It is almost unbelievable to think that the term search engine has only been in use for about 15 years. Today, we use search engines on a regular basis to the tune of 400 million queries a day by Google alone. This is a staggering number when we realize that the application did not even exist less than a generation ago. There are a significant number of search engines out there with the big three being Bing, Yahoo and Google.
The search engine which is far and away the most popular is Google. It accounts for six out of 10 searches on the internet today. It uses a clean minimalist interface. One of the main reasons that it is always mentioned by admirers when discussing the best search engine is that you find what you need when you want it without having to sift through irrelevant links.
While the big three all have useful aspects there are other less known search engines which are using innovation to garner praise by tech buffs and the general public alike. One such search engine is Mahalo.com. This is the one of the only search engines to use human power. It has a committee of editors who sift through millions of web pages to deem it viable to a search. Due to this you may get fewer results at Mahalo but they will tend to be of higher quality.
Another is duckduckgo.com. When first arriving at duckduckgo.com you may think it is an exact replica of Google due to the minimalistic style but there are specific features that make duckduckgo.com quite different to the search engine giant. First there is a lot less ad spam. The other notable feature is its zero click feature and the ability to customize your search settings. So if you are on the lookout for a new search engine try the two above and see if they work for you.