a lot of content, which could make it chaotic and unappealing to some users.

Ecosia

The pros

It’s a charity.

• Ecosia is a charity search engine. Users know they’re doing something for the environment when they use it, which could incentivize them to switch from Google. 

Its great Trustpilot rating.

• Users have rated Ecosia even better than Google on Trustpilot, which indicates that it has a dedicated user base.

Its transparency.

• It publishes financial reports each month that anyone can view. 

Its privacy.

• It doesn’t sell data to advertisers.
• You can turn off user tracking and personalized search results, making it even more private and secure.

Its interface.

• Ecosia has a clear homepage that’s easy to navigate. 
• It also has a few convenient add-ons, including quick links to different pages and Ecosia Travel.

The cons

Its relevancy. 

• Search results aren’t always super relevant to your query, which might be a turnoff for some users.
• The ads are often irrelevant to your search query because the privacy settings don’t allow for a lot of customization unless you actively edit this in your settings. 

Bing

The pros

Its rewards program. 

• Every time you use Bing, you collect points that go towards gift cards. This could certainly incentivize users to use it more often.

Its advanced searches and features.

• Bing has an advanced image search, which allows users to see trending searches for different topics, as well as using a visual search feature. This might make it a go-to for users in search of relevant images. 

• Bing offers a special music search feature. This presents you with the music video as a featured snippet, the lyrics on the left, together with some biographical info of the artist. This could make it more popular among music lovers. 

The cons

Its (lack of) privacy.

• Bing monitors activity and sells your data to advertisers, which could deter users. 

Its interface.

• Because of the amount of information displayed on the home screen, the interface could seem cluttered to some users.
• Its lack of voice search creates obvious accessibility problems for users with disabilities. 

Amazon

The pros

Its size.

• 63% of online product searches took place on Amazon in 2020.
• In fact, if we exclude YouTube — which belongs to Google — Amazon is technically the second largest search engine in the world. 

Its purpose.

• If you’re managing an ecommerce business, Amazon is the place to be. Most Amazon users are in fact ready to convert. This means you’ll face no issues with user intent.

Its interface.

• It’s easy to compare prices and other product details.

The cons

Its size.

• There’s lots of competition if you’re trying to rank in the top 5 results.

Its high cost (for sellers).

• The search is almost entirely keyword-based — a pro if you’re searching but a con if you’re selling, as you have to optimize carefully. Amazon’s algorithm is very specific to Amazon, so optimizing listings looks very different from optimizing a site in general.

Yandex

The pros

It’s a gateway to the Russian market

• Yandex deals with over 50% of Russia’s total traffic, which means it’s a great way to access that market.
• It’s also popular in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Belarus.

Its added features.

• Yandex has a cloud storage service so you can store your files in the same place where you got your info, meaning that users don’t have to leave the search engine to access important documents. 

• Provides 360 solutions like Google — has its own mail, maps, images, video, etc., meaning that users don’t have to leave the search engine to access these.

Its “protect” feature makes it feel safer for users.

The cons

Its results are best for Russian web pages so if you’re not working for the Russian market, it may not be relevant to you.

Remember that in Russia, Yandex ranked 2nd in terms of total traffic:

Baidu

The pros

Its gateway to the Chinese market.

• Baidu is China’s largest search engine, which makes it a one-way ticket to tapping into a huge market.

It covers over 70% of China’s search market.

• It has the highest number of single-country users.
• Like Google, Baidu incorporates rich features into its SERPs. This makes it easy to use.

The cons

It’s heavily censored, so not everything can be listed and shared on Baidu.

The results are best localized for China, so if you’re not working for the Chinese market, it may not be relevant to you. 

Remember that in China, Baidu ranked 1^st with 66.92% of the total traffic: 

AOL

The pros

Its size.

• It’s an established search engine and, as of May 2021, it had over 1.5 million users per month.

Its relevant results for search terms.

• AOL answers direct questions. If you want to know what the weather is like somewhere, the answer comes up immediately and clearly. 

The cons

Its features.

• It lacks advanced features like mail, meaning that users have to leave the browser to access these. 

Its interface.

• Like Yahoo!, the homepage might seem cluttered with too much information and ads, which could be annoying to some users.

Its results.

• It doesn’t provide contextualized or intent-based results, meaning that the SERPs are often vague.
• It doesn’t date search results, so you don’t know what is the most up-to-date information.

Ask.com

The pros

Its size.

• Ask.com has been steadily growing over the last few months, with a total of 38.3 million visits in September 2021 according to our Traffic Analytics tool.

Its algorithm.

• The algorithm favors expertise over popularity and it has a “smart answers” feature, making its information arguably more reliable for users. 

Its tools.

• It has web search tools like a dictionary, weather, and more, which allow users to do more than simply search on the platform. 

Its SERP interface.

• You can preview what a site looks like when you hover your mouse over the binoculars in the SERPs. This is a benefit for users but could be a drawback for those trying to rank, as users can make a split-second decision on whether or not to visit your site. 

They have a related searches feature.

The cons

Its overall interface.

• Like Yahoo! and AOL, the homepage is cluttered with information and ads. This could annoy some users. 

Its results.

• It doesn’t show ranked results.
• It’s a directory, meaning that not all the information is accurate.
• The first results in the SERPs are filled with ads.

Keep Track of Top Search Engines with .Trends

So, we think it’s pretty safe to conclude that Google is the top search engine out there for a lot of reasons. 

Not only does it have the top share of visits in the US, UK, Australia, India, Russia, and Germany, and have the most Twitter followers by a lead of 19.3 million over its next competitor (Amazon) as of September 2021, but it also has the second-biggest share of visits in China and ranks second on Trustpilot after Ecosia. 

Getting a handle on where you rank in Google’s empire is therefore of the utmost importance. 

To monitor how you’re performing for keywords, you can use our Position Tracking tool to monitor the Google SERPs. Just go to the Position Tracking section of your Semrush SEO Dashboard to check out your visibility, improved and declined keywords, and more: 

And click on any of the statistics for more information:

You can also use the Organic Research tool to see how some of your competitors are performing on Google. Just enter a domain to get started and discover your competitors’ best keywords. 

Find out your main competitors and where you rank among them: 

And switch your focus to the keywords that you know will pay off. Just use the easy filters to create keyword lists and add them easily to your keyword manager.

Conclusion

So, what are the main takeaways here?

1. Whatever else you do, make sure you optimize for Google.
2. If you work in ecommerce, don’t neglect the power of Amazon.
3. If you’re working for the Chinese market, treat Baidu with the same amount of care as you would with Google.
4. Use .Trends to keep an eye on those niche players and potential future competitors.

So, yes, it’s safe to say that Google is widely considered to be the top search engine. However, be sure to take other popular ones into consideration as well! You could be missing out on extra traffic.