When it comes to SEO, Google is always the search engine giant to pay attention to. Any SEO agency will tell you this, but we are also aware that other search engines exist. Are these other options worth paying attention to?
According to recent Comscore rankings in regards to search engines in the US, Google is used for just over 63% of all queries. While this, naturally, makes it the main area of focus, it does mean the other 37% are spread out across other search engines. So, are there any other search methods worth considering? Here are 3 that might be worth looking at.
Bing
Bing is certainly something worth keeping track of. Microsoft sites counted for 22.5% of search queries in December 2016, making them the biggest competitor outside of Google. Of course, Microsoft uses its own search engine, Bing, across all of its services, making them the second best go-to search engine to optimise for.
DuckDuckGo
One of Google’s biggest strengths is that it can connect to its other services (like Gmail and Google Docs) to provide a comprehensive service. Yet this is also one of its drawbacks, as there are many users who don’t like the way Google can track individual people (for targeted PPC promotions, for example).
DuckDuckGo is a search engine designed to solve this issue. While it can still collect information on keywords and data, it doesn’t track anything do with an individual user, allowing people to browse privately. It’s also a platform that is growing rapidly: in January, it reached 14 million daily searches.
Another benefit to DuckDuckGo is that the company is very open with data. While, again, it doesn’t track individuals, it openly displays its traffic data, which is something any SEO expert can appreciate.
Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha can be seen as a somewhat obscure search engine, as it tries to generate exact answers using a complex algorithm. In fact, it prefers to call itself a “computeral knowledge engine” From an SEO perspective, this is difficult to gauge but, in some industries and niches, this could be a potential way to get ahead, especially if the engine grows in popularity.
Do You Need To Change Your Strategy?
Of course, these are not the only search engines in existence. Looking at comscores statistics, some of the older search engines from the 90s are still going strong. This includes Yahoo (around 11%) Ask (1.4%) and even AOL (0.9%).
The real question, however, is if you need to adapt your strategy to these engines? In all honestly, when it comes to the likes of Yahoo and Bing, these still use keyword targeting to assess your website. While the algorithm may differ, its still vital to have relevant content, the right keywords and a strong back-link profile. In most cases, the search queries used between search engines are often the same. Wolfram Alpha is one example of one that is different, while DuckDuckGo is a generic search engine that simply has the benefit of allowing users to remain anonymous.