Top 10 Alternative Search Engines: Best of 2012

Here at Netprro - SEO Consultant in Sydney we do rather love putting together top 10 lists for you. This time we are covering the Top 10 alternative search engines and reference sites 2012. So if you’re bored of using the typical mainstream search engines like Google, these search and reference websites offer interesting, new ways to search for whatever you’re looking for.

 

DuckDuckGo - The Search Engine That DOESN’T Track You

First up is a useful alternative search engine that doesn’t track your activity. Unlike Google and other popular search engines, DuckDuckGo protects your privacy by never finding out who you are, so you can freely search whatever you want.


Qwiki - The Talking Wikipedia

Something a bit different to your usual Wikipedia searching is Qwiki – an alternative Wikipedia-style search engine literally speaks to you!

Quora - The Search Engine for Questions & Answers 

You know how you often end up asking Google questions (“Who am I?” anyone?!)… Well Quora is basically a search engine just for asking questions and getting the answers!

Chomp - The Search Engine for Apps 

So if you’re an iPhone or iPad user, you’ve probably wondered what the best way to find the best apps is. We review hot, new apps every week, although we’re not a search engine for apps.

Grovo - The Search Engine for Internet Education

You may use your Google, your Bing etc to search for websites you are looking for, but what happens once you get to the site and don’t know how to use it! Grovo is a growing library of short, educational videos about how to use and get the best out of the Internet most popular websites.

Wolfram Alpha - The Computer That Knows All the Answers 

Normal search engines like Google bring up a list of links to pages from around the web that relate to your search terms. Wolfram Alpha is a “computational knowledge engine”

SoCl - The Social Search Engine

Straight out of the Microsoft research center comes SoCl – the World’s first ‘Social Search Engine’. It’s similar to regular search engines like Google, but shortens your path to relevant search results by creating a feed of results both from Bing search engine and other users, like you, who searched the same keyword.

5min - The Ultimate How-To ‘Videopedia‘

Another video hub, but this time it’s a massive, searchable library of how-to videos. So instead of doing a how-to search on Google, you can use 5min’s internal search engine ready to bring you tens of thousands of how-to videos across a huge array of topics.

LyricsnMusic - The Search Engine for Music & Lyrics

This alternative search engine is just the perfect site to accompany your music listening.

AllMyFaves - The Web’s Most Popular Homepage: No Search Required

Built on the idea that you shouldn’t have to search for the best websites – and that Google doesn’t always give you the best websites – AllMyFaves is a human-curated, hand-picked, visual directory of the best websites.

Google Ads Coming To Yahoo Sites

Yahoo said every day, people turn to Yahoo! for their daily habits -- like search, weather, news or more. At Yahoo!, we’re focused on doing everything we can to create the user experience inspiring and engaging.

Market participants welcomed the news, confirmed by Yahoo, that it has signed a world agreement with Google to display its ads on selected Yahoo properties and co-branded sites.

The deal is non-exclusive, so Yahoo will also continue to show ads from competitors such as Bing.

The deal calls for Yahoo to produce Google with some of its unsold inventory in exchange for Google showing small business ads on Yahoo sites. The ads use Google's AdSense program to deliver contextually relevant ads to individual websites; publishers get paid based on user clicks or impressions. On Yahoo mobile sites, the contextual ads will be delivered via Google's AdMob services.

Yahoo said in its blog that “the deal would enable it to expand its network, so that users of its sites would see ads that were more meaningful to them. We’re excited to announce that we recently signed a global, non-exclusive agreement with Google to show ads on various Yahoo! properties and certain co-branded sites using Google’s AdSense for Content and Google’s AdMob services.”

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Bing Maps announced New Top of the World and High Resolution Satellite Imagery

Bing  Maps has announced a series of updates to its high-resolution imaging, with expanded coverage, better mapping of ocean floors, cloud filtering and more.

The prime options that Bing is touting involve what it calls “top of the world” imagery — those hi-res, top-down images. 

Bing Says, It includes bathymetry data from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

This image has a resolution of 15 meters per pixel, providing coverage of the entire world!

Cloud covers filtering:

 

Bing processes its base satellite imagery and reduces cloud cover in area where views are often blocked by persistent cloud cover. Bing’s example photos of Oahu show how it works.

Bathymetric Shading

   

The topography of the ocean surface is represented by color shading (dark blues to light blues) indicating changes in ocean depth. An ocean mask minimizes areas generally obscured by ice and clouds. Combination of the ocean mask and bathymetric image provides a more meaningful view of the world oceans.

High Resolution Satellite Imagery

Bing Says, This month we are adding new High Resolution Satellite imagery with a total coverage of 13,799,276 sq km!

 

Overall, Bing says it’s added more than 13 million sq. kilometers of new top-of-the-world imagery. It will enhance overall viewer experience with Bing Maps and the Windows 8 App.

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