Let’s talk about search engines. Like it or not they are very powerful and control a lot of our daily life. Search engines are quite possibly the number one source of information for most people. But can we really trust them?
The gateway to the world’s information
Google is by far the most used search engine and it does a good job of finding what you need most of the time. In fact, 75% of my search traffic comes from Google.
But I feel like one search engine having that much market share is dangerous. If Google controls 75% of all search traffic then what happens when Google arbitrarily decides to change its search algorithms? And what happens if this takes place during something like a countries election? What if we all start to live in a Google filter bubble?
Google search changes can hurt business
I have heard many stories about when google made a random change. Then websites and youtube channels lost most of their traffic overnight.
For example, Darren Rowse lost 80% of his traffic along with his income when Google changed something. That is a scary thought for anyone trying to run their own business.
Dump Google and try another search engine
This is why I like to encourage people to use more than one search engine. Other search engines are more private and you’re less likely to get some filtered results if you use more than one. Also, if the market share was more evenly split then one company could not cause a business to lose 80% of its traffic overnight.
Search engine alternatives
I tend to use 4 search engines. I am not saying this list is the best but it is what I have settled on.
Mt first go to would be one of the Searx instances. Searx can privately search all the other search engines.
My second option is Brave Search. It has very good search results and I can find almost anything I want with it.
My third option is Startpage. It is still pretty good. This one also has a focus on privacy.
My forth option would be DuckDuckGo. They claim to be about privacy but they have some questionable practices. So they have dropped down the list for me.
My fifth option tends to be Bing. I know that may seem crazy but I am trying to avoid Google. Bing may not be very good on privacy but its market share is low and it is not Google. haha
Then if all else fails I use Google. But I rarely get this far anymore.
Do you value privacy and freedom?
If you value internet privacy then you need to stop using google and switch up your search engine. Help grow the market share of other search engines so that Google is not the only one in control! You may find that you like the other ones better!
