Written by Charles S. Knight, SEO, and edited by Richard MacManus. The Top 100 is listed at the end of the analysis.
Ask anyone which search engine they use to find information on the Internet and they will almost certainly reply: "Google." Look a little further, and market research shows that people actually use four main search engines for 99.99% of their searches: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com (in that order). But in my travels as a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO), I have discovered that in that .01% lies a vast multitude of the most innovative and creative search engines you have never seen. So many, in fact, that I have had to limit my list of the very best ones to a mere 100.
But it's not just the sheer number of them that makes them worthy of attention; each one of these search engines has that standard "About Us" link at the bottom of the homepage. I call it the "why we're better than Google" page. And after reading dozens and dozens of these pages, I have come to the conclusion that, taken as a whole, they are right!
In order to address their claims systematically, it helps to group them into categories and then compare them to their Google counterparts. For example, let's look at the first thing that almost everyone sees when they go to search the Internet - the ubiquitous Google homepage. That famously sparse, clean sheet of paper with the colorful Google logo is the most popular Web page in the entire World Wide Web. For millions and millions of Internet users, that Spartan white page IS the Internet.
Google has successfully made their site the front door through which everyone passes in order to access the Internet. But staring at an almost blank sheet of paper has become, well, boring. Take Ms. Dewey for example. While some may object to her sultry demeanor, it's pretty hard to deny that interfacing with her is far more visually appealing than with an inert white screen.
A second example comes from Simply Google. Instead of squeezing through the keyhole in order to reach Google's 37 search options, Simply Google places all of those choices and many, many more all on the very first page; neatly arranged in columns.
A second arena is sometimes referred to as Natural Language Processing (NLP), or Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is the desire we all have of wanting to ask a search engine questions in everyday sentences, and receive a human-like answer (remember "Good Morning, HAL"?). Many of us remember Ask Jeeves, the famous butler, which was an early attempt in this direction - that unfortunately failed.
Google's approach, Google Answers, was to enlist a cadre of "experts." The concept was that you would pose a question to one of these experts, negotiate a price for an answer, and then pay up when it was found and delivered. It was such a failure, Google had to cancel the whole program. Enter ChaCha. With ChaCha, you can pose any question that you wish, click on the "Search With Guide" button, and a ChaCha Guide appears in a Chat box and dialogues with you until you find what you are looking for. There's no time limit, and no fee.
Perhaps Google's most glaring and egregious shortcoming is their insistence on displaying the outcome of a search in an impossibly long, one-dimensional list of results. We all intuitively know that the World Wide Web is just that, a three dimensional (or "3-D") web of interconnected Web pages. Several search engines, known as clustering engines, routinely present their search results on a two-dimensional map that one can navigate through in search of the best answer. Search engines like KartOO and Quintura are excellent examples.
Another promising category is the recommendation search engines. While Google essentially helps you to find what you already know (you just can't find it), recommendation engines show you a whole world of things that you didn't even know existed. Check out What to Rent, Music Map, or the stunning Live Plasma display. When you input a favorite movie, book, or artist, they recommend to you a world of titles or similar artists that you may never have heard of, but would most likely enjoy.
Next we come to the metasearch engines. When you perform a search on Google, the results that you get are all from, well, Google! But metasearch engines have been around for years. They allow you to search not only Google, but a variety of other search engines too - in one fell swoop. There are many search engines that can do this, Dogpile, for instance, searches all of the "big four" mentioned above (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask) simultaneously. You could also try Zuula or PlanetSearch - which plows through 16 search engines at a time for you. A very interesting site to watch is GoshMe. Instead of searching an incredible number of Web pages, like conventional search engines, GoshMe searches for search engines (or databases) that each tap into an incredible number of Web pages. As I perceive it, GoshMe is a meta-metasearch engine (still in Beta)!
And so it goes, feature after feature after feature. TheFind is a better shopping experience than Google's Froogle, IMHO. Like is a true visual search engine, unlike Google's Images, which just matches your keywords into images that have been tagged with those same keywords. Coming soon is Mobot (see the Demo at www.mobot.com). Google Mobile does let you perform a search on your mobile phone, but check out the Slifter Mobile Demo when you get a chance!
Finally, almost prophetically, Google is silent. Silent! At least Speeglebot talks to you, and Nayio listens! But of course, why should Google worry about these upstarts (all 100 of them)? Aren't they just like flies buzzing around an elephant? Can't Google just ignore them, as their share of the search market continues to creep upwards towards 100%, or perhaps just buy them? Perhaps.
Issac Asimov, the preeminent science fiction writer of our time, once said that his favorite story, by far, was The Last Question. The question, for those who have not read it, is "Can Entropy Be Reversed?" That is, can the ultimate running down of all things, the burning out of all stars (or their collapse) be stopped - or is it hopelessly inevitable?
The question for this age, I submit, is… "Can Google Be Defeated"? Or is Google's mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" a fait accompli?
Perhaps the place to start is by reading (or re-reading) Asimov's "The Last Question." I won't give it away, but it does suggest The Answer….
Charles Knight is the Principal of Charles Knight SEO, a Search Engine Optimization company in Charlottesville, VA.
For an Excel spreadsheet of the entire Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, go to: http://charlesknightseo.com/list.aspx or email the author at Charles@CharlesKnightSEO.com.
This list is in alphabetical order. Feel free to share this list, but please retain Charles' name and email.
Update: Thanks Sanjeev Narang for providing a hyperlinked version of the list.
Update, 5 February 2007: Charles Knight has left a detailed comment (#94) in response to all the great feedback in the comments to this post. He also notes:
"...while it looks like a very simple, almost crude list of 100 names, it has taken countless hours to try and do it properly and fairly. The list will be updated all year long, and the Top 100 can only get better and better until the Best of 2007 are announced on 12/31/07."
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Too bad I don't have enough time to figure out if any of these are good enough to use over and above the big four.
I've tried clusty, funny I don't see www.alltheweb.com there?
Posted by: Ali | January 29, 2007 3:55 AM
Search engine of social networks! Myspace tracking!
http://www.socialgrapes.com
Posted by: Socialgrapes | January 29, 2007 5:42 AM
Charles, keep up the good work! I plan to showcase a new user interface for our visual search (www.quintura.com) at the Future of Web Applications (FOWA) event in London on February 20 - 22. Stay tuned to our developments! PS I have a question, though. Why is Quintura for Kids not on the list and only a runner-up? :) The service has started being used in some elementary schools after only one month since a beta release.
Posted by: Yakov | January 29, 2007 6:01 AM
Interesting list. I guess this list is the top 100 AFTER Google, Ask, MSN and Yahoo.
I would have to list Vivisimo above some of the others you have listed here.
I too don't have the time to go through all of them but I'd like to know if any of your top 100 are vertically focussed. I've been following one vertical in particular, health, and I don't see any of the ones I found to be useful.
Posted by: Kossher | January 29, 2007 6:32 AM
Would have been nice if the list (at the end) had been categoriesed and the urls were links.
Posted by: memals | January 29, 2007 6:52 AM
That Congoo site has a news channel that blows googles out of the water: http://news.congoo.com
Look at all the channel and sub channels...ive never seen this anywhere.
Posted by: Roger Dwarte | January 29, 2007 7:17 AM
Richard,
Webwag goes further than any other service by allowing users to search among feeds directly on their personalized page. Webwag has partnered with Yahoo Search Marketing in Europe and the US for keyword-based sponsorlinks. Webwag is thus unique in covering search in both the personal wide web and the world wide web.
Posted by: Franck Poisson | January 29, 2007 7:28 AM
It would be nice, also, to have a review for each SE in order to compare the weaknesses and strengths of each SE over the competitors.
If every SE provides a Webservice, it would be nice to have a new SE that search in all of these SEs
Nice work,
JP
Posted by: JP | January 29, 2007 7:51 AM
Just wanted to note MrSapo.com (which is in the list) has been recently re-branded as CrossEngine, the new URL is:
http://www.crossengine.com
Posted by: Juan C. Sosa | January 29, 2007 8:00 AM
I'd recommend goodsearch.com - although powered by Yahoo, 50% of it's revenue goes to a charity you specify. a nice concept worth being on this list
Posted by: aop | January 29, 2007 8:16 AM
Search engines are great, but sometimes social q&a gives better results. I have to suggest answerbag.com for the list, since it technically does have an internal search engine for the existing Q&A.
Posted by: Jonathan Haddad | January 29, 2007 8:18 AM
For power searching and research we use http://www.ihound.com. I would recommend that for the list.
Posted by: ab | January 29, 2007 8:32 AM
I tried out ChaCha Search, but I've found it so uncomfortable! My initial search didn't turn up any results. I guess it is interesting that someone will search through the web with you... but I find it akin to someone talking to you while you're talking a piss!
Posted by: Mike Murkovic | January 29, 2007 8:35 AM
Ehy it's not yoople.com....it's www.yoople.net
Yoople! Collaborative Web Search
Posted by: carlo | January 29, 2007 8:50 AM
you should also check out majestic12, a distributed search engine....
http://www.majestic12.co.uk/
Posted by: zx81 | January 29, 2007 8:56 AM
Very interesting...apart from Ms. Dewey not realizing that I had typed in my request, the results returned across the board was pretty good.
The problem here is that you have such dominant players especially Google that I can't see how they will make up ground. Also Google is developing, improving and acquiring all the time...it's really a difficult ask...
Posted by: Adrian Keys | January 29, 2007 8:57 AM
Don't trust the makers of Blinkx:
Look here
Posted by: Derek Rafferty | January 29, 2007 9:03 AM
Wow can't believe you left off www.swamii.com.
Everybody here uses it - maybe its just us Australians ;)
Posted by: OzPete | January 29, 2007 9:27 AM
swoogle, in spite of its name, doesn't perform generic searches. I looks through the Sematic Web (hence the sw), looking both for definitions of terms and for ontologies (networks of terms and definitions)
Posted by: JuandeSant | January 29, 2007 9:37 AM
How is Congoo able to give free access to Wall Street Journal and Mornignstar etc? This seems a bit napsterish to me, why would these pulishers allow this??
Posted by: Jennifer Lowenstein | January 29, 2007 10:01 AM
booble.com
just searches porno images and sites - i heard this on the howard stern show, making me slightly less of a pervert -
but it is different nonetheless.
Posted by: aop | January 29, 2007 10:03 AM
Keep an eye on Google's custom search engines. One of these are bound to hit the tipping point and become popular. Once this happens it will be interesting to see what Google will do. Will they create a link on their front page to a list of the best custom search engines? Will they place a link on some of their most popular sites to custom search engines? Will they give sites that are indexed on a custom search engine a boost in the search algorithm.
I made a custom search engine (mapshark.com) that indexes mapping sites and mashups. The search results return links to maps and mashups only. The index includes over 700 sites. My goal is to see Google link to this custom search engine on their Google Maps page. We'll see.
Posted by: Andrew Mitton | January 29, 2007 10:06 AM
You forgot to mention the first people search engine, peekyou.com...linking people around the world to the web pages related to and created by them. Another difference is that any person's search results are editable by anyone else (in a wiki-type fashion) for continual improvement of the experience.
Posted by: peepsalot | January 29, 2007 10:36 AM
[...]The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines[...]
Posted by: Top Ten Search Engine Lists | January 29, 2007 10:42 AM
Where's Altavista ? Why wasn't that on the list?
Posted by: Mark | January 29, 2007 10:43 AM
To ALL: The correct URL for Yoople! is www.yoople.net
Check it out!
Posted by: Charles Knight | January 29, 2007 11:09 AM
What about the mother of all search engines? www.mamma.com Hopefully they will get bought soon so their stock will have some value.....
Posted by: p5surf | January 29, 2007 11:52 AM
LV Gucci Chanel Chloe Fendi Prada Handbag On Sale:
http://www.iChic.cn
Posted by: www.iChic.cn | January 29, 2007 11:53 AM
I thought the Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org) was conspicuously absent. One of the things I always appreciated about Yahoo! was that it was a directory, not just a search engine. Often I would find something useful that I didn't know existed (like a recommendation engine) simply by browsing through the category I was looking at. Yahoo! is no longer much of a directory; fortunately Open Directory has stepped up to the plate.
Posted by: Todd B. | January 29, 2007 12:05 PM
Exalead is a joke. I think exalead is pretty wak and very arrogant too.
The frenchies are jealous of the American search engines and success and lately the exalead ceo critized Google and all the other major search engines at the french search engine strategies.
I can't stand them, so use everything but exalead, they are way too pathetic. Using them will be an insult to my intelligence.
Posted by: James | January 29, 2007 12:40 PM
Where is altavista? www.altavista.com
Posted by: 8lights | January 29, 2007 12:46 PM
This is a great list, especially the top few. I don't really know about digg.com being up there. It's not exactly what I think of as a search engine.
Posted by: josh | January 29, 2007 12:51 PM
You missed the Carrot (carrot.cs.put.poznan.pl) - give it a try!
Posted by: Wojciech Jaskowski | January 29, 2007 12:54 PM
Nice list. These social bookmarking sites are really gaining momentum.
Posted by: Nate | January 29, 2007 1:02 PM
Last time I saw this list, it included our human-powered search site Bessed.
We've only been live since October---have we been demoted already?
Posted by: Adam Jusko | January 29, 2007 1:19 PM
C'mon a list of URLs that are not active hyperlinks ?? Only old-media companies like TimeWarner do that so that people won't leave their site! And then a jump to another page to click another link to download the Excel sheet ... ReadWrite can do much better.
Posted by: eConsultant | January 29, 2007 1:55 PM
Where in the world is technorati? It's only the greatest blog search engine available.
Posted by: Derek Brown | January 29, 2007 2:16 PM
I tried liveplasma.com and it does not work on my mac. Many web 2.0 companies could improve their chances of success by doing basic testing of their user interfaces and not excluding major segments of the population.
The only true revolution on the web horizon is the new Wiki search. This will not be a Google killer, but it will generate significant traffic on its own and be a great compliment to Google search.
Posted by: CVOS | January 29, 2007 2:32 PM
thanks for the mention, and please send in any feedback you might have on http://www.pluggd.com
Posted by: drew olanoff | January 29, 2007 2:50 PM
Nice to see a well-rounded list with many new sites to try. Next time around you might consider www.boardreader.com. We have been providing search to message board communities since 2001 and just did a major upgrade late last year.
Posted by: Pat McMahon | January 29, 2007 4:03 PM
Another one for the list Tall Street a 100% user ranked search engine.
Posted by: Tallstreet | January 29, 2007 4:19 PM
Nice list, I get tired just reading it!
Posted by: David Dalka | January 29, 2007 4:26 PM
I really like www.eluta.ca, which I saw mentioned on your site a few months ago. It's a Canadian-specific search engine for jobs, but I haven't seen another one like it.
Posted by: Jane S. | January 29, 2007 4:26 PM
Ok, what the heck, I'll throw in a commercial, too --
I have a client that has a specialized search engine that only searches for low-priced prescription drugs. If you don't have insurance that covers your prescriptions, it's a pretty useful tool.
Posted by: scott | January 29, 2007 4:26 PM
OK, I can't type. It's www.edrugsearch.com.
Posted by: scott | January 29, 2007 4:28 PM
How about www.vdoogle.com, great for finding videos
Posted by: Nick | January 29, 2007 4:29 PM
Good to know! Thank You!
Posted by: Shareware Software | January 29, 2007 4:34 PM
What about go2?
Posted by: Billy | January 29, 2007 4:36 PM
Note: I've updated the www.yoople.net link.
Also re #36, apologies for the non-hyperlinks on the top 100 list. I had a lot of difficulty copying and pasting from Excel without the formatting going haywire. I'll see if I can fix that so it has links....
Posted by: Richard MacManus | January 29, 2007 4:52 PM
Surprised none of the search engines that benefit charity made the list. Even Oprah gave them a mention a while back:)
eg. http://www.goodsearch.com (Yahoo powered) and http://www.jikolp.com (Google powered)
Posted by: Brian | January 29, 2007 4:54 PM
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