When it comes to optimization search engines (SEO), it's easy to focus solely on Google. However, while Google is undoubtedly one of the most popular search engines, it is not the only one. Different search engines have different demographics, advantages and disadvantages, so when optimizing your site, you don't want to miss out on important market share.

In this article, you will find a complete list of the main internet search engines, their pros and cons, and we will analyze if Google is really the most popular.

Know the most used search engines

Using our tool .Trends, we have created a list of the ten most popular search engines today and analyzed their popularity. The final list is organized by the share of total search engine visits recorded in the United States. These are the results:

1. Google – 75,71% market share
2. Amazon - 11,27%
3. Yahoo! - 7,24%
4. Bing - 3,32%
5. DuckDuckGo - 1,32%
6. AOL – 0,89%
7. Baidu – 0,15%
8. Ask.com – 0,06%
9. Yandex – 0,04%
10. Ecosia – 0,04%

It's not surprising to see Google and Amazon leading the list, along with Yahoo! and Bing in the top five. They are easily recognizable names in the internet sphere. Engines like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Baidu and Yandex rank lower for various reasons that we will discuss later.

Leading search engines in different markets

Let's take a look at which search engines dominate in specific markets. According to Market Explorer data, these are the countries with the largest search engine market share:

• United States - 36,11%
• India - 6,64%
• South Korea - 4,6%
• United Kingdom - 3,87%

Breaking down the leading search engines in India, South Korea and the United Kingdom, we see that Google remains firmly in the top position in all markets, while Yahoo! and Amazon compete for second and third place.

Regarding niche search engines like Baidu in China, Yandex in Russia and Ecosia which began in Germany, we observe that:

• Baidu has a 56,26% share in China, followed by Google with 30,91%.
• Yandex dominates in Russia with an impressive 96,12% share, leaving Google in second place with just 3,4%.
• In Germany, Google leads with 90,54%, while Ecosia is in seventh place with a modest 0,70%.

Based on this data, it's fair to assume that Google is the right choice for your website, regardless of the market, except maybe China. And if you want to target the Russian market, you can't afford to ignore Yandex.

Popularity of search engines on social networks

But what about the general population? These are the main search engines according to the number of followers on Twitter:

1. Google - 25 million
2. Amazon - 4,2 million
3. DuckDuckGo - 2 million
4. Yahoo! – 1,4 million
5. Bing – 645.000

As expected, Google and Amazon continue to lead. However, DuckDuckGo has surpassed both Yahoo! like Bing, rising two places in the ranking by market share. This could indicate a demographic difference between search engine users in general and active users on Twitter.

Advantages and disadvantages of the main search engines

Let's look at the pros and cons of some of the top search engines to better understand the differences in market share and popularity.

Google

Advantages:

• Unmatched size and reputation, with 87,86% market share as of June 2021.
• Free additional features like Google Maps, Books and Scholar.
• Seamless integration with other Google accounts (Analytics, Gmail, YouTube, etc.).

Disadvantages:

• Sells user data to third parties.
• Collects email data to show relevant ads to users.

DuckDuckGo

Advantages:

• Privacy: Does not track, collect or store user data.
• Rapid growth, reaching 102 million daily searches in January 2021.
• Transparency in search results without segmentation or personalization.
• Easily customizable interface with infinite scrolling.

Disadvantages:

• Lack of ads and personalized results due to their privacy policy.
• It lacks many additional features that Google offers.

Yahoo!

Advantages:

• Fourth search engine for desktop users worldwide.
• Interface with trends, news, weather and sports on the home page.
• Specialized searches, such as recipes when searching for types of food.

Disadvantages:

• Powered by Bing, which can generate crossovers in results.
• Abundance of ads on home page and search results.
• It sells user data to third parties, just like Google.
• Cluttered interface that can be chaotic for some users.

Ecosia

Advantages:

• Non-profit charitable search engine that supports environmental causes.
• Better Trustpilot score than Google, indicating a loyal user base.
• Financial transparency with public monthly reports.
• It does not sell data to advertisers and allows you to disable tracking and personalization.
• Clear and easy to navigate interface with quick links to different pages.

Disadvantages:

• Search results not always relevant to the query.
• Often irrelevant ads due to default privacy settings.

Bing

Advantages:

• Rewards program that accumulates points for each search to redeem for gift cards.
• Advanced image search with trends and visual search function.
• Special music search function with video, lyrics and artist biographical data.

Disadvantages:

• It tracks activity and sells data to advertisers, which may deter some users.
• Cluttered interface due to the amount of information displayed on the home page.
• Lack of voice search, creating accessibility problems for users with disabilities.

Monitor your performance in the main search engines

After analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of the main search engines, we can conclude that Google It is the best for several reasons:

• Higher share of visits in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, India, Russia and Germany.
• 19,3 million more followers on Twitter than its closest competitor (Amazon) as of September 2021.
• Second highest share of visits in China and second place on Trustpilot after Ecosia.

Therefore, monitoring your positioning in the Google empire is crucial. You can use our tool Position Tracking to track your keyword performance, visibility, improvements and declines. You can also use the tool Organic Research to discover the performance of your competitors on Google, identify their best keywords and compare your positioning against them.

Make sure you optimize for Google, but don't underestimate the power of Amazon if you work in ecommerce. If your target market is China, treat Baidu with the same care as Google. And use .Trends to keep an eye on those niche players and possible future competitors. Although Google is widely considered the leading search engine, don't miss out on traffic opportunities on other engines!

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