Comparison of web search engines

Search engines are listed in tables below for comparison purposes. The first table lists the company behind the engine, volume and ad support and identifies the nature of the software being used as open source or proprietary. The second table lists privacy aspects along with other technical parameters, such as whether the engine provides personalization (alternatively viewed as a filter bubble).

Many search services are not listed, including historical ones that have gone obsolete.

Search results

Search engine	Company	Software distribution license	Running non-free JavaScript	Pages indexed	Daily direct queries	Results count	Advertisements
Baidu	Baidu	Proprietary	No	Unknown	Unknown	Yes	Yes
Bing	Microsoft	Proprietary	No	13.5 billion[1]	Unknown	Yes	Yes
DuckDuckGo	DuckDuckGo	Mixed[2]	No	Unknown	10 million[3]	No	Optional
Gigablast	Independent	Free	No	>1 billion[4][5][6]	Unknown	Yes	No
Google Search	Google	Proprietary	No	40 billion[1]	319 million[7][lower-alpha 1]	Yes	Yes
Soso.com	Tencent	Proprietary	No	Unknown	Unknown	No	No
Startpage (and Ixquick)	Ixquick	Proprietary	No	Unknown	3.4 million[8]	Yes	No
YaCy	Independent, Distributed, Peer-to-Peer	Free	No	1.4 billion[9]	0.13 million [10]	Yes	No
Yahoo! Search	Yahoo!	Proprietary	No	10 billion[1]	Unknown	Yes	Yes
Yandex Search	Yandex	Proprietary	No	>2 billion[11]	Unknown	Yes	Yes

1. Assuming 9.9 billion monthly searches is average, and using 31 days as the average length of a month.

Digital rights

Search engine	Server's location(s)	Dedicated servers	Data center	Cloud computing	HTTPS available	Tor gateway available	Proxy gateway search links available	Internet censorship (countries)
Baidu	China/Japan				No	No	Unknown	China
Bing	USA/China	Yes			Yes(SSL blocked in China)	No	Unknown	China
DuckDuckGo[12]	USA	No	Verizon Internet Services	Amazon EC2	Yes	Yes [13]	No	No[14]
Gigablast	USA				Yes[15]	Yes[15]	No	Unknown
Google Search	USA	Yes			Default if signed in[16]	No	Unknown	Argentina,[17] China
Soso.com	China				No	No	Unknown	China
Startpage (and Ixquick)	USA/Netherlands[18]	Yes[19][20]	yes[19][20]	No[19][20]	by default[18]	No	Yes	Unknown
Yahoo! Search	USA	Partial			Yes[21]	No	Unknown	Argentina[17]
Yandex Search	Russia	Yes			Yes[22]	No	Unknown	Unknown

Tracking

Search engine	HTTP tracking cookies	Personalized results[lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2]	IP address tracking[lower-alpha 3][lower-alpha 2]	Information sharing[lower-alpha 2]	Browser hijacking[lower-alpha 2]
Baidu	Yes	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Bing	Unknown	Unknown	Yes[23]	Yes[23]	Yes[23]
DuckDuckGo[12]	No	No	No	No	No
Gigablast	Unknown	No	No[15]	No[15]	No[15]
Google Search	Unknown	Default[24]	Yes[23]	Yes[23]	Yes[23]
Soso.com	Yes	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Startpage (and Ixquick)	No	No[25]	No	No	No
Yahoo! Search	Unknown	Unknown	Yes[23]	Yes[23]	Yes[23]
Yandex Search	Unknown	Yes[26]	Unknown	No[27]	Unknown

1. The results of the search are arranged for the user in accordance to his/her interests as determined from previous search queries or other information available to the search engine.
2. Statement cannot be verified to be actual true as the information is handled by servers not accessed by the public.
3. Tracking the user has to be conducted in order to provide personalized search results.

See also

• Comparison of webmail providers - Often merged with web search engines by companies that host both services.
• List of search engines

References

1. "Size Google, Bing, Yahoo search (number of web pages)". Retrieved March 23, 2013.
2. "Open Source Overview". DuckDuckGo Community Platform. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
3. "DuckDuckGo Direct queries per day (28d avg)". Retrieved 20 March 2015.
4. Gary Price, "Gigablast Passes the One Billion Page Mark", Search Engine Watch, January 8, 2005 full text
5. "About Gigablast". gigablast.com. Retrieved 2014-07-01.
6. "FAQ". gigablast.com. Retrieved 2015-04-24.
7. Burns, Enid. "Almost 12 Billion U.S. Searches Conducted in July". Retrieved 9 February 2013.
8. "Private Suchmaschinen StartPage und Ixquick durchstoßen Grenze von 3 Millionen Suchabfragen täglich" (in German). June 13, 2013. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
9. http://www.yacy.net/en/
10. http://www.yacy.net/en/
11. "SEC Filing 2011" (PDF). Form 20-F. "Our search index includes billions of webpages..": Yandex N.V. 31 December 2011. p. 45. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
12. Holwerda, Thom (June 21, 2011), "DuckDuckGo: The Privacy-centric Alternative to Google", OSNews, retrieved March 30, 2012
13. Weinberg, Gabriel (2010-08-10). "DuckDuckGo now operates a Tor exit enclave". gabrielweinberg.com. Retrieved 2014-07-01.
14. "Don't Bubble Us". Retrieved April 3, 2012.
15. "Gigablast - The Private Search Engine". Retrieved August 5, 2013.
16. "Google Makes HTTPS Encryption Default for Search". eWeek. Retrieved 2014-03-31.
17. "Yahoo & Google Forced To Censor Search Results in Argentina". Seroundtable. Retrieved 2014-03-31.
18. "Where are your servers located, and how does this impact government/legal requirements to record, share, or hand over data?". support.startpage.com. 2013-06-01. Retrieved 2014-07-01.
19. https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1001/0/is-startpage-self-hosted-or-hosted-within-a-data-center
20. https://support.ixquick.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1188/0/is-ixquick-self-hosted-or-hosted-within-a-data-center
21. Danny Sullivan (22 January 2014). "Yahoo Search Goes Secure". Search Engine Land. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
22. "Yandex.Direct switches to HTTPS". Yandex. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
23. Johnson, Kevin; Martin, Scott; O'Donnell, Jayne; Winter, Michael (June 15, 2013). "Reports: NSA Siphons Data from 9 Major Net Firms". USA Today. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
24. "Turn off search history personalization". Retrieved July 11, 2013.
25. "Startpage Protects Your Privacy". Startpage.com. Retrieved 2013-07-21.
26. "Компания Яндекс — Персональный поиск". Retrieved May 22, 2013.
27. "Privacy Policy – Legal Documents". Yandex.Company. 3.3.1.: LLC Yandex. 15 November 2011. Retrieved 21 April 2012.