The Best Search Engines: List & Google Alternatives

What exactly is a search engine? A search engine, also known as an internet search engine, is a web application that lets its users search for specific information on the World Wide Web. The search results are presented in a results list and often called search engine results pages (SERPs).

This information can be a mix of links to websites, images, podcasts, videos, PDF files, infographics, articles, research and other types of documents.

In addition to classic search engines, there are now also AI-based search engines, so-called AI search engines, that use artificial intelligence to process search queries better and give direct answers instead of just delivering a results list with links.

In this article, we present a list of many different internet search engines.

Which search engines are there and which ones are good Google alternatives?

1. Bing (biggest competitor to Google in Europe & America, incl. AI search Copilot)
2. DuckDuckGo (strong privacy)
3. Ecosia (revenue is donated to nature conservation)
4. Nona (strong privacy + made in Germany)
5. SearchGPT (use ChatGPT as a search engine)
6. Startpage.com (anonymous use of Google Search)
7. Perplexity.com (AI search engine with a strong research function)
8. You.com (another search engine with a chat AI)
9. MetaGer (German meta search engine, has existed since 1996)
10. Exa.ai (tries to deliver search results using neural networks)

List of the best internet search engines

Even though Google has a strong market dominance, there are many, sometimes quite small and unknown providers that are worth testing out.

Especially the data collection frenzy at Google offers legitimate reason for concern. Besides Google, however, there are some alternatives. If you want to protect your data better, you will find here a list of some alternative search engines:

Name	Suchtechnologie	Chat-KI enthalten?	Online seit	Datenkrake?	Good to know	Herkunftsland
Google	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Ja, „AI Overviews“ und „AI Mode“	1997	Ja, speichert personenbezogene Daten	Weltmarktführer, speichert Nutzerdaten, spielt personalisierte Suchergebnisse aus	USA
Bing	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Ja, „Microsoft Copilot“	2009	Ja, speichert personenbezogene Daten	Zweitgrößte Suchmaschine in den USA & Europa, wurde von Microsoft gegründet	USA
ChatGPT (SearchGPT)	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Ja, „SearchGPT“	2022 / 2024	Ja, speichert personenbezogene Daten	SearchGPT ist eine Funktion von ChatGPT, die es ermöglicht, ChatGPT wie eine Suchmaschine zu verwenden	USA
Yandex	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	1997	Ja, speichert personenbezogene Daten	Marktführer in Russland noch vor Google	Russland
Yahoo	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	1994	Ja, speichert personenbezogene Daten	Nutzt die Suchtechnologie von Bing, war einmal die größte Suchmaschine, Nutzerzahlen werden immer geringer	USA
Perplexity	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Ja	2022	Ja, speichert personenbezogene Daten	Eine weitere „KI-Suchmaschine“ – funktioniert gut zur Recherche nach Themen, Quellen u.v.m.	USA
Brave	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Ja	2021	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Brave Search ist seit Juni 2022 aus der Beta und Standardsuche im Brave-Browser. 87% des gesamten Ergebnisse werden aus dem eigenen Index von Brave erstellt. Brave möchte eine ernsthafte Konkurrenz zu Google werden (Quelle)	USA
You.com	Suchindex + Webcrawler + Metasuche	Ja	2021	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	You.com wirbt mit einem sehr hohen Datenschutz dank einem „You.com Private mode“. Ende 2022 wurde eine Chat-KI (künstliche Intelligenz) bei der Suche hinzugefügt.	USA
Nona	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	2021	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Nona ist eine Suchmaschine aus Deutschland. Laut Website eine private und (gegen eine kleine Gebühr) werbefreie Suchmaschine. Mehr über Nona erfährst du hier.	Deutschland
exa.ai	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Ja	2022	K.A.	Exa.ai ist eine KI-Suchmaschine, die ein neuronales Netzwerk nutzt, um die Bedeutung von Suchanfragen zu verstehen, im Gegensatz zu herkömmlichen Suchmaschinen, die hauptsächlich auf Schlüsselwörtern basieren	USA
phind.com	Kombination aus KI und maschinellem Lernen	Ja	2021	K.A.	Keine traditionellen Suchindex wie herkömmliche Suchmaschinen, sondern nutzt eine Kombination aus KI und maschinellem Lernen, um Antworten zu generieren.	USA
Poe.com	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Ja	2023	K.A.	Reine KI-Suchmaschine	USA
Andi-Search	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Ja	2022	K.A.	Reine KI-Suchmaschine	USA
Baidu	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	2000	Ja, speichert personenbezogene Daten	Beliebteste Suchmaschine in China, zensiert Suchergebnisse sehr stark und speichert Benutzerdaten	China
Yep	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	2022	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	90 Prozent der Werbeeinnahmen will Yep zurück an die Content-Creator:innen (z. B. Wikipedia) bezahlen, um ein faires Internet für alle aufzubauen.	USA
lexica.art	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	2022	K.A.	Bildersuchmaschine für KI-Bilder.	USA
Ask.com	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	1996	Ja, speichert personenbezogene Daten	In Verruf geraten, da sich die Ask.com-Toolbar heimlich auf vielen Rechnern installiert hat und nicht mehr so einfach entfernt werden konnte	USA
Fireball	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	1996	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Eine der ersten Suchmaschinen aus Deutschland. Hatte in den 2000er-Jahren hohe Benutzerzahlen.	Deutschland
Altavista	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	1995	K.A.	Wurde 2003 von Yahoo übernommen und 2013 komplett abgeschaltet	USA
Lycos	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	1995	K.A.	Wurde 2010 von der indischen Firma Ybrant Digital aufgekauft	USA
Qwant	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	2013	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Hoher Datenschutz, Sitz in Frankreich	Frankreich
Search.ch	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	1995	K.A.	Suchmaschine für den Schweizer Raum und Umgebung	Schweiz
Exalead	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	2004	K.A.	Suche kann in den Sucheinstellungen vorab auf bestimmte Seitentypen eingestellt werden	Frankreich
Gigablast	Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	2000	K.A.	Open-Source-Suchmaschine, die jedoch im April 2023 abgeschaltet wurde und nicht mehr erreichbar ist	USA
DuckDuckGo	Suchindex + Webcrawler + Metasuche	Nein	2008	Nein	Hoher Datenschutz, steigende Nutzerzahlen, greift auf andere Suchmaschinen zurück und hat einen eigenen Webcrawler	USA
Ixquick / Kagi	Suchindex + Webcrawler (eigener Index + Partnerquellen)	Ja	2022	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Kostenpflichtige Premium-Suche (Abomodell), werbefrei und ohne Tracking	USA
Ixquick / Mojeek	Suchindex + Webcrawler (eigener Index + Partnerquellen)	Ja	2004	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Einer der wenigen komplett von Google und Bing unabhängigen Indizes	Großbritannien
Ixquick / Startpage.com	Metasuche	Nein	1998	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Mit Startpage.com lassen sich die Google-Suchergebnisse anonym abfragen	Niederlande
Metager.de	Metasuche	Nein	1996	Nein	Viele Einstellungsmöglichkeiten, über 20 Quellen zur Informationsbeschaffung können ausgewählt werden	Deutschland
MetaCrawler.com	Metasuche	Nein	1995	K.A.	Erste Meta-Suchmaschine weltweit	USA
LexiQuo	Metasuche	Nein	1995	Nein	Meta-Suchmaschine mit zahlreichen Funktionen, wie Übersetzungen, Wikipedia-Suche usw.	K.A.
Disconnect Search	Metasuche	Nein	2011	Nein	Liefert die Suchergebnisse von DuckDuckGo und Bing, sehr hoher Datenschutz	USA
Dogpile	Metasuche	Nein	1995	K.A.	Fasst die Suchergebnisse der bekannteren Suchmaschinen (Google, Bing und Yandex) zusammen	USA
SearXNG	Metasuche	Nein	2021	Nein	Open Source und selbst hostbar, keine Profilbildung; Fork des 2021 abgespaltenen searx	K.A.
T-Online.de	Metasuche	Nein	1995	K.A.	Wurde von Ströer Digital Publishing GmbH übernommen. Die Suchergebnisse werden von Google bereitgestellt	Deutschland
Web.de	Metasuche	Nein	1995	K.A.	Suchergebnisse von Google	Deutschland
GMX.net	Metasuche	Nein	1997	K.A.	Suchergebnisse von Google	Deutschland
Yahoo	Metasuche	Nein	1994	Ja, speichert personenbezogene Daten	Einst eine der marktführenden Suchmaschinen weltweit, hat an Reichweite stark verloren, kooperiert mit Microsoft, Suchergebnisse von Bing	USA
Ecosia	Metasuche	Nein	2009	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	80 % der Einnahmen über Suchmaschinenanzeigen werden für Naturschutzprojekte gespendet	Deutschland
Oscobo	Metasuche	Nein	2015	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Zielgruppe sind die englischen Internet-User, Ergebnisse kommen von Bing	Großbritanien
AOL	Metasuche	Nein	K.A.	K.A.	Das einst größte Internet-Unternehmen der Welt besitzt auch heute noch eine Suchmaschine. Suchergebnisse von Bing	USA
Hulbee / swisscows.ch	Semantische Suche + Suchindex + Webcrawler	Nein	2014	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Suchmaschine mit semantischer Suche, eigenem Index und Webcrawler sowie einem Jugendschutzfilter	Schweiz
Wolframalpha	Semantische Suche	Nein	2009	K.A.	Liefert sofort Antworten und Fakten statt nur Suchergebnisse	USA
FragFINN	Suchmaschine für Kinder	Nein	K.A.	K.A.	Stark gefilterte Suchergebnisse für Kinder	K.A.
helles-koepfchen.de	Suchmaschine für Kinder	Nein	K.A.	K.A.	Stark gefilterte Suchergebnisse für Kinder	K.A.
blinde-kuh.de	Suchmaschine für Kinder	Nein	1997	K.A.	Stark gefilterte Suchergebnisse für Kinder	K.A.
YaCy	Peer-to-Peer-Suche (P2P-Suche)	Nein	2003	Nein, die Suche ist anonym	Bekannteste P2P-Suchmaschine, zur Nutzung muss eine Software auf dem Rechner installiert werden, jeder kann mitmachen	Deutschland
tiger.ch	Suchindex + Webcrawler + Metasuche	Nein		K.A.	Eigener Index mit Webcrawler für die Schweiz, plus Metasuche bei Google, Bing und DuckDuckGo, sowie den Videoportalen YouTube, ALUGHA, vimeo und Dailymotion	Schweiz

Search engines presented in detail

Now we go into detail and present some search engines.

We start with Google as the global market leader. However, Google does not everywhere in the world have complete market dominance. Especially in large countries like China or Russia, it is alternative search engines that lead the market.

Also with regard to their search options, other search engines differ from one another. There are special search engines for certain target groups or providers that promise particularly strong privacy and much more. There are so many different, unfortunately mostly unknown, providers in the field of web search that are worth testing out.

Google – the top dog among search engines (incl. market share worldwide and USA)

Almost every internet user knows Google and uses this search engine to find information on the web. The word “to google” has even made it into the Duden dictionary.

Google currently dominates the market in Germany with over 90% market share and is extremely popular. In the USA, the market share is over 80% and worldwide likewise just over 90% (source). Google is also one of the most visited websites in the world. (Source: Wikipedia).

Market share worldwide:

Suchmaschine	Google	Bing	Yahoo	Baidu	Yandex	Other
2009	90.28%	2.3%	4.78%			1.72%
2010	90.91%	3.46%	3.93%	0.34%		1%
2011	91.07%	3.57%	3.59%	0.32%		1.11%
2012	91.85%	3.09%	3.01%	0.35%	0.34%	1.36%
2013	90.24%	3.36%	3.12%	0.87%	0.34%	2.08%
2014	89.81%	3.63%	3.57%	0.61%		2.38%
2015	90.61%	3.2%	3.4%	0.96%	0.39%	1.61%
2016	92.01%	2.79%	2.62%	1.02%	0.35%	1.21%
2017	92.09%	2.76%	2.12%	1.34%	0.41%	1.28%
2018	90.94%	3.03%	2.04%	1.94%	0.61%	1.44%
2019	92.71%	2.32%	1.59%	1.06%	0.56%	1.76%
2020	92.08%	2.7%	1.63%	1.16%	0.6%	1.83%
2021	92.13%	2.55%	1.48%	1.3%	0.68%	1.86%
2022	92.07%	3.04%	1.39%	1.27%	0.87%	1.36%
2023	91.62%	3.37%	1.12%	0.96%	1.65%	1.28%
2024	89.74%	3.97%	1.29%	0.81%	2.56%	1.63%
2025	90.02%	5.14%	1.50%	0.46%	1.19%	1.69%

Market share USA:

Suchmaschine	Google	Bing	Yahoo	DuckDuckGo	Other
2017	87.24%	6.57%	5.05%	0.52%	0.62%
2018	87.33%	7.32%	4.34%	0.62%	0.28%
2019	88.65%	6.11%	3.55%	1.33%	0.36%
2020	88.62%	5.73%	2.99%	2.27%	0.39%
2021	87.34%	6.58%	3.19%	2.40%	0.49%
2022	86.49%	7.82%	2.95%	2.35%	0.39%
2023	87.62%	7.71%	2.37%	1.77%	0.53%
2024	87.4%	7.31%	2.66%	2.12%	0.51%
2025	85.16%	9.82%	2.67%	1.74%	0.61%

Market share Germany:

Suchmaschine	Google	Bing	DuckDuckGo	Yahoo	Ecosia	Yandex	Web.de	t-online	Other
2009	97.27%	0.47%	0	1.3%	0	0	0.2%	0	0.53%
2010	97.11%	1.08%	0	1.04%	0	0	0.29%	0	0.29%
2011	95.86%	1.93%	0	1.05%	0	0	0.31%	0	0.85%
2012	95.14%	1.89%	0	1.06%	0	0	0.47%	0	1.06%
2013	94.65%	1.83%	0	1.12%	0	0	0.59%	0	1.36%
2014	93.44%	2.43%	0	1.9%	0	0	0.46%	1.02%	0.75%
2015	93.27%	2.87%	0	1.88%	0	0	0.36%	0.95%	0.67%
2016	93.21%	4.05%	0	1.54%	0	0	0	0.65%	0.28%
2017	92.14%	5.25%	0	1.64%	0	0	0	0	0.44%
2018	92.67%	4.19%	0	1.1%	0	0	0	0	1.5%
2019	95.04%	2.57%	0	0.56%	0.59%	0	0	0.24%	1%
2020	91.19%	5.34%	0.72%	0.56%	1.12%	0	0	0.23%	0.84%
2021	90.66%	5.24%	0.88%	0.72%	1.1%	0	0	0	1.4%
2022	89.59%	6.48%	0.95%	0.92%	0.84%	0.56%	0	0	0.66%
2023	91.78%	4.73%	0.64%	0.93%	0.71%	0.77%	0	0	0.44%
2024	91.2%	4.39%	0.88%	0.88%	0.67%	1.71%	0	0	0.27%
2025	80.21%	9.68%	1.97%	3.04%	1.62%	2.93%	0	0	0.55%

Google was developed in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University – initially under the name “BackRub”. Since September 15, 1997, the search engine has been operated under the name “Google”. The user interface has barely changed since then. However, Google keeps implementing small and large changes to its search results, such as displaying answers directly in the search results with so-called featured snippets.

Google keeps exploiting its power more and more, which sometimes meets with criticism, e.g. regarding the almost non-existent data protection (the search engine stores all kinds of data about its users).

Tags: global market leader, stores and uses personal data for advertising purposes among others, no anonymous search possible

Yandex – market leader Russia

The Russian search engine Yandex (Яндекс) was founded back in 1997 and, according to Wikipedia, is a company headquartered in Amsterdam with its operational headquarters in Moscow. There are also branches in Belarus, Switzerland, the USA, Turkey and Germany (Berlin).

The market share in Germany is relatively low, while in Russia, according to Statcounter.com, it is almost as large as that of Google, meaning the two search engines share market leadership in Russia.

Market share in Russia:

Suchmaschine	Yandex	Google	Mail.ru	Bing	Yahoo	Other
2017	47.97%	47.28%	3.1%	0.73%	0.48%	0.44%
2018	52.74%	43.82%	2.13%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%
2019	52.24%	44.38%	2.22%	0.54%	0.24%	0.38%
2020	53.01%	44.72%	1.07%	0.54%	0.25%	0.41%
2021	53.25%	44.54%	1.05%	0.55%	0.24%	0.37%
2022	51.86%	45.1%	0.21%	2.19%	0.21%	0.43%
2023	69.79%	28.05%	0.07%	0.74%	0.27%	1.08%
2024	74.43%	24.39%	0	0.75%	0.12%	0.31%
2025	73.04%	25.00%	0.36%	1.28%	0.06%	0.26%

Tags: market leader in Russia, stores personal data

Baidu – market leader China

Baidu is the market leader among search engines in China. With over 70% market share, Baidu is the most popular search engine in the Middle Kingdom.

Market share in China:

Suchmaschine	Baidu	Bing	Google	Shenma	Haosou	Sogou	Other
2017	77.31%	0	1.71%	7.72%	8.06%	3.56%	1.64%
2018	69.37%	0	1.63%	17.89%	5.35%	4.33%	1.44%
2019	67.09%	0	2.64%	6.84%	1.91%	18.75%	2.77%
2020	69.95%	0	2.83%	3.09%	3.47%	18.15%	2.48%
2021	74.23%	0	2.2%	–	2.23%	17.41%	3.93%
2022	64.6%	12.55%	2.81%	2.07%	5.91%	10.14%	1.92%
2023	66.35%	13.42%	0	0	6.45%	5.05%	8.73%
2024	45.18%	37.75%	0	1.88%	8.03%	2.61%	4.55%
2025	44.64%	22.38%	1.85%	0	18.17%	2.05%	10.91%

Tags: market leader in China, stores (a lot of) personal data

Bing

Bing was launched by Microsoft in 2009 as the successor to live.com (Live Search) in order to be able to pose real competition to Google.

However, Bing's market share in many countries is well below 10% and therefore currently poses hardly any threat to Google's dominance.

In 2023, the Bing chatbot (Microsoft Copilot) was introduced, which can answer users' questions using AI.

Tags: “biggest” competitor to Google in Europe and USA, stores data, chatbot

Nona.de

Nona is a fairly young project from Germany. The Nona search engine shows significantly less advertising than the big competition. On request, the search engine can be used 100% ad-free for a small fee. Another advantage is how private user data is handled – it is not tracked or stored.

Nona also provides in its search results the instant answers (featured snippets) known from Google for common and easy-to-answer questions (e.g. what is the weather, what is the stock price, etc.).

Tags: made in Germany, little advertising, strong privacy

Brave Search

Brave Search is an independent search engine with its own index. Around 87% of the hits come from Brave's own database, the rest is supplemented. Brave Search comes from Brave Software, Inc. from the USA, has been out of beta since June 2022 and is the default search in the Brave browser.

If you value privacy and independence from Google and Bing, you will find an interesting alternative here.

Tags: own index, default search in the Brave browser

Kagi

Kagi is an ad-free, paid search engine without tracking.

It combines its own index with results from selected partner sources and finances itself through a subscription model instead of advertising.

This makes Kagi particularly suitable for users who want to pay for ad-free and tracking-free search.

Tags: paid, ad-free, own index

Mojeek

Mojeek from the UK operates a completely own search index that is independent of Google and Bing and stores no personal data.

As one of the few search engines with a real own crawler (MojeekBot) that is also 100% independent, Mojeek is an interesting choice for anyone who values independence and privacy.

Tags: independent search engine, ad-free, stores no data, own crawler

Yep!

Yep, a fairly short name for a search engine. The company behind Yep! is the tool provider “Ahrefs”, well known from the SEO scene. According to Techcrunch.com, over 60 million US dollars have been invested in the development of Yep so far, with the goal of paying 90% of the advertising revenue back to the content creators (webmasters, publishers, etc.) in order to ensure a free and fair internet.

A very commendable goal, since the big search engines in particular increasingly “steal” the content of websites and display it directly themselves in the search results (featured snippets). Privacy is also said to be very high.

Since Yep! is still fairly new on the market, the search engine first has to prove itself against the big competition. The approach is definitely exciting.

Tags: advertising revenue to content creators, strong privacy

Ask.com

Ask.com was founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen and fell into disrepute due to the aggressive spread of its Ask toolbar. Many users complained that the Ask toolbar, once it was installed, could no longer be removed so easily (source).

Ask's user numbers in Germany are low.

Tags: very low market share, stores personal data

Fireball

Fireball is the first German-language search engine, developed in 1996 by the computer science department of the Technical University of Berlin.

The operators entered into countless cooperations – e.g. with the search engine Yahoo, Altavista and later Google. In August 2000, Fireball had a market share of 22% in Germany, which then declined further and further as most users switched to Google. Thus the market share in 2001 was 10% and by 2005 it crashed to under 0.5%. Fireball never recovered from this, which is why user numbers are low nowadays.

Fireball currently advertises with the slogan “Your anonymous search engine” and has committed itself to privacy. The users' IP address or other search behavior is not stored.

Tags: made in Germany, anonymous search engine

Qwant

The French search engine Qwant was founded in 2011 and has offered its users a comprehensive search since 2013. It allows you to search not only specifically for websites, but also for news, images, social media platforms, videos (mainly Youtube.com) and shopping results.

Qwant advertises that it stores no personal data. Therefore, no personalized search results like at Google are displayed during the search. The users' IP addresses are not stored. Also, only temporary cookies are set and cookies for commercial purposes are not used.

Qwant is definitely an interesting search engine: it remains to be seen whether it has a chance against the big market leaders. The main source of revenue is, as with many others, displaying ads in the search results.

Tags: from France, anonymous search, dedicated to charitable causes

Search.ch

This search engine from Switzerland was founded back in 1995 by Rudolf Räber and Bernhard Seefeld. It mainly displays search results from Switzerland. In addition to displaying websites, there are many other services, such as a phone book, weather service, maps, timetables, TV and cinema listings. Everything for Switzerland and the surrounding area.

In addition, there is a local search that lets you search within a specific region, such as Bern, Zurich or Freiburg, which is located in Germany.

Tags: Swiss search engine, regional search results

Gigablast

Gigablast is an open-source search engine and was founded in 2000 by Matt Wells in New Mexico. Other providers such as Ixquick (now Startpage) drew on Gigablast's search results.

However, Gigablast was shut down without prior notice in April 2023 and is no longer accessible.

Tags: old-school search engine

Search engines with chat AI

ChatGPT (with SearchGPT), Perplexity and other providers are no longer classic search engines with just 10 blue links. Google and many other search engines have also evolved considerably in recent years. But ChatGPT has ushered in a new era with its chat AI and thereby also changed search engines and the way we users use the internet.

Of course, Google sees its great market power threatened by new competitors and technologies. Therefore, Google has classified ChatGPT as a “Code Red” threat to its own business. Google has already developed its own chat AI (technology models LaMDA, MuM and co.).

The AI Overviews from Google are now also available in Europe: in Germany since March 2025, EU-wide from October 2025. In addition, Google has introduced AI Mode, a dialog-oriented search based on Gemini that answers complex questions directly in the search results.

Some search engine providers have already led the way and integrated their own artificial intelligence into their search results.

Copilot from Bing

Microsoft uses the ChatGPT model to offer its own AI search. Under the name “Copilot”, users can not only have search results displayed in the form of links as sources, but also receive a direct answer – even to complex questions.

Although Microsoft integrated Copilot into Bing early on, hardly any market share could be taken from Google so far. The future will show how heavily Bing search is used by internet users.

Tags: AI search engine from Bing (uses ChatGPT)

ChatGPT with SearchGPT

ChatGPT went online for the general public at the end of 2022 and has triggered several revolutions since then. In addition to precise answers, since 2024 it has also been possible to search for answers and content on the WWW with SearchGPT.

The results of SearchGPT currently still leave much to be desired, but will certainly gain considerably in quality over the next few years. Time will tell whether SearchGPT will be able to challenge Google for larger market shares.

According to Rand Fishkin from Sparktoro, ChatGPT already reached a market share of 4.33% of the ‘Cross Platform Share’ in 2024. The ‘Cross Platform Share’ includes not only classic search engines but also platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.. Further information and opinions on ChatGPT's market shares can be found on seroundtable.com.

Tags: chatbot, AI search engine

You.com

At You.com, the search results are sorted by category. This way, the best search results for a query can be pre-sorted, e.g. by social media channels, news sites and other types of websites. This gives the user a much greater choice in the results right away. An exciting and new approach that brings fresh air into the usual ten blue links in the search results.

According to its own website, You.com also relies on strong privacy and was released in a beta phase on November 9, 2021.

Since the end of 2022, You.com has offered its own chat AI. Similar to ChatGPT, the AI answers users' questions and can provide answers to complex questions. The chat can be used via the You.com search.

Tags: great diversification in the SERPs, strong privacy, chatbot (AI)

Perplexity

Perplexity describes itself as the “first” search engine with artificial intelligence. Instead of blue links in a search results list, the user receives an answer directly from the AI. Whether this will be the future of search engines remains to be seen. In addition to the AI's answer, Perplexity.ai always also provides source references to other websites as evidence.

According to https://www.perplexity.ai/enterprise, no personal data is stored. However, when asked directly, the AI search engine itself states that the search is not compliant with data protection regulations.

The capabilities of the AI here are more limited compared to You.com and ChatGPT. For example, the Perplexity AI cannot program or write a poem. The AI is designed exclusively to deliver search results.

Tags: search engine with AI, chatbot, good for topic research

Exa.ai

Exa.ai is an AI-based search engine that interprets the meaning behind search queries using a neural network. Unlike traditional search engines, which focus primarily on identifying keywords, Exa.ai enables a deeper understanding of search intent and can thereby deliver more precise results.

With websets.exa.ai, you can also have deeper research carried out. Websets enables complex web searches in natural language. The AI analyzes the queries, identifies relevant data and verifies it by comparing it with parallel sources. This makes it possible, for example, to specifically find particular research papers.

Websets does not see itself as competition to classic search engines like Google or Bing, nor as an AI search tool like Perplexity. Instead, it is designed to support as an efficient research tool, especially in a professional context.

Tags: search engine with AI, uses Websets (well suited for researching sources)

Phind

Phind (formerly Hello) is a search engine that delivers a direct answer in the SERPs using AI. In addition to the answer, organic search results are also displayed. Phind was developed specifically for programmers who want to use an AI for coding. But the chat AI can already answer very complex questions and search queries well, too.

According to phind.com/privacy, personal data is not tracked.

Tags: search engine with AI, especially for developers/programmers, chatbot

Gemini & AI Mode from Google

Google's answer to ChatGPT and its strong growth is called Gemini. Gemini is the language model with which the market leader also supplies its classic search with AI answers – for example via the AI Overviews, which display summarized answers directly above the search results.

In addition, there is AI Mode: a separate, dialog-oriented search mode within Google Search. Here users ask a question and can follow up directly in a conversation without leaving the search. The AI Overviews appear automatically for many search queries, while AI Mode is a deliberately invoked mode for more complex research.

Many publishers view this development critically. If AI Overviews or AI Mode already deliver all the important information directly on the results page, some users no longer have a reason to visit a website.

Tags: AI extension from Google

Meta search engines

A meta search engine combines the search results of several search engines.

Such search engines are often also referred to as search mask collections. The difference, however, is that search mask collections deliver the search results in individual windows with the original interface of the respective search engine. Meta search engines, on the other hand, bring the results together in one large overview.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo was developed by Gabriel Weinberg and went live in 2008. This search engine with the unusual name is a combination of a meta search engine and its own web crawler. Thus the search results are delivered from over 400 sources, such as Bing, Yandex, Yahoo Search BOSS or Wikipedia. Added to this are the results of its own web crawler called DuckDuckBot, which regularly crawls the web itself for information. According to Wikipedia, there were more than 20 million searches in a single day via this meta search engine on November 13, 2017.

The search engine's motto is “The search engine that doesn’t track you”. DuckDuckGo delivers the same results to all users (there is no filter bubble), stores no data and does not pass on any personal data. The company states advertising in its search results as its source of revenue, which relates only to the search results and not to the user's search behavior.

To further increase anonymity, DuckDuckGo can also be accessed as a Tor hidden service. This service can only be accessed via the Tor browser, which additionally protects your data.

The search at DuckDuckGo offers various options, such as setting the country for the search query or filtering by images, videos and news. In addition, there is a filter mode that can exclude content not suitable for minors.

Tags: strong privacy, anonymous search, steadily growing user numbers worldwide

MetaGer

A German search engine (meta search engine) that compiles its search results from its own index and those of over 20 other providers. In addition to web search, users can specifically search for news, scientific entries, products and much more.

MetaGer has been in operation since 1996 and was the second meta search engine worldwide and the first in Europe. It stores no IP addresses and no other user data. The project is operated by the Institute for Search Engine Technology of SUMA-EV – Association for Free Access to Knowledge (source) in cooperation with Leibniz University Hannover.

If you want to learn more about the German search engine MetaGer, you should listen to the podcast on Golem.de.

Tags: strong privacy, anonymous search, non-profit association

Metacrawler

MetaCrawler was one of the first meta search engines worldwide and went online on 07/07/1995. Here, search results from the WWW, images, videos and news are combined.

Tags: first meta search engine

LexiQuo

LexiQuo offers a search with an integrated linguistic analysis. Here, five different search engines can be selected – e.g. Wikipedia, Google and Bing. The search results of the French search engine Qwant can also be selected. According to the website, no data is stored, so the search engine can be used anonymously.

Tags: strong privacy, anonymous search

Disconnect Search

Disconnect was founded in 2011. The company's goal is to protect people's privacy on the internet. Disconnect offers various products that support this goal: e.g. a VPN software and, of course, a search engine.

With Disconnect Search, users can have the results from two different search engines (DuckDuckGo and Bing) displayed without losing their privacy and personal data.

Tags: strong privacy, anonymous search

Dogpile

Dogpile combines the search results of well-known providers (Google, Bing and Yandex). This meta search engine started operating back in 1995. In addition to the usual search for websites, images, videos, news and shopping results can also be searched.

Tags: search results from Google, Bing and Yandex

SearXNG

SearXNG is an open-source, self-hostable meta search engine that bundles results from over 200 sources while storing no user data. If you want maximum control over your search, you can run your own SearXNG instance or use one of the many public instances.

Tags: search results from Google, Bing and Yandex

Search engines in cooperation with Google or Bing

Some search engines do not operate their own index, but instead serve the search results of Google or Bing and supplement them with their own focuses such as privacy or nature conservation.

Startpage.com (Ixquick)

According to its website, Startpage.com (formerly Ixquick) is the most discreet search engine in the world. The company is based in the Netherlands. On Startpage, the Google search results are displayed and combined with privacy protection. This means no personal data is stored and resold to advertisers. This is also very useful for bypassing personalized search on Google (filter bubble).

The meta search engine was founded in 1998 and has been committed to protecting its users' privacy since 2006. In 2016, StartPage and Ixquick were merged into one large privacy search engine.

You can find the current user numbers of the Startpage search engine here.

Tags: bypasses personalized search on Google

t-online.de, web.de and gmx.net

Thanks to its numerous DSL customers, Deutsche Telekom's internet portal “t-online.de” (founded in September 1995) was always able to show high user numbers and was at times one of the most visited websites in Germany.

Since the end of November 2015, the website has belonged to Ströer Digital Publishing GmbH. The search results on t-online.de are provided by Google.

Web.de was founded in 1995 and is probably familiar to most German internet users thanks to its well-known free email service. The website therefore enjoys relatively great popularity and, like t-online.de, offers a Web.de search that is provided by Google.

Gmx.net was founded in 1997 and was – just like Web.de – bought up by 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH. Gmx likewise taps into Google's search results.

Tags: made in Germany

YAHOO!

YAHOO! was founded in 1994 by David Filo and Jerry Yang and was initially a pure web catalog. In addition to web search, this search engine today offers a lot of other services, such as an email service.

The evolution of Yahoo in a GIF can be found on Giphy.

Bing and Yahoo

Since 2009, Bing and Yahoo have cooperated in order to be able to attack Google's market power. However, the market share remains in the low single-digit percentage range.

Tags: former global market leader

Ecosia

Over 250 million trees have been planted so far thanks to Ecosia users.

How does that work? Ecosia is a search engine that uses its revenue from search ads to plant trees. An ecological search engine, so to speak – nature conservation has never been so easy.

Ecosia GmbH was founded on 12/07/2009 and is based in Berlin. According to Wikipedia, 80% of the surplus revenue is donated to nature conservation organizations. The search results of Ecosia are provided by Bing and no personal data is stored on Ecosia (see Ecosia Privacy).

Tags: search engine that plants trees, donates a large part of the advertising revenue

Oscobo

The British search engine Oscobo advertises with the topic of privacy – according to the website, no personal data is stored or passed on. Instead of personalized advertising, only ads that relate to the search query are shown.

This provider's search results are made available by Bing. The main target group is English internet users.

Tags: United Kingdom, anonymous search

AOL.

Who didn't know them? The countless AOL CDs with free minutes for the internet? AOL initially offered consumers only internet access, later also its own search engine. The CDs were so widespread that in America there was even a campaign against them.

AOL was founded back in 1985. At the time, however, the name was first Quantum Computer Services and was only changed to “America Online” (AOL for short) in 1989. AOL's search engine currently works with Bing's technology to display search results.

Tags: AOL CDs

Specialized search engines

In addition to the general search engines that have their own web crawlers and their own index or draw on the search results of other search engines (meta search engines), there are numerous other specialized search engines that have specialized in certain areas.

Price comparison search engines

Price comparison search engines are meant to compare the prices of products and thus show the user the best offers as well as the cheapest prices. Some providers, however, are criticized for not really always showing the cheapest prices, but rather the shops that pay them particularly high commissions.

Therefore, you should use such price comparison search engines with increased caution and, when comparing prices and looking for bargains, visit well-known shops yourself and compare the prices directly.

• billiger.de
• preis.de
• guenstiger.de
• idealo.de
• geizhals.de
• meta-preisvergleich.de
• preispiraten.de

Anonymous search (proxy search engines)

Search engines like Bing or Google are increasingly criticized for storing millions of their users' data without permission. Through their use, the user becomes an open book for many search engines. Especially Google faces sharp criticism.

The following proxy search engines claim to store no data from their users and thus respect their users' privacy.

• duckduckgo
• Startpage.com
• Oscobo
• deusu
• hulbee
• Fastbot
• Qwant
• MetaGer
• YaCy
• Disconnect Search
• Ecosia

Semantic search

Semantic search engines try to derive a meaningful context from their users' search queries. If the user enters a question, the search engine delivers an answer and not a list of possibly relevant websites on which the answer is hidden.

Wolframalpha

Unlike ordinary search engines, WolframAlpha delivers a direct answer to its users. Similar to the Google answer boxes, WolframAlpha displays the search results directly readable on the platform.

This way, the user no longer has to click on any search results themselves. Of course, however, this does not work with all search terms.

WolframAlpha's service is aimed above all at people who want to educate themselves and are looking for direct information without having to filter through countless different solutions themselves. Teachers, scientists, pupils and students in particular are likely to find the “answer machine” useful.

The project has been developed since 2006 by Stephen Wolfram, Conrad Wolfram and their team of a hundred employees. There is a paid Pro version of WolframAlpha with more search results.

swisscows.ch

Swisscows is a search engine of the Swiss company Hulbee AG. The focuses of this search engine are the topics of privacy, semantic search and youth protection filters. In addition to the normal search results for a query, this provider tries to display further matching search terms in a keyword cloud.

Furthermore, you can search for images, products, videos and music.

Search engines for children

The kids want to go online too and use a search engine while looking for information? Then parents should better fall back on a search engine especially for children. These special search engines filter the results so that the kids only get websites and content displayed that are child-appropriate.

In our test of these children's search engines, it turned out that the search results are really filtered very strongly. Even harmless websites like kicker.de are not shown by many of these search engines, only websites that are specifically for children.

• fragfinn.de
• helles-koepfchen.de
• blinde-kuh.de

Peer-to-peer search

Peer-2-peer search engines (also written “peer to peer”) are decentralized search engines that anyone can take part in. All active participants in these search engines create the database with the search index. During the search, the majority decides which search results are shown to the user, and not some superordinate company with mysterious search algorithms. One of the best-known peer-2-peer search services is YaCy https://yacy.net/de/.

If you want to use the search engine, you first have to download the (free) installation file and install it on your computer.

You can find more about YaCy in numerous tutorial videos on YouTube:

Search engines for the darknet

The darknet has fallen into serious disrepute, but not everything about it is bad. The darknet is especially important for people from countries that do not have free access to the normal internet. For example, in some countries Facebook is blocked – anyone who still wants to use it has to go through the darknet.

Darknet search engines also give newcomers the opportunity to quickly find websites there. Unlike websites on the normal internet, the addresses of the so-called Onion Network are not so easy to remember due to their cryptic form of representation. So anyone who does not want to memorize these addresses relies on a search engine in the darknet as well.

● DuckDuckGo – 3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion

● Torch – cnkj6nippubgycuj.onion

Search engine FAQ

Which search engine is the best?

There is no single best search engine. Every search engine has its advantages and disadvantages. As the global market leader, Google could be described as one of the best search engines – otherwise it would hardly be used by millions of people.

However, there is repeated criticism of Google, e.g. because of the intensive storage of user data. Providers like DuckDuckGo combine the search results of many different search engines and thus represent interesting alternatives. Ecosia donates a large part of its revenue to nature conservation.

There simply is no one single best search engine – everyone has to decide for themselves which search suits them best.

What types of search engines are there?

Search engine systems can be divided into different types: meta search engines, catalog search engines and index-based search engines. Furthermore, there are search engines that have specialized their search in certain areas or content.

Index-based search engines

A large proportion of all modern search engines, such as Google, Bing or Yandex, sends so-called crawlers (search engine bots, web crawlers) through the entire World Wide Web to search for content, analyze it (classify it according to certain algorithms) and add it to their search index as well. This way, these search engines can respond specifically to their users' queries and display matching results from their index as quickly as possible.

Catalog search engines

These are so-called web catalogs. The search results were previously compiled by humans, manually checked and categorized. Such catalogs have to be checked by humans again and again. Given the size of the internet, however, it is hardly feasible to always stay up to date – a clear disadvantage compared to index-based search engines with web crawlers. With niche projects a manual compilation and categorization can, however, still make sense today, as with special children's search engines that may only deliver results suitable for children.

Meta search engines

A meta search engine has no search index of its own, but instead draws on the databases of other index-based search engines to deliver information.

The search results from the search engines' data are weighted by the meta search engine and merged into a new results list. DuckDuckGo is one of the best-known meta searches. Here the results from over 400 sources are compiled, e.g. from Wikipedia, Yandex and many others. The advantage here is that users are not trapped in an information bubble – Google delivers, for example, user-oriented (personalized) search results, through which information can theoretically also be lost for the user.

Specialized search engines

There are many other different types of search options. These include, among others, vertical searches, which only enable the search for certain content, such as Google image search, or self-contained search systems, such as the Amazon search, YouTube, Ebay and many more.

AI search engines

Search engines are changing – some new providers, such as Copilot from Bing, do not simply deliver a results list with links for a search query, but instead try to answer complex search queries better with the help of AI, without the user having to piece together their answer on a website.

History of search engines

The very first search engine was called Archie and dates from 1990 – a search index that was designed for FTP archives. The first large well-known search engine was Excite and was founded in 1993/1994. The web search Altavista started in early 1995 and was used by many as their default search.

In the same year, the well-known search Yahoo! launched, initially as a pure web directory. Each entry was added manually by an employee – an unimaginably slow procedure in times of artificial intelligence and crawlers. The global market leader Google launched in 1996. Even though it took a long time, Google has by now established itself as the market leader in very many countries.

New innovations keep coming onto the market. Among them are, for example, search engines like DuckDuckGo, which store no user data, or the web search Ecosia, which donates most of its revenue to nature conservation. Search via voice command is also developing enormously – this trend began in 2011 with Siri for the iPhone and in 2014 with Cortana on Windows operating systems.

Since ChatGPT was made available to the public in November 2022, more and more search engine providers have been adapting their search – many now offer their users useful AI assistants to make searching the web easier. Thus Bing with its “Copilot” and Google with its “AI Overviews” have real AI bots in use. New providers like perplexity.ai also offer an AI-supported web search.

Further data and facts about the history of internet search engines can be found on https://makeawebsitehub.com/internet-search-engine-history/.