In recent years, search engines have become commonplace in people’s lives, as can be seen from the fact that coined words such as “Google” have become commonplace. A search engine is a device used to search for web pages, images, and videos on the Internet. By entering the keyword you want to search into a box called the search window, it will display web pages, images, and videos from websites around the world that are highly relevant to your search keyword.
Looking at the market share of search engines, Google boasts the highest market share in Japan, with a market share of approximately 76%. Yahoo! comes in second with about 15%, and Bing comes in third with about 8%. The top three search engines account for most of the market share in Japan, but did you know that there are many other search engines besides these three?
Also, what kind of search engines are used not only in Japan but all over the world? Let’s explain in this article.
The world’s most used search engine is “Google”
Now, we just checked about the most used search engine in Japan, but what is the most used search engine in the world?
As you might have guessed, the most used
search engine
in the world is, once again, Google. It has about 70% of the global search engine market share, and about 75% of the mobile market share. Looking at the overwhelming results so far, it seems reasonable to choose Google if you are going to proceed with
SEO
measures from now on.
However, as you can see from Google’s overwhelming market share, even if you choose SEO, many other companies will also be using Google’s SEO strategies. Therefore, the competition rate is high, and no matter how much you do SEO, it is difficult to appear at the top of search results.
10 search engines used around the world
Here we will introduce the top 10 search engines used around the world.
Bing
Bing is a search engine developed by Microsoft and is mainly used in the United States. Officially launched in Japan in 2010, it ranks third in terms of domestic market share.
Microsoft describes Bing as “the next generation search engine that determines user decisions.” The reason is that Bing has unique technology that is different from Google and Yahoo!.
Bing’s unique technology means that when you search with Bing, it doesn’t just find web pages that match your search terms. It is designed to display limited search information such as videos that match the searcher’s situation.
Bing is also said to be suitable for video searches.
Yahoo!
Yahoo! has the second largest market share in Japan, but it can be said that it is a search engine that everyone knows in Japan.
Yahoo! uses Google’s search algorithm, so there is little difference in search results from Google.
There are two main differences. The first is the search function. Yahoo! maintains the popularity of its services by incorporating original technologies while using Google’s algorithms, such as image search, video search, dictionary search, wisdom bag search, map search, and real-time search.
The second difference is how search results are displayed. While Google uses standard search, which displays search results based on search keywords, Yahoo! uses personalized search.
Personalized search means displaying search results based on accumulated information about keywords that the user has searched in the past. In other words, when searching on Yahoo!, search results that are more tailored to each user can be displayed.
Baidu
Baidu is a search engine that is widely used in China and boasts the top share of the search engine market in China.
In China, there is an internet censorship system called the “Great Firewall” that is installed throughout China, so you cannot use foreign search engines such as Google or SNS such as Twitter and Instagram. Baidu can be said to have grown dramatically against the backdrop of such a political situation.
The basic usage of Baidu is not much different from Google or Yahoo!. The top page is divided into categories and displayed in the same way as Yahoo!.
Ask.com
Ask.com is a search engine operated by IAC Search & Media, an American conglomerate, but it has a very low share of the search engine market and is hardly well-known.
What makes Ask.com unique is that it uses a proprietary algorithm. Unlike other search engines, Ask.com’s search uses an algorithm that prioritizes expertise.
In addition, the English version of Ask.com has a search site and a community-type Q&A site. And, like Yahoo!, in addition to keyword searches, you can also search for images and news.
In the Japanese version, it used to be possible to search for videos and blogs, but now it only searches websites, so it will be difficult to gain market share in Japan.
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo is a search engine developed in the United States that is rapidly gaining popularity as a search engine that emphasizes privacy, as it claims to be “a search engine that doesn’t track you.”
DuckDuckGo is said to have less censorship than Google, and users’ information is not tracked or collected, and they do not suffer from targeted ads. Also, DuckDuckGo has a search page with only one box, so it can be said to be clean and easy to operate.
In Japan, it accounts for 0.13% of the search engine market share.
Yandex
Yandex is a search engine from Russia. It accounts for about half of the search engine market in Russia and has been described as the Google of Russia. If you want to get traffic volume in Russia, you should use Yandex.
You might think that Yandex is only popular in Russia, but it’s also popular in neighboring countries such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Belarus.
Yandex provides a variety of services such as free email, online storage, map search, and translation sites, but it also supports services such as taxi dispatch and meal delivery. In terms of functionality, it may be said that it is similar to Yahoo!.
Other languages that can be used include English and Turkish, as well as other Cyrillic languages such as Russian, as you can see from the Russian language.
Aol.
Aol. is a search engine that was popular in America.
Although it grew rapidly in the 2000s, it currently has a low market share and operates as a de facto portal site in Japan that only provides information about the region.
NAVER
NAVER is a search engine that has gained a large share in Korea. One theory is that it is used by more Koreans than Google.
The feature is that the top page contains various contents such as “news”, “blog”, “map”, etc. From this point, NAVER is Yahoo! It’s easy to imagine if you think of it as the Korean version of
NAVER as a search engine is not familiar to Japanese people, but many people may have fresh memories of “NAVER Matome,” whose service ended in 2020. Furthermore, the parent company of LINE, which we use on a daily basis, is NAVER, so it can be said to be a search engine that is surprisingly familiar to Japanese people.
Because it has a large market share in Korea, people and companies operating services in Korea need to implement NAVER’s unique SEO measures and listing advertisements.
Excite
Excite is a search engine developed by Excite, which was born in the United States and also owns the Japanese corporation Excite.
The search engine looks similar to Yahoo!
Ecosia
Ecosia is a search engine developed by a company in Berlin, Germany.
As the name Ecosia suggests, they are interested in eco-friendly measures and believe that profits should be used to combat global warming rather than being returned to investors.
A unique feature is that more than 80% of the profits generated from each search are donated to tree planting and reforestation activities.
How search engines work
So far, we have explained the world’s major search engines. From here, I will explain three ways search engines work.
①：Crawling
Crawling means that a robot called a crawler follows links on websites and automatically collects various information from each website.
For example, if you publish your site now, crawlers will automatically visit your site and collect information. However, it is said that it takes time for crawlers to understand the information after it has been collected, so it is important to note that crawlers will not come immediately after publishing any site.
②: Index
The data that crawlers collect by following links is temporarily stored in a place called a repository. From there, the information is organized in an index database to make it easier to search. This series of steps is called an index.
It is generally said that a website that is not indexed will not appear in search results.
③：Ranking
Indexed websites are evaluated by over 200 algorithms from Google. The algorithm is described in Google’s search quality evaluation guidelines, and websites that meet these evaluation criteria are displayed at the top of search results.
Summary: Deepen your understanding of search engines
In this article, we have explained various search engines and how they work.
Now that the world is full of web media, it is definitely essential to understand the things I wrote in this article. This information is useful not only for knowledge, but also for practical SEO measures.
At this time, please try to deepen your understanding of search engines.