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The world of search: it’s not all Google

Google is not the only search engine. Forgetting about the other search engines can be bad for business!

It wasn’t always Google

Before 1993, Tim Berners Lee (the man who invented the World Wide Web) indexed all new websites by hand. Needless to say this got quite difficult as the internet grew and more websites appeared. So, in 1993 four search engines were developed:

  • W3Catalog
  • Aliweb
  • Jumpstation
  • WWW Worm

Sadly, none of these search engines are active today. But there are a couple from 1994 that are still around: WebCrawler and Lycos.

But it wasn’t until 1998 that Google appeared – 5 years after the first search engines. Over the past decade and a half, Google has dominated the search landscape and it’s now a household name. Yet it’s still not the only player out there.

Big names in search

There are a few different companies that share a majority of the web searches carried out each day. Here they are ranked in order of the most widely used, with the amount of estimated unique monthly users listed beside each one:

  1. Google – 1.1 billion
  2. Bing – 350 million
  3. Yahoo! Search – 300 million
  4. Ask – 245 million
  5. AOL Search – 125 million

As you can see Google is by far the biggest. But combined, the remaining 4 make up the same number of searches as Google. This is a huge market that many businesses forget about. By taking a little time to submit your business to the other search engines and focus on how you appear there, you can potentially double your reach.

Apple and Google

Apple and Google are arguably the most recognisable names in the world of technology. Until 2014, they had a fruitful partnership where Google provided the search functions for all of Apple’s devices. That was until Apple dropped Google for Bing.

There are millions of iPhones and Apple devices around the world, with the default search engine now set to Bing. Once again, this is a huge market that can go untapped if you only focus on Google.

Bing is also the second largest search provider, so it would make sense to be listed on it anyway, even without it being the default search engine for Apple devices.

What you can do

To ensure you’re getting the best reach you possibly can, your safest bet is to submit your business to at least the top 3 search engines, if not the top 5. This is a fairly simple process that requires you to submit your website address, physical location (if you have one), some contact details, and a short description of what it is you do. As a rule, any good designer should submit your website to the major 3 search engines at the very least.

Don’t get tricked into thinking Google is the only search engine for you. When it comes to reaching your biggest audience, it pays to have your site listed across the web.

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