Photo: Semisatch – shutterstock.com
Most users use the Google search engine to search the web. Globally, Google has a market share of almost 90 percent (as of July 2021: 87 percent). The remaining 10 percent is divided among the competitors. In addition to Bing and Yahoo, this also includes smaller search engines, which are often useful: on the one hand, Google does not show all results, on the other hand, surfing behavior can be followed much more easily. Alternatives sometimes allow you to find different results for searches. In addition, alternatives can often better guarantee data protection. There are also special search engines that do not store user data or use various other search engines.
Microsoft Bing is Google’s largest competitor, but has a significantly smaller market share. Microsoft mainly integrates Bing in Windows 10 and in its language assistant Cortana. Bing is generally structured like Google and has its advantages – especially when searching for videos and images. Here it is worth using Bing in addition to Google.
Photo: Bing
Two very well-known search engines that users can use as an alternative to Google are: Ixquick and DuckDuckGo. Ixquick is a metasearch engine from the Netherlands that offers a German interface. The provider advertises that it does not store any user data. The meta search uses the search results from several search engines and displays them in one interface. Since 2016, Ixquick and Startpage have merged. Both come from the same company in the Netherlands.
Bee DuckDuckGo Like Google, it is an American search engine, which, however, attaches great importance to data protection. Here too, other search engines are used to find suitable results. DuckDuckGo is saved as a search engine in many browsers and can be used as the default search.
Photo: Thomas Joos
For thorough research on the internet you should always use multiple search engines as you will get different results. Here are some interesting search engines:
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Yahoo.de – Internet veteran, especially strong in finance
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Lycos.de – another German language search engine
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fastbot.de – very fast and easy search engine with anonymization option
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fireball.com – German-language, anonymous search engine
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netluchs.de – simple and fast search engine
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Seekport.com– fast and easy search engine
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Radiusfinder.de – for searching for municipalities and places and information from the region
Another type of search engines are “meta search engines”. Normal search engines such as Google cannot search the entire internet because of the billions of internet pages. Many specialists say that even Google only searches a maximum of 20 percent of the entire internet. It’s probably not even 5 percent. If you want to get as much information as possible from the internet on a certain topic, metasearch engines can be of great help. These search engines do not use their own algorithm to search the Internet, but pass the search terms on to a certain number of other search engines.
Photo: MetaGer
The metasearch engine removes duplicate search results found and sorts the results of the individual search engines into a separate ranking. The search results are arranged in the same way as with normal search engines. However, the search in meta search engines sometimes takes a little longer because the site has to wait for the results of all search engines.
The most popular German meta search engine – metager – is administered by the University of Hanover. It is not only the most popular German metasearch engine, but also the oldest and most mature. MetaGer developers are constantly improving the search engine. MetaGer allows you to search research reports. You can also learn a lot about search engine development on the developer pages. Especially internet users with an interest in science can find a lot of interesting information at MetaGer. Besides MetaGer, there are a few other German language metasearch engines:
The search engine ecosia is ecologically inspired. The German search engine donates a large part of its income to nature conservation organizations. For some time now, the focus has been on planting trees in Burkina Faso. Ecosia mainly works with Bing for search results.
Photo: Ecosia
qwant also offers anonymous search functions and at the same time integration in social networks. The search results are divided into different categories. Search results can be shared on social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook.
Homepage uses Google as an algorithm, but anonymizes the requests. The company is located in the Netherlands. The developers do not use “Targeted Advertising”. Therefore, no user data is evaluated. The search engine is also funded by advertising, but this is not personalized. Startpage and Ixquick are from the same company and are now one entity.
The search engine Tungsten Alpha based on mathematics. Unlike conventional search engines, Wolfram Alpha uses a semantic approach. The results are synthetic answers to questions. For example, if you enter ‘earth’, you will not get search results for websites with this term, but information about the earth, such as distance from the sun, circumference, weight and much more. In other words, Wolfram Alpha returns results for specific questions users have, not a list of websites where specific terms appear.
Photo: Thomas Joos
There are special search engines for children, such as: blinde-kuh.de. This page focuses specifically on the needs of children. The search engine is sponsored by the government and is reputable and safe for adults. On these pages, parents will find tips about which websites are available especially for children, as well as book tips. Other websites for children:
Another area is the search for information in or for specific regions in Germany. You can search for the offices of a particular city, artisans in a region, shop opening times in a municipality, and many other things that would be lost when searching the Internet with a normal search engine.
The website meinestadt.de is the best-known directory and search portal for information about specific regions or cities in Germany. On meinestadt.de you can view photo galleries of the different cities and research events in individual cities. Whatever information you are looking for about a particular city, the fastest way to find it is via meinestadt.de. (hall/fm)