The search engine market as of 2020 is completely dominated by Google. Yes, there are others out there but depending on what data you use (such as looking at mobile searches or certain geographies) Google can control as much as 90% of the market for searches.
Bing and Yahoo are in the next positions, and Yahoo uses Bing’s technology for search. They are in effect the same thing so you can combine them when looking at search. A relatively new upstart is making waves, and that is DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo focuses on letting consumers search without recording any data on them and selling it for profit. Yandex is also a powerful force that is gaining traction.
In addition to the privacy concerns, there are also huge issues at stake for publishers. Data concludes decisively that more than half of all organic searches do not even result in a click to a website. Google controls the consumer and even sends a moderate amount of traffic directly to properties it actually owns.
Ecosia.org is a new search engine on the scene with a novel approach. The approach is a play on the desire to help and protect the environment. Ecosia pledges to plant trees and help the environment with portions of any profits generated. TBH – we don’t know how all HIFW may or may not impact search decisions, but there is growing resistance to surveillance, fingerprints, computer vision, deep learning, artificial intelligence, and other things companies and governments do to track and control people.
