Yandex you are the best search engine in the world. Russian search engines and leading Internet search engines

As expected, Google took first place in the world rankings. His share is more than 70% of search queries from residents from all over the world. Moreover, a third of all google.com traffic comes from US citizens. In addition, Google is the most visited website in the world. The average daily duration of use of the Google search engine is 9 minutes.

The advantage of the Google search engine is the absence unnecessary elements on the page. Just a search bar and the company logo. Chip are animated pictures and browser games dedicated to popular and local holidays.

2. Bing

Bing - search engine from Microsoft, dating back to 2009. From that moment on, it became a mandatory attribute of smartphones running Windows OS. Bing also features minimalism - in addition to the header with a list of all Microsoft products, the page contains only a search bar and the name of the system. Bing is most popular in the USA (31%), China (18%) and Germany (6%).

3. Yahoo!

Third place went to one of the oldest search engines - Yahoo. The bulk of users also live in the USA (24%). It seems that the rest of the world is deliberately avoiding the help of search robots... The search engine is also popular in India, Indonesia, Taiwan and the UK. In addition to the search bar, on the Yahoo! offers a weather forecast in your region, as well as global trends in the form of a news feed.

4. Baidu

A Chinese search engine that has gained notoriety in Russia. Due to its aggressive policy and lack of translation into Russian or English, extensions of this search engine are perceived as viruses. It is very difficult to completely remove them and get rid of pop-up windows with hieroglyphs. However, this site is fourth in the world by attendance. 92% of its audience are Chinese citizens.

5. AOL

AOL is an American search engine whose name stands for America Online. Its popularity is significantly lower than that of previous systems. Its heyday was in the 90s and 00s. Almost 70% of AOL's audience are residents of the United States.

6.Ask.com

This search engine, dating back to 1995, has quite unusual interface. She perceives all requests as questions and offers answer options in accordance with the search results. This is somewhat reminiscent of the Answers.Mail service. However, it is not amateur answers that are included in the search results, but full-fledged articles. Over the past year, the site has lost about 50 positions in the world ranking of the most popular Internet resources and today ranks only 104th.

7.Excite

This search engine is unremarkable and similar to a lot of other sites. It offers users a lot of services (such as News, Mail, Weather, Travel, etc.) The site's interface also evokes memories of the web of the 90s and, one might assume, has changed little since then.

8.DuckDuckGo

The developers immediately warn that this search engine does not track your actions online. Nowadays, this is a significant argument when choosing a search engine. The website design is made in a modern manner, uses bright colors and funny pictures. Unlike other search engines, the “duck search engine” has been translated into Russian. Over the past year, the site has gained about 400 positions and in March 2017. is ranked 504th in the Alexa popularity rankings.

9. Wolfram Alpha

A distinctive feature of this search is the variety of auxiliary services designed for queries related to certain knowledge. That is, in the search results you will not see links to posts on social networks or articles from the yellow press. You will be offered specific numbers and verified facts in the form of a single document. This browser is ideal for schoolchildren and students.

10. Yandex

Search engine, the most popular in Russia and the CIS countries. In addition, about 3% of the site's audience are residents of Germany. The site is remarkable a large number services for all occasions (music, radio, schedule public transport, real estate, translator, etc.) The resource also offers a large selection of individual website design, as well as customizing widgets for yourself. Yandex ranks 31st in the world in popularity, having lost 11 positions over the past year.

At first glance it may seem that there is better than Google maybe only Yandex, and even that is not a fact. These companies invest huge amounts of money in innovation and development. Does anyone really have a chance not only to compete with the leaders, but also to win? Lifehacker's answer: “Yes!” There are several search engines that have succeeded. Let's look at our heroes.

What is this

This is a fairly well-known search engine with open source code. Servers are located in the USA. In addition to its own robot, the search engine uses results from other sources: Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wikipedia, Wolfram|Alpha.

The better

DuckDuckGo positions itself as a search engine that provides maximum privacy and confidentiality. The system does not collect any data about the user, does not store logs (no search history), use cookies as limited as possible.

DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information from users. This is our privacy policy.
Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo

Why do you need this

All large search engines they try to personalize search results based on data about the person in front of the monitor. This phenomenon is called the “filter bubble”: the user sees only those results that are consistent with his preferences or that the system deems as such.

DuckDuckGo creates an objective picture that does not depend on your past behavior on the Internet, and eliminates thematic Google advertising and Yandex, based on your requests. With DuckDuckGo it's easy to search for information on foreign languages: Google and Yandex by default give preference to Russian-language sites, even if the request is entered in another language.

What is this

"" is a Russian metasearch system developed by Moscow State University graduates Viktor Lavrenko and Vladimir Chernyshov. Searches by Google indexes, Bing, Yandex and others, and also has its own search algorithm.

The better

Searching through the indexes of all major search engines allows you to generate relevant results. In addition, Nigma breaks the results into several thematic groups(clusters) and prompts the user to narrow the search field by discarding unnecessary ones or highlighting priority ones. Thanks to the “Mathematics” and “Chemistry” modules, you can solve problems directly in the search bar math problems and query the results of chemical reactions.

Why do you need this

Eliminates the need to search for the same query in different search engines. The cluster system makes it easy to manipulate search results. For example, Nigma collects results from online stores into a separate cluster. If you do not intend to buy anything, then simply exclude this group. By selecting the “English-language sites” cluster, you will receive results only in English. The Mathematics and Chemistry modules will help schoolchildren.

Unfortunately, the project is not currently being developed, as the developers have transferred their activity to the Vietnamese market. Nevertheless, “Nigma” is not only not outdated yet, but in some things it still gives Google a head start. Let's hope development resumes.

What is this

not Evil - a system that searches by anonymous network Tor. To use it, you need to go to this network, for example, by launching a specialized browser with the same name. not Evil is not the only search engine of its kind. There is LOOK (the default search in the Tor browser, accessible from the regular Internet) or TORCH (one of the oldest search engines on the Tor network) and others. We settled on not Evil because of the clear allusion to Google itself (just look at the start page).

The better

Looking there where to Google, Yandex and other search engines are closed in principle.

Why do you need this

The Tor network contains many resources that cannot be found on the law-abiding Internet. And as government control over the content of the Internet tightens, their number will grow. Tor is a kind of Network within the Network: with its social networks, torrent trackers, media, trading platforms, blogs, libraries and so on.

YaCy

What is this

YaCy is a decentralized search engine that works on the principle of P2P networks. Each computer on which the main one is installed software module, scans the Internet independently, that is, it is an analogue of a search robot. The results obtained are collected into a common database that is used by all YaCy participants.

The better

It’s difficult to say whether this is better or worse, since YaCy is a completely different approach to organizing search. The absence of a single server and owner company makes the results completely independent of anyone's preferences. The autonomy of each node eliminates censorship. YaCy is capable of searching the deep web and non-indexed public networks.

Why do you need this

If you are a supporter of open source software and a free Internet, not influenced by government agencies and large corporations, then YaCy is your choice. You can also use it to organize a search within a corporate or other autonomous network. And even though YaCy is not very useful in everyday life, it is worthy alternative to Google in terms of the search process.

Pipl

What is this

Pipl is a system designed to search for information about a specific person.

The better

The authors of Pipl claim that their specialized algorithms search more efficiently than “regular” search engines. In particular, the priority sources of information are profiles social networks, comments, lists of participants and various databases where information about people is published, such as databases of court decisions. Pipl's leadership in this area is confirmed by assessments from Lifehacker.com, TechCrunch and other publications.

Why do you need this

If you need to find information about a person living in the USA, then Pipl will be much more more effective than Google. Databases of Russian courts are apparently inaccessible to the search engine. Therefore, he does not cope so well with Russian citizens.

What is this

Another specialized search engine. Searches for various sounds (house, nature, cars, people, etc.) in open sources. The service does not support queries in Russian, but there is an impressive list of Russian-language tags that you can search for.

The better

The output contains only sounds and nothing extra. In the search settings you can set the desired format and sound quality. All sounds found are available for download. There is a search for sounds by pattern.

Why do you need this

If you need to quickly find the sound of a musket shot, the blows of a suckling woodpecker, or the cry of Homer Simpson, then this service is for you. And I chose this only from the available Russian-language queries. On English the spectrum is even wider. But seriously, specialized service assumes a specialized audience. But what if it comes in handy for you too?

The life of alternative search engines is often fleeting. Lifehacker asked the former general director of the Ukrainian branch of Yandex, Sergei Petrenko, about the long-term prospects of such projects.

As for the fate of alternative search engines, it is simple: to be very niche projects with a small audience, therefore without clear commercial prospects or, conversely, with complete clarity of their absence.

If you look at the examples in the article, you can see that such search engines either specialize in a narrow but popular niche, which, perhaps, has not yet grown enough to be noticeable on the radars of Google or Yandex, or they are testing an original hypothesis in ranking, which is not yet applicable in regular search.

For example, if a search on Tor suddenly turns out to be in demand, that is, results from there are needed by at least a percentage of Google’s audience, then, of course, ordinary search engines will begin to solve the problem of how to find them and show them to the user. If the behavior of the audience shows that for a significant proportion of users in a significant number of queries, results given without taking into account factors depending on the user seem more relevant, then Yandex or Google will begin to produce such results.

“Be better” in the context of this article does not mean “be better at everything.” Yes, in many aspects our heroes are far from Google and Yandex (even far from Bing). But each of these services gives the user something that the search industry giants cannot offer.

The largest search engine on the planet, with an 80% share of all processed search requests, created in the mid-90s by the notorious Sergey Brin and Larry Page. The first search robot began indexing pages in 1996, the developed PageRank algorithm showed good results, which bypassed other similar systems and had enormous potential. This was the beginning of the conquest of virtual space. The domain Google.com was registered on September 15, 1997, and in 1998 a company was formed with funding of $100 thousand, which was invested in the guys by one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, Andy Bechtolshteim.

Today, Google processes more than one billion queries daily in 145 languages. The mobile search segment is almost entirely owned by the company and is equal to 90%. The search engine has more than 50 services in its arsenal. Among which, Google AdSense, which allows you to monetize sites with high traffic by placing advertising block from the search engine, Blogger - service for creating blogs, map globe Google Maps, social Google network+ and much more.

The Internet giant is not only a leading company in the virtual space, but also strengthens its influence in the real world. Recently it became known that Google purchased Boston Dynamics, a company developing robotic systems. Android OS for short time has captured the minds of smartphone users and continues to gain momentum with an 80% market share. It is not difficult to predict that the company will further expand its influence in areas of human life.

Yahoo

The second largest search engine is from the United States, holding 7% of all global traffic. It was founded several years before Google and it happened in 1994. The founders were Jerry Yang and David Fileo, graduate students at Stanford University. During a period of rapid growth, along with such giants as MSN and Lucos in the late 90s, the search engine acquired new services - Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Messenger, etc. The main emphasis in development is on marketing and advertising, and the direction of telecommunications is also actively developing.

The peak of activity occurred in 2005, when the net profit of the Internet company approached $2 billion; in 2007, the profit amounted to 500 million. At the beginning of 2008, Yahoo received a purchase offer from the software giant Microsoft, which offered 45 billion US currency, but she rejected the offer. In the same year, negotiations resumed; due to the search engine’s unstable position in the market, the companies agreed and Microsoft became the main helmsman of Yahoo. Today, the search engine uses the Bing search algorithm.

What is this

DuckDuckGo is a fairly well-known open source search engine. Servers are located in the USA. In addition to its own robot, the search engine uses results from other sources: Yahoo, Bing, Wikipedia.

The better

DuckDuckGo positions itself as a search engine that provides maximum privacy and confidentiality. The system does not collect any data about the user, does not store logs (no search history), and the use of cookies is as limited as possible.

DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information from users. This is our privacy policy.

Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo

Why do you need this

All major search engines try to personalize based on data about the person in front of the monitor. This phenomenon is called the “filter bubble”: the user sees only those results that are consistent with his preferences or that the system deems as such.

DuckDuckGo creates an objective picture that does not depend on your past behavior on the Internet, and eliminates thematic advertising from Google and Yandex based on your queries. With DuckDuckGo, it’s easy to search for information in foreign languages: Google and Yandex by default give preference to Russian-language sites, even if the query is entered in another language.

What is this

not Evil is a system that searches the anonymous Tor network. To use it, you need to go to this network, for example, by launching a specialized one with the same name.

not Evil is not the only search engine of its kind. There is LOOK (the default search in the Tor browser, accessible from the regular Internet) or TORCH (one of the oldest search engines on the Tor network) and others. We settled on not Evil because of the clear hint from Google (just look at the start page).

The better

It searches where Google, Yandex and other search engines are generally closed.

Why do you need this

The Tor network contains many resources that cannot be found on the law-abiding Internet. And their number will grow as government control over the content of the Internet tightens. Tor is a kind of network within the Internet with its own social networks, torrent trackers, media, trading platforms, blogs, libraries, and so on.

3. YaCy

What is this

YaCy is a decentralized search engine that works on the principle of P2P networks. Each computer on which the main software module is installed scans the Internet independently, that is, it is analogous to a search robot. The results obtained are collected into a common database that is used by all YaCy participants.

The better

It’s difficult to say whether this is better or worse, since YaCy is a completely different approach to organizing search. The absence of a single server and owner company makes the results completely independent of anyone's preferences. The autonomy of each node eliminates censorship. YaCy is capable of searching the deep web and non-indexed public networks.

Why do you need this

If you are a supporter of open source software and a free Internet, not subject to the influence of government agencies and large corporations, then YaCy is your choice. It can also be used to organize a search within a corporate or other autonomous network. And even though YaCy is not very useful in everyday life, it is a worthy alternative to Google in terms of the search process.

4. Pipl

What is this

Pipl is a system designed to search for information about a specific person.

The better

The authors of Pipl claim that their specialized algorithms search more efficiently than “regular” search engines. In particular, priority sources of information include social network profiles, comments, member lists, and various databases that publish information about people, such as court decisions. Pipl's leadership in this area is confirmed by assessments from Lifehacker.com, TechCrunch and other publications.

Why do you need this

If you need to find information about a person living in the US, Pipl will be much more effective than Google. Databases of Russian courts are apparently inaccessible to the search engine. Therefore, he does not cope so well with Russian citizens.

What is this

FindSounds is another specialized search engine. Searches for various sounds (house, nature, cars, people, etc.) in open sources. The service does not support queries in Russian, but there is an impressive list of Russian-language tags that you can search for.

The better

The output contains only sounds and nothing extra. In the search settings you can set the desired format and sound quality. All sounds found are available for download. There is a search for sounds by pattern.

Why do you need this

If you need to quickly find the sound of a musket shot, the blows of a suckling woodpecker, or the cry of Homer Simpson, then this service is for you. And we chose this only from the available Russian-language queries. In English the spectrum is even wider.

But seriously, a specialized service requires a specialized audience. But what if it comes in handy for you too?

What is this

Wolfram|Alpha is a computational search engine. Instead of links to articles that contain keywords, it provides a ready-made answer to the user’s request. For example, if you enter “compare the populations of New York and San Francisco” into the search form in English, Wolfram|Alpha will immediately display tables and graphs with the comparison.

The better

This service is better than others for finding facts and calculating data. Wolfram|Alpha collects and organizes knowledge available on the Web from a variety of fields, including science, culture and entertainment. If this database contains a ready-made answer to a search query, the system displays it; if not, it calculates and displays the result. In this case, the user only sees necessary information and nothing extra.

Why do you need this

If you are a student, analyst, journalist, or researcher, for example, you can use Wolfram|Alpha to find and calculate data related to your work. The service does not understand all requests, but it is constantly developing and becoming smarter.

What is this

Metasearch engine Dogpile displays a combined list of results from search results Google, Yahoo and other popular systems.

The better

First, Dogpile displays fewer ads. Secondly, the service uses a special algorithm to find and show best results from different search engines. According to the Dogpile developers, their systems generate the most complete search results on the entire Internet.

Why do you need this

If you can't find information on Google or another standard search engine, look for it in several search engines at once using Dogpile.

What is this

BoardReader is a system for text search in forums, question and answer services and other communities.

The better

The service allows you to narrow your search field to social platforms. Thanks to special filters, you can quickly find posts and user comments that match your criteria: language, publication date and site name.

Why do you need this

BoardReader can be useful for PR specialists and other media specialists who are interested in the opinion of a mass audience on certain issues.

In conclusion

The life of alternative search engines is often fleeting. Lifehacker asked the former general director of the Ukrainian branch of Yandex, Sergei Petrenko, about the long-term prospects of such projects.

Sergey Petrenko

Former general manager"Yandex.Ukraine".

As for the fate of alternative search engines, it is simple: to be very niche projects with a small audience, therefore without clear commercial prospects or, conversely, with complete clarity of their absence.

If you look at the examples in the article, you can see that such search engines either specialize in a narrow but popular niche, which, perhaps, has not yet grown enough to be noticeable on the radars of Google or Yandex, or they are testing an original hypothesis in ranking, which is not yet applicable in regular search.

For example, if a search on Tor suddenly turns out to be in demand, that is, results from there are needed by at least a percentage of Google’s audience, then, of course, ordinary search engines will begin to solve the problem of how to find them and show them to the user. If the behavior of the audience shows that for a significant proportion of users in a significant number of queries, results given without taking into account factors depending on the user seem more relevant, then Yandex or Google will begin to produce such results.

“Be better” in the context of this article does not mean “be better at everything.” Yes, in many aspects our heroes are far from Google and Yandex (even far from Bing). But each of these services gives the user something that the search industry giants cannot offer. Surely you also know similar projects. Share with us - let's discuss.

More recently Google company complied with the requirement of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation - provided users with Android choice search engine in standard browser Chrome. Now after installing the latest version or using special menu settings, everyone can choose how to search for information on the Internet: Yandex, Google and Mail.Ru. Which one is better? Let's take a closer look.

Without moving on to the search itself, let’s evaluate home page convenience"The Magnificent Three" Let's start with Google:

Traditionally ascetic home Google page in the center contains only a line where you can enter your request. To get to the rest of the company’s services, you need to click the button with the grid. From there you can read news, go to mail or maps. If you want more on the main page, then you need to install either the main one for Android and iOS. There are all services mixed with search bar are immediately displayed on the main screen.

Yandex did not skimp on the functionality of the main page in mobile version. The site is literally crammed with all possible services from the Russian company, and upon entering it immediately asks for access to the location. If allowed, then home page will immediately show a block with a cafe near you, and also adapt the Yandex.Traffic widget. I know many people who use Yandex solely because of its convenient home page. It is described as some kind of store where you go for one thing, but forget about it, and at the exit you have a cart full of various goods, except for that very one.

If Google's home page is ascetic, then Mail.Ru's is simply the height of minimalism. In the bad sense of the word, since there are no information cards, interactive elements, etc. on it. If we select news in the menu, the site will kindly offer us to “search for news” in 2017. I think this is where we can finish the review of the main Mail.

We carry out further testing on two parameters: locality and convenience. Read more about each parameter in the corresponding subheadings.

Locality

First, let's look at how three search engines understand local colorful words and the context of their use. For example, the name of the city of Chelyabinsk is often abbreviated as “person”. What if you enter the query “person routes”:

How well do the three search engines know the great and mighty Russian language? Let's ask them for help in resolving a popular error - theirs or theirs:

Let’s add a tricky query “Europe time” to the search. It is implied that we will see the opening hours of the large shopping center "Europe". Let's see what they show us:

Now let's move on to a purely local story - to a search with location included. Let's try to find us a place where we can have lunch:

How about ordering a pizza?

What if you look for pizza in another city?

Moreover, on Google, even on the map, branches of this no longer existing bank “Uniastrum” are marked. In Yandex and Mail.Ru the maps are more up-to-date. In the end: Yandex is more “localized” and has up-to-date information base in the Russian Federation and CIS countries; Google is a little worse in this regard, but you can use it; Mail.Ru is in last place.

Convenience

Let's start with the trivial - we'll ask you to display the weekend schedule in June:

Let's compare information cards of objects like computer games, for example, the old Gothic, which came out at the beginning of the 2000s:

Let's move on to one of the most popular functions - calculations:

Let's look at how unit converters work. Let's set a not-so-simple option for converting - micrometers to meters:

The Google conversion widget shows the number of meters in one micrometer as a formula in the format 10 to the minus X power. The “Search No. 1 in Russia” widget is more understandable - in it you can set the number of micrometers and get the usual number with zeros after the decimal point. Mail again refuses to convert and count.

Let's try another function with a verbal trick in action. Let’s enter the query “anthill calorie content”. It is clear that we are talking about a cake called an anthill and its calorie content:

Let's try to order a taxi directly through the search. Let’s enter a request for Moscow, since we can’t count on advanced functionality for the regions:

It represents the optimization of a news site for mobile devices. The pages are simplified, becoming much lighter and easier to read.

Yandex has its own analogue of AMP - turbo mode, but it does not work on all news sites. Moreover, it is mainly tailored for Wikipedia and other information sites. In turbo mode, the site loads quickly and the page is lightweight.

Let's move a little away from text search and compare image search. On the mobile version of the site in Google search the pictures are quite meager - you can only enter a query, and also rank the results by date or select only GIF animations. Almost the same functionality awaits us in Mail.

Yandex is better. First of all, they show here every day beautiful picture, which can be placed, for example, on a desktop. Secondly, it is possible to upload a picture and search by its content. It could even be an image that has never been on the Internet. You can also recognize text in a photo, find a car model or product.

It's time to let you down result"Convenience" section. In almost every way, Mail.Ru search loses to two competitors. Yandex often takes advantage of slightly more convenient services. It feels like all the functions that we looked at were improved a little better in Yandex, but they also work quite well in Google. By Google convenience and Yandex can be placed in one place.

Who's the best?

If you don’t need convenient services, additional “gimmicks” and other goodies, then your choice is Google, or even better, DuckDuckGo. But it’s not offered to Russian residents in the Chrome search selection window.