100+ Alternative Search Engines You Should Know

Google is the most powerful search engine available, but when it comes to searching for something specific, Google may churn out general results for some. For instance, a search for a song in Google may return the singer, the lyrics and even fan sites – depending on the keywords you entered.This is when niche-specific search engines comes into the picture. These search engines allows you to search for the things you’re looking for, and because they are more focused, their results tend to be more accurate.
E-books & PDF files, audio & music, videos, etc. are probably the most commonly searched items everyday and with this list, you’ll be able to locate them easily from now on. Enjoy!

We’re skipping the search engines that everyone know about so you won’t be seeing Google, Yahoo or Bing in this list. Here are many other alternative search engines available out there.

• Aol – Aol offers search results combined with content from AOL. It allows searching for web pages, images & videos, news, tools and more, and also offers filter options.
• Yandex – Yandex is a Russian service provider offering search engine, mail, mapsand more. Its search service allows searching for images, videos and more.
• ScrubTheWeb – ScrubTheWeb deliver organic search results and allowssearching for web pages available in their member’s list only.
• Ecosia – Ecosia is a web search engine, which donates 80% of its surplus income to plant trees. It lets you search for web, images, news, videos and more.
  

  

• MyWebSearch – MyWebSearch is search engine that shows results from Google. It lets you search for web, images & videos, news, shopping products, maps and more.
• Teoma – Teoma is an Internet search engine with its own link popularity algorithm.It lets people search for web, images & videos, news, recipes and more.
• InfoSpace – InfoSpace offers white-label search and monetization solutions. Its combined search engine lets you find web pages, images & videos and news.
• Giga Blast – Giga Blast indexes billions of pages and provides quick, latest information. It lets you search only for web pages, but with filters for enhanced search results.

Regional Search Engines

• Baidu – Baidu is China’s search engine for searching websites, news, maps, images and audio & video files. It also shows definitions and allows making searches using images.More China search engines: Yam, Youdao, Sogou.
• Naver – Naver is the South Korea’s first web portal that allows searching for web, definitions, images, news, articles, videos and more apart from providing other web services. More South Korean search engines: Daum,Nate.
• Goo – Goo is an Internet search engine and web portal of Japan, which crawls primarily Japanese sites and allows searching for web, images, blogs, maps and even definitions.More Japan search engines: Biglobe
• Rambler – Rambler is a Russian web portal offering services like search engine, email, news portal, finance portal, etc. It lets users search for web and images, and offers filter options.
• Seznam – Seznam is a web portal and search engine of Czech Republic. It allows anyone to look for web pages, maps, photos & videos, definitions, products and more.
• SAPO – Servidor de Apontadores Portugueses is a Portuguese service provider. It offers a search engine that allows searching for web, images & videos, news and blogs.
• Virgilio – Virgilio is an Italian web portal and search engine that lets anyone search for web pages, images & videos, companies and maps. More Italian search engines: Libero
• Walla – Walla is an Israeli web portal, providing news, search and email services. It allows searching for web, photos, jobs, shopping products and more.
• Diri – Diri is a Bulgarian web portal and provides search, news and more services. It allows searching for web, definitions, flights, blogs, music, videos and more.
• Search – Search is a search engine and web portal of Switzerland providing weather, maps, cinema and more services. It only allows searching for web pages.
• Najdi – Najdi is a search engine built for Republic of Macedonia. Unlike most search engines, it does not crawl the sites for their content and instead uses RSS or other XML sources.
  

  

• Search Nigeria – Search Nigeria is a web based portal and search engine. It lets people to search the web pages, images & videos, news, blogs and more.
• Das Oertliche – Das Oertliche is a German web portal and local directory, which allows its users to search for public locations using phone numbers, names or streets.

Kid-Safe Search Engines

These search engines provide children with a search service that keeps out age-inappropriate materials unfit for consumption for young ages.

• KidRex
• Kiddle
  

  

• Safe Search for Kids
• Kids.gov
• KidsClick!
• GoGooligans

Social Media Search Engines

• Social Mention – Search for social media mentions and understand social trends.
• IceRocket – Search blogs and social networks
• Websta – Search Instagram for Instagram tags, user accounts, boards and more
• SocialSeeking – Search across various social networks and media channels like Twitter, Instagram, Vimeo, etc.
• Social Searcher – Search for public information from networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and more.
  

  

• Pixnet – An online mobile photo sharing and networking service. Provides search for publicly available information including web posts, images and more.

Image & Icon Search Engines

• Iconfinder – A repository and search engine for free and premium icons.
• Image Search – Find photos from Facebook, Flickr, Zooomr, MySpace, Photobucket, Corbis and more.
• TinEye – A reverse image search engine that allows people to search images using images.
  

  

• Picsearch – Search for images on the Web.
• Twicsy – A search engine for Twitter pictures
• Spezify – Search for images from social networks like Instagram, Facebook and others.

Knowledge Search Engines

• Ask – Ask is a question-answer community cum search engine that allows searching for web, images, videos and news. You can also ask questions for getting quick answers.
• eHow – eHow is one of the oldest question & answer websites that allows people to search about almost any topic – from home decor to food and from finance to legal.
  

  

• Answers – Answers is a question-answer engine and community that lets people search for answers. You can directly ask questions and the sites answers them accurately.
• Wolfram Alpha – Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge and search enginethat searches for answers for factual questions, finds images, solves calculations and does much more.
• ChaCha – ChaCha is a human-guided search engine. It provides free, real-time answers to any question through its website. It also posts galleries and quizzes online.
• Quora – A ask and answer site to find advice and insights by real people about real-life experiences.

Private Search Engines

• DuckDuckGo – DuckDuckGo is an Internet search engine that emphasizes on protecting searchers’ privacy and allows searching for web, images & videos, definitions and stocks.
• Qwant – Qwant is a France-based anonymous web search engine. It claims not to track its users while providing search for web, news, images & videos and more.
• Startpage – Startpage is a Google-powered yet secure and privacy-respecting search engine. It lets people search for web pages, images & videos and more.

More private search engines: Lukol, Privatelee

Metasearch Engines

• Dogpile – Fetches from Google, Yandex and Yahoo
• Nigma – An innovative Russian metasearch engine
• OpenText – Fetches from Google, Bing and others
• Fagan Finder – A search engine listing tool

More metasearch engines: WebCrawler , ZapMeta, Excite, Yippy, Qrobe

Search Engines to Search for People

• Spokeo – aggregates data from online and offline sources and allows searching using a name, email, phone number, username or address.
• Pipl – finds info about people that cannot be found on regular search engines by name, username, phone number and email.
• PeekYou – indexes people from various social networks by name, email, phone, address, location and more.
  

  

• Vebidoo – indexes publicly accessible information about people and lets you search them using name, location and more.
• Spysee – A next-generation people search engine geared towards social networks.

Search Engines for News

• Digg – A news aggregator and curator
• YouGotTheNews – A search engine for US news and articles
• NewsLookup – Search for latest and trending global news
• Elephind – A search engine for finding historical news.
• NewsLibrary – A library cum search engine for find facts and news

Search Engines to Search Blogs

The following are search engines to search for niche blogs based on blog categories.

• Blog Search
• Blog Search Engine
• Twingly Blog Search
• Find Blogs

Other Search Engines

• DMOZ – DMOZ is a multilingual open directory of the Internet. It uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings and lets you search for websites.
• Food Blog Search – Food Blog Search is a food recipe search enginepowered by Google Custom Search. It lets you find recipes from 1000+ blogs and sites across the web.
  

  

• Swoogle – Swoogle is a search engine for semantic web ontologies, documents, terms and data published on the Internet. It’s not a regular search engine unlike others.

• SimilarSiteSearch – SimilarSiteSearch helps you find similar, related or alternative websites.

• Shodan – Shodan is a search engine that lets users find devices(computers, routers, servers, etc.) connected to the Internet. It collects data mostly from public web servers.

• Blackle – Blackle is powered by Google Custom Search and aims to save energy by displaying a black background. It allows users to search for web pages and images.

• Blinkx – Blinkx is a web media platform with an index of over 35 million hours of videos. It allows people to browse videos using sections and search for videos.

• NerdyData – NerdyData is a geek’s search engine that allows programming enthusiasts search for technologies, languages, libraries and much more.
  

  

• SearchCode – SearchCode is a source code and documentation search engine, providing programmers the ability to search for functions or code snippets.

• Open HUB Code Search – Open HUB Code Search is a search engine for coders, allowing programming enthusiasts to search for relevant open source code, functions and more.

• Polyvore – Polyvore is a community-powered social commerce website, allowing you to discover and search for latest trends in fashion and beauty.

• Yummly – Yummly is a repository and search engine for foodies. It lets people search and explore food recipes – available in various categories (even seasonal).

• Pronto – Pronto is a price comparison and product finding service that allows anyone search for products across large range of retailers and stores.

• Discounto – Discounto allows its users to search and acquire discounts and offersfrom various retailers and local shopkeepers. It also informs of latest and awaited offers for popular items.

• AZLyrics – AZLyrics is a lyrics portal and search engine, which searches for lyrics using any phrase or song or album name and shows the lyrics of your favorite song.

• AnooX – AnooX is a social search engine that allows searching for web pages. Unlike many other SEs, it claims to use people’s rating for listing its search results.

• OneLook – OneLook is a search engine for words and phrases. It lets you search for words or meanings in 1000+ dictionaries and is even capable of making reverse lookups.

• GoodSearch – GoodSearch is an online shopping site with a search engine that helps you find deals and coupons in major retailers. It donates part of the purchase price of items you find and buy on GoodSearch.