Top Ten Search Engines [2020 Edition]

In this article we will take a look at the Top Ten Search Engines in 2020. You can probably guess who is number one, but do you know what others are on the list of the top 10 search engines today?

Back in 1998, I remember someone mentioning the website Google to me and being astounded at how simple the home page of the search engine was. At this time, I was using the search engine Excite (and sometimes Yahoo) and had customized my page to deliver all the personal information that was important to me.

Looking at Google’s simple home page, I wondered, “How will they ever succeed with such simplicity?”

In looking back now, some 22 years later, Google’s simplicity lies in the fact that they realized the importance of delivering the best search results and continued to modify their core search engine (they call it The Algorithm) to provide the very best results. This approach has led Google to be a public company with a market cap of more than $1 tillion dollars in 2020.

However, just as people did not know the name Google 22 years ago, will some competitor come along and squash the giant? In an insightful article entitled What Is Google?, we speculate about the future of Google.com. Google still achieves their dominion through advertising, but as people become more ad blind, is Google’s future in jeopardy.

In this look at the Top Ten Search Engines, we are going to look at Google’s place among the top search engines and examine their closest competitors. Will one of these search engines among the top ten pose a threat to Google or will an unnamed search engine come along with better results? One time will tell.

For now, let’s have a look at the top 10 search engines that are ruling the search engine world in 2020.

Top Ten Search Engines [2020 Edition]

1. Google:  What is Google’s percentage of the search engine market in 2020?  If you guessed 76%, bingo, you’re the winner…and so is Google!
2. Baidu:  Baidu is the Google of China and, because China has so many people, Baidu claims 15% of the global search market.
3. Bing:  Bing is in third place behind Google & Baidu.  That’s great news.  But the bad news?  They have only 4% of the search market.
4. Yahoo:  Yahoo, once a leader, falls in 4th place in 2020 with a search engine market share of 2%.
5. Yandex:  Never heard of Yandex.  Well, you’re probably not Russian.  Yandex controls the Russian search market and has a global search market share of .6%.
6. Ask:  Member Jeeves?  Well, maybe not.  Jeeves is gone and so is most of Ask’s market share, which now stands globally at .2%.
7. DuckDuckGo:  Those who really care about privacy use DuckDuckGo.  All told, it’s .1 of the search market.
8. Naver:  Naver was new to me until I started this piece.  They’re the Google of South Korea and have a .1% market share.
9. AOL:  Once the golden child of the Internet, they now host only .04% of the world’ss internet searches.
10. Dogpile: Dogpile compiles results from other search engines and comes in at .03%.

The top ten search engines change monthly so you may want to check out statcounter for the latest monthly 2020 search engine statistics.

 

Top Ten Search Engines: Conclusion

As you can see from the statistics, Google absolutely dominates the search engine market. Its closest competitor is Bing.com but they seem to be endlessly buying old search technologies that do not provide any innovative techniques. This bodes well for Google’s continued dominion.

After researching each of these companies, it seems certain that new candidates will have to emerge to take on Google dominance in the search engine market.

But it can be done. How do we know? Because Google did it!

Top Search Engines Appendix:

I used a lot of great resources in the preparation of this article about the top search engines. If you are interested in further reading about the search engine business, here is a great list of references for you:

All Purpose Seach Engines List: This is a quality list of all-purpose top search engines which comes from the About.com website. You may find some gems here if you would like to try other search engines outside of Google.com.

A Brief History of Search Engines: To learn more about the history of search engines, have a look at this page which summarizes the dawning and growth of the search engine business.

Search Engine History: Probably the most clear and comprehensive explanation of the history of search engines. This page chronicles the search engine business from 1945 all the way to today.

Finally, if you want to find out about any of the specific companies in the list of top ten search engines, visit the list of search engines on Wikipedia.com which provides detailed histories of each of the companies.