Search Engine Alternatives To Google

Search Engine Alternatives find things online just like Google, though they all use different methods for their search. Thousands of engines are available but most people will use Google. The fact remains that there are other options, that may be equally good and meet your business search needs, and help you find what you want.

Alternatives to Google include the big search engines like Yahoo, Ask, MSN, DogPile, Alta Vista and Web Crawler. Each engine can provide the same service. Search engines are designed to dig through the billions of websites available, find those that apply to your search and present the sites found by order of suitability. All the engines use similar programming to sort and index their findings.

A search engine works a lot more behind the scenes than on your screen. In the few seconds it takes your engine to find and present sites for your perusal it actually only goes as far as its index. Search engines actually are constantly updating their indexes, at all times they are sending out small programs that update their resources. These small programs, called bots or spiders, look for key words, concentration of information and also for how many sites connect to the site they are currently checking. They also assess the validity of the connections and their reliability. For example, if a site is referenced by a University, it will rank higher than one referred to by a personal website.

One of the ways that people try and defeat search engine’s reliability is by keyword saturation. Designers of websites will repeat the keyword so often that it will cause a search engine to pull up their site more frequently. The result is that you can end up with poor web sites that are repetitive, dull and uninformative, but ready to sell you all sorts of things you never needed. While search engines are being designed more cleverly in response, there is always a learning curve while the engines catch up. For this reason alone it makes sense to check out Alternative Search Engines to Google. New and updated search engines may have at least a temporary advantage in the area of your search.

Search engine alternatives can also provide you with different sites to view. For example, when searching for a list of presidents, Google pulls up a private page while Alta Vista goes to wikipedia.com first. The order of sites is determined by slightly different factors, but each search engine pulls up sites using their own internally generated criteria. That is what makes it worth while to search with more than one engine if you aren’t finding what you desire. Since software is proprietary, there will always be some small differences, and those differences can be critical to your search.

38 Alternative Search Engines

Got a favorite Alternative Search Engine? give it a rating and let everyone know what you think.

1. Ask One of the big Search Engines, but still trying to find its place and make a real run at the big 3
   
   
   
   
2. Clusty The clustering search engine
   
   
   
   
3. Quintura is a visual search engine. It extracts keywords from search results and builds a word cloud. By clicking words in the cloud, you refine you search.
   
   
   
   
4. Powerset A better way to search and discover information in Wikipedia articles.
   
   
   
   
5. AdaptiveBlue AdaptiveBlue makes products that leverage personalization and semantics to create a better online experience
   
   
   
   
6. Google Experimental Google is always experimenting with new features aimed at improving the search experience.
   
   
   
   
7. Twitter Search search Twitter in real time - see what the world is doing right now.
   
   
   
   
8. Silobreaker aggregates news, blogs, research, audio, video and other digital media content from global news, shared, user generated and open access social media search.
   
   
   
   
9. Twing Forum Search and Community Discovery engine. Search forums by posts, threads and topics, and find the latest hot topics.
   
   
   
   
10. Goshme An engine to help you find the best Search Engine for your needs
    
    
    
    
11. Viewzi Visual Search Engine great for shopping searches.
    
    
    
    
12. ILike An engine focusing on shopping
    
    
    
    
13. Mobot Mobile A mobile Search Engine connecting users through camera phones.
    
    
    
    
14. KartOO An interesting visual meta Search Engine
    
    
    
    
15. Zuula provides the results from your favorite search engine unaltered
    
    
    
    
16. Liveplasma Music & Movies focused
    
    
    
    
17. ZapMeta An Aggregator of Search Engines <
    
    
    
    
18. Icerocket Blog Search Real-time blog search engine. Trends tracking.
    
    
    
    
19. Ms.Dewey An interactive search engine with a sense of humor
    
    
    
    
20. Cuil They say they are cool, you decide.
    
    
    
    
21. Mahalo Human Powered, human edited
    
    
    
    
22. Ixquick offers high quality meta-search results in full privacy!
    
    
    
    
23. Hakia A semantic Search Engine
    
    
    
    
24. Keotag tag search multiple engines, tag generator and social bookmark links generator. Buzz Monitoring
    
    
    
    
25. Serph track buzz in real time. a search engine that you can use to find out what people are saying on the web right now.
    
    
    
    
26. Scoopler is a real-time search engine for discovering what people are talking about on the internet right now
    
    
    
    
27. ChaCha ask any question in conversational English from a cell phone.
    
    
    
    
28. TweetMeme finds the hottest stories from twitter. Videos, Images, Blogs and lots more.
    
    
    
    
29. Kosmix is a guide to the Web, presenting a dashboard of relevant videos, photos, news, commentary, opinion, communities and links to related topics
    
    
    
    
30. OneRiot is a social search engine that finds the pulse of the web. Search with OneRiot to find the news, videos and products that people are talking about
    
    
    
    
31. Searchme browse search results, view videos, find images, listen to music, review news and shop with Searchme.com
    
    
    
    
32. Twine collaborate, manage, organize and share information using Twine, a Semantic Web or Web 3.0 service created by Radar Networks.
    
    
    
    
33. Wolfram/Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone
    
    
    
    
34. Duck Duck Go is a new search engine with less garbage and better results
    
    
35. Clipblast is the Internet's fastest growing Web-Wide Video Index, Search and Navigation Platform.
    
    
    
36. A9
    helps people find what they want on the world's leading e-commerce sites.
    
    
    
37. Yebol displays associated keywords or search terms alongside search results
    
    
38. Wowd is fed by what people are actually looking at, not just what Web sites are linking to
    
    

Over time you will find that you prefer one search engine more than another. Which you prefer will determine which you wish to use as your homepage for searches. Since search engines are generally global, you get a much broader view of what is available. Yahoo is particularly good if you are searching for commercial websites; their shopping link will sort things by price and direct you to the appropriate stores. A search engine like Clusty will search out related clusters as well as the original interest; particularly useful if you want to see the thoughts behind the scenes.

Alternative Search Engines are often dedicated to a specific field of interest. There is little reason to try and slog through the billions of web sites and the hundreds presented in a general Google search if what you want to find is a specific legal paper; a legal search engine will work better. If you need a specific sound, then searching FindSounds.com makes more sense than a broad based search engine. It almost seems like there is a search engine available for each topic you can imagine.

Larger isn’t always the best when it comes to search engines. Yes, search engines like Google and Yahoo have access to huge amounts of data, but you don’t always want to see every single site available on a topic and its related content. Being able to narrow the search parameters even before you begin is a wonderful thing and will save you time in the end, that is one of the useful things your will find using one of the Alternative Search Engines. There is no reason to visit sites that have little or nothing to do with your topic, simply because somewhere along the way there was a word in an index related to your search. We have all been subject to scrolling page after page of web site names only to be forced to redefine our search parameters when nothing in the search results really matches our desire. If you have had to enter three or four variations of a search only to come up empty handed you know what I mean. Shrinking the number of valid sites from the beginning and you will have a better chance of finding what you want right from the start.

Search Engines like Google are great if you are searching for very general items or you know exactly what you desire. They are also good for pointing you toward a more specific search. Once you know what you want, you should consider an engine that is more topic specific, or one that pinpoints web sites differently, you are likely to come up with different, sometimes better, results. Take a little time and explore the Alternative Search Engines to Google.

Search Engine Terms – Understanding The World of Search

Adwords – Google paid text advertising that shows up in the right hand column or at the very top of a search result page. You pay for each time someone clicks on your ad.
Cost Per click - (CPC)

Algorithm - A complex mathematical formula that deciphers what each web page on the Internet is about and also is used to give rank to those web pages.

Back Link – When an external web site links back to your web site it is considered a vote of confidence by the search engines and recorded as a back link. Not all back links are equal.

Click-Through – Any time someone clicks a link sending them to another web page internal or external to your web site it is considered a click-through.

Click-Tracking – Code is placed on a page to monitor when someone clicks on a link, this gives you statistics surround each click.

Cloaking – People will build content that only the web crawlers see and content that only users see. It is hoped they can fool the search engines with this approach, and sometimes they can.

Counter – A small piece of code that will count the goings and comings of users on your web site.

CPA - Cost per Action. A negotiated amount of money you pay when someone does what you want on your web site. Some people the term conversion when discuss this scenario.

CPC - Cost per Click. Every time some clicks on an ad or link you are charged a fee.

CPL - Cost per Lead. When a prospective customer gives you a call or fills out a form. Cost for lead generation is popular in the high end sectors of commerce.

CPM - Cost per Thousand. With this you pay a set amount every time your ad is shown on a page regardless if people click on it or even see it.

Cross Linking - Multiple sites linking to each other.

CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. Used to manipulate and easily manage the design
of a website.

CTR - Click Through Rate. The percentage of people who click on your ad compared to the amount of visitors who see it.

Directory – A list of companies or organizations and their contact information that have a presence on the web.

Domain – A domain is your web site name accompanied by .com, .org, .edu, .mobi or dozens of other extensions people use depending on what kind of web site they have.

Dynamic Page – A web page that usually gets its info from a data base and can be different every time a different person comes to the web site.