SEO for Alternative Search Engines: Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo

With its remarkable ability to deliver precise results instaSntly, Google has dominated the global search engine market for over a decade.

When experts discuss enhancing organic rankings, they often focus on Google. However, SEO isn’t confined to this popular search engine alone.

Businesses, ISPs, and tech brands can establish partnerships with alternative search engines, such as Microsoft’s collaboration with Bing and Yahoo.

Certain audience segments prefer devices that don’t default to Google, or are restricted to non-Google browsers at work by their IT departments.

Growing concerns about search data privacy and a lack of trust in Google are prompting users to explore other search engine options.

Moreover, some customers simply prefer alternative search engines due to their values or preferences.

Given these factors, diversifying SEO efforts can be highly beneficial for businesses.

In this article, we’ll delve into the significance of alternative search engines and share effective strategies for optimizing your website for platforms like Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo.

Is SEO for Alternative Search Engines Worth the Investment?

Before delving deeper, it’s essential to evaluate whether dedicating resources to non-Google SEO is a worthwhile endeavor.

The search market today is diverse, offering alternatives to Google such as Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia, which cater to various user preferences.

However, despite these alternatives, Google maintains a dominant market share, accounting for approximately 84% as of July 2022.

For many businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs), marketing resources are already stretched thin, making it challenging to justify investing in SEO efforts for search engines other than Google. Nonetheless, dismissing these alternatives entirely may not be prudent, primarily due to two key factors: audience preferences and untapped website traffic.

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Your Audience’s Preference for Alternative Search Engines

Aligning with Alternative Search Engine Preferences of Your Audience

Similar to any facet of digital marketing, your strategy for alternative search engine SEO should be guided by the behavior of your target audience. Certain segments of your audience may exhibit a preference for alternative search engines.

For instance, if your brand ethos revolves around sustainability or environmental causes, you may attract users who favor Ecosia over Google.

Similarly, if your target demographic prioritizes personal data privacy, they might lean towards using DuckDuckGo.

A quick analysis in your Google Analytics, navigating to All Traffic > Channels > Organic and examining the ‘source’ view, can provide insights into the proportion of traffic originating from various search engines. While Google typically dominates, you may be surprised to discover significant portions of website visits (and even conversions!) originating from alternative engines.

Significant Traffic from Alternative Search Engines

While the market share of alternative search engines pales in comparison to Google’s dominance, the traffic stemming from these platforms should not be underestimated.

According to Internet Live Stats, Google handles over 100,000 searches per second, totaling more than 8.5 billion searches daily. However, the daily search volume for other search engines is noteworthy:

• Baidu: 5 billion
• Bing: 900 million
• Yahoo: 133 million
• DuckDuckGo: 99 million

Even excluding smaller engines like Ecosia or Ask, the combined traffic from alternative search engines represents substantial untapped potential.

Moreover, it’s common for traffic originating from non-Google search engines to exhibit higher engagement levels and conversion rates. While the reach may be narrower, these users are often more inclined to become leads or make purchases.

In essence, if a considerable portion of your customer base utilizes these search engines, allocating additional optimization efforts toward them is worthwhile.

SEO Strategies for Major Alternative Search Engines

SEO for alternative search engines may not be suitable for every business, but if your audience utilizes these platforms, understanding how to optimize for each algorithm is crucial for maximizing your rankings potential.

Here are the top strategies for three prominent alternative search engines: Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo.

Bing SEO

Bing, owned and operated by Microsoft, serves as the default search engine for PCs and employs an algorithm that bears similarities to Google’s. However, it offers several user features that differentiate it from Google.

For instance, Bing’s image search allows users to apply filters not available on Google, such as excluding images without faces. Additionally, its video search presents results in a thumbnail grid format and permits users to play videos directly within the search results page.

It’s noteworthy that Amazon Alexa voice searches are powered by Bing, holding a significant 70% share of the U.S. voice search market. While voice search optimization currently mirrors traditional SEO, focusing on long-tail queries and natural language, Bing SEO may become increasingly vital as the voice search market expands.

An immediate step to enhance your Bing SEO is claiming and listing your brand name on Bing Places, akin to Google Business Profiles. This action boosts trust signals, enhances brand visibility, and drives traffic.

Bing provides its Webmaster Tools accessible through a Bing business account, enabling you to submit your site for indexing and optimize it for Bing’s crawlers by employing tags and categories.

It’s crucial to note that Bing’s algorithm places slightly greater emphasis on on-page SEO compared to Google:

• Prioritizing content with exact-match keywords, especially in titles, meta descriptions, URLs, and body content.
• Achieving a balance between incorporating exact keywords into your content and maintaining quality is essential.
• Yahoo SEO
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• Introduced in 1995, Yahoo experienced a brief stint as the world’s leading search engine before Google’s rapid ascent. Presently, it holds a mere 3% share of the global search market but retains popularity among longstanding Mozilla Firefox users and internet users in Japan and Mexico.
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• Although Yahoo’s algorithm now relies partially on Bing, subtle differences exist in the search results returned by each engine for identical queries.
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• Unlike Google, Yahoo updates its algorithm less frequently, maintains straightforward ranking guidelines, and faces less competition. Consequently, achieving a high rank on Yahoo is generally more attainable than on Google.
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• Similar to Bing, Yahoo places less emphasis on user engagement signals and prioritizes on-page SEO. Hence, incorporating exact-match, long-tail keywords becomes crucial for favorable rankings. Nonetheless, Yahoo still considers user engagement signals, necessitating a focus on technical SEO tasks like optimizing page load times, maintaining sitemaps, and resolving 404 errors.
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• In contrast to Google, social media signals wield greater influence on Yahoo’s algorithm. Brands garnering more likes, follows, and shares tend to rank higher in Yahoo’s search engine results pages (SERPs).Top of Form

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DuckDuckGo SEO

DuckDuckGo’s rise in popularity stems from its commitment to user privacy, as it refrains from tracking or storing user data and tailoring ads based on search history.

While this privacy-focused approach benefits users, it poses challenges for marketers. The absence of user tracking limits opportunities for targeted ad campaigns based on past behavior or interests.

One notable difference between DuckDuckGo and Google lies in local SEO. DuckDuckGo does not track user locations, making “near me” searches ineffective. Instead, users must employ region-specific or city-specific queries.

To enhance local SEO on DuckDuckGo, ensure your name, address, and phone (NAP) details are accurate on your website and use localized keywords in your content.

Apart from local SEO nuances, DuckDuckGo SEO closely resembles Google’s approach. Emphasize high-quality content creation, implement effective guest posting or blogger outreach initiatives for backlinking, and optimize site speed, user experience, and metadata with relevant keywords.

DuckDuckGo sources business citations from Apple Maps. Claiming your business listing via Apple’s Places on Maps can bolster your visibility to DuckDuckGo users who enable location-based searching or specifically search for your business.

Unlike Google and Bing, DuckDuckGo does not offer direct sitemap submission. Instead, its crawler, DuckDuckBot, indexes sites by following links and aggregating data from various search engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Maximizing indexation chances involves submitting your sitemap to multiple search engine indexes.

Conclusion:

We trust that this guide to alternative search engine SEO serves as a valuable resource as you navigate the landscape of organic search marketing.

Balancing your efforts between Google and other search engines can be a challenge, but with the right approach, you can effectively reach and engage with previously untapped segments of your audience. By optimizing your site for alternative search engines, you open up avenues for increased visibility and connection with diverse user demographics.

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