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There are several alternative search engines today besides the most popular search engine Google. If you are an SEO expert, it is vital to understand these search engines’ functionality and their impact on SEO link building.
The essence of building backlinks is to drive traffic and grow website authority through ranking on search engine results pages. Taking note of the effective strategies involved in getting this should be a consistent effort implemented until the result is achieved. As a beginner in link building, exploring alternative search engines that suit your business will give you a higher advantage over your competitors for brand awareness.
No doubt Google’s search engine market share capitalization is about 1.22 trillion US dollars, compared to other search websites. Reaching a new target audience in your niche and building an interactive network through other search query will enable you to build some trustworthiness and credibility for your business.
In this article, we will explain the different measures to ranking while building links and its benefit to the digital marketing space.
What are Alternative Search Engines?
Other than Google, web browsers provide information for users and answer their search queries. Some alternative search engine are operational specific, which are:
- Private Search engine (does not keep track of personal details or record search history)
- Public search engine (It records and track data making it visible to search engine, unlike the privacy based search engine)
Furthermore, SEO link building for alternative search engines involves basic SEO knowledge and practice, although there are slight differences in optimizing each search engine. It can involve optimizing for a location to rank on search engine result pages or for product website pages for visibility and optimizing content such as articles, blog post, white pepper etc.
Types of Alternative Search Engines List
In today’s internet world, many alternative search engines pull out search results for users to access. However, these search engines are of several types depending on their functions, they are seven types listed below.
Video Search Engine
This alternative search allows users to search for videos using keyword phrases, and a search engine provides a list of matching videos. This offers users explicit search query details, primarily for tutorial courses, DIY learning platforms, etc. Examples of video search engines are Google, YouTube, Bing, Facebook, Veoh, Dogpile, and others. However, Google and YouTube remain the best alternative search engines for video search.
Image Search Engine
It can be tedious finding a suitable image for your content. To achieve this, you need to use an exact keyword and source for the image. This is why an image search engine is essential, as it helps you figure out the exact image you need rather than spending lots of time finding similar images that don’t suit your preference. A list of search engines with stock images includes:
- Google search image, which tags and indexes billions of images, before sorting out the most appropriate one that suits your query.
- Yahoo image search helps users find the perfect image for their content. The algorithm differs, and the tagging convention when it comes to Yahoo. It helps you filter colour, graphics, formats, etc.
- Pixabay is a standard image default search engine, and people use these royalty-free images for commercial applications. This is used for website advertisement and is a solution for marketers or business owners.
- Pexels offers the best free stock photos shared by talented creators, including aspiring photographers; you can obtain these photos using the discover tabs on the browser.
Web Search Engine
This search engine uses keyword phrases to source for a list of website pages depending on your query. For example, “ A list of universities in Canada” search results provide you with different website pages featuring universities in the location. An example of this search engine is Google’s search results, Bing, Baidu, DuckDuckGo, etc.
Google is the largest search engine, followed by Bing when it comes to web search followed by other search engines.
Meta Search Engine
This type of search engine produces results from multiple search engines and presents them to users in a single outline. This Metasearch engine helps you compare search results from different general search engines before sending you the best search engine result. Examples of this search engine are Dogpile and MetaCrawler.
Hybrid Search Engine
This search engine type uses multiple search algorithms to produce results. It is helpful regarding result sourcing, and it doesn’t miss out on any information other sites may miss. The hybrid search engine uses two-element parts such as:
- Indexer, which helps to keep track of all content found while
- Crawlers to find new content and provide up-to-date information.
An example of hybrid based search engine is Google which is primarily crawler based web search and utilizes human directories as a secondary operation. Yahoo is also an example of a hybrid search.
General Search Engine
This search engine indexes and ranks web pages depending on the content which drives traffic and is engaging for users. Most search engines can be classified as general, however, Google, Bing and Yahoo remain the favorite search engines of them all.
Vertical Search Engine
This differs slightly from general as it refers to a speciality or topical search in an industry. This type of search is specific and focuses on a single segment of the overall search. An example includes:
- travel search like Skyscanner
- Jobs list search engine like Indeed
- Local search engines like Yelp and
- E-commerce product search engine like Amazon and Shopify
Vertical search focuses on a limited set of data, searching through specific parts of the web while plunging into distinct topics. Google, as a general-purpose search engine, also features part of vertical search, as it relies on Google but filters search data based on user’s search queries.
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SEO Link Building Tools Used For Search Engines
So many link-building tools are used to earn backlinks and draw analysis for search engine optimization. However, please know your budget before you know what tool is best for your business. Below is a list of SEO tools used for search rankings
Ahrefs
This software is designed for SEO experts; it has features such as keyword research tools, rank tracking, and technical SEO site audits. Ahrefs has a site explorer for link builders; it helps you generate and build backlinks. Also, Ahrefs help you leverage spammy link building techniques by reaching out to a high-authorized domain.
Moz Link Explorer
This tool helps you analyze your competitor’s backlinks and get high-quality site link metrics. It also has anchor text analysis features that help build a website backlink profile and identify links pointing to your page. It has a moderate subscription package that comes with investment.
Majestic
This tool helps you build backlinks on a friendly budget; This tool has features that measures the number of links contained in a site from a high authority domain. It contains a huge database but it is difficult to navigate if you are not an expert.
Semrush
This is an SEO link building tool that helps website owners build quality backlinks data. It has features such as position tracking, content optimization tool, on page checker and keyword research tool. It is an analytic tool that keeps tabs on backlinks progress and is very easy to purchase. Aside from that you are able to find broken links from a list of URLs and this will help you know the website to reach out to for broken link building.
Respona
This is an outreach platform for link building strategies, it has features such as product review, guest post, podcast outreach and resource pages. All you need to do is choose a template that suits your writing preference in creating a compelling outreach.
Pitchbox
This is also an outreach platform built for experts in link building. It helps you find prospects and get their contact for outreach making it easy for several people to embark on the campaign. Its subscription plan is quite expensive but is well-recommended for effective results.
Buzzstream
This helps you keep a record of your relationship and helps you stay organized by helping you manage campaigns among different projects. It has the best Buzzmarker Chrome extensions and lets you customize campaigns.
Hunter
This SEO link building tool helps you find email contact addresses in seconds. The Hunter tool gets accurate emails and doesn’t scrap any site for these emails. It rather pulls data from source variations and verifies it.
HARO
This is essential in the PR industries; journalists leverage this opportunity to connect with webmasters who require links to increase a website’s rankings. HARO sends daily email updates to writers that require expert knowledge. It is an interactive medium where answers are given for a problem shared. The good news is that HARO is free and requires less money for an upgrade subscription.
Buzzsumo
This is a content marketing tool that helps you create content that people like to link to. It also helps you find influencers in your industry from a competitor’s content. It helps you create brand alerts for yourself and competitors, showing you new articles with mentions of your blog.
Conclusion
Link building for alternative search engines is not so much a bad idea if you know their basic operational functionality. That way you are able to put the right resources into creating links that will enable your website to rank seamlessly. Before you choose the right SEO tool for backlinks make sure to know your budget, analyze backlinks of your competitor before you decide which will impact your link building campaign.
