The issue of privacy, and how it is respected by the online tech giants, has become an increasingly prominent topic in mainstream circles. Articles on internet privacy are numerous, and by now, it should be plain as to why you should take steps to protect your privacy. There are many examples of predatory online practices which should convince you of this.

More and more people, on becoming aware of the need to protect their privacy, have begun moving away from the commonly-used search engines. For anyone not directly involved in the IT world, it can be difficult to know which option to choose, with the massive number of alternatives out there.

As a business owner, you may wonder how this trend of movement away from the big search engines will affect your carefully-laid search engine optimization (SEO) plans. Experts from independent SEO agencies like King Kong will tell you that their methods apply to all search engines, and will be just as effective, regardless of privacy protocols.

It is worth noting the difference between a search engine and a metasearch engine. A search engine is what is commonly understood as being a program which searches the internet for results related to your specific search terms. A metasearch engine is a program which draws its results from other search engines. Therefore, it is important to know whether your search engine is one or the other. Even metasearch engines can gather and sell your information.

Here are five search engines that respect your privacy:

SearX

This is an open source metasearch engine that can be customized. The features allow you to decide which search engines the results are drawn from, and which categories. As it is open source, it is not limited to one geographical area.

One thing to watch out for is public instances, which can leave your system vulnerable, as instances are linked to IP addresses. It is best to use your own instance.

Swisscows

Swisscows is, as the name would suggest, a privately-owned, Swiss metasearch engine which draws most of its results from Bing. They make a point of stating that they do not collaborate with third parties, and that their data server is very secure. It is also outside of the jurisdiction of both the US and the EU.

This search engine promotes family content as part of its ethos. Some might take issue with this blatant censorship. If you have children, however, you can feel comforted that this search engine omits violent and pornographic content. That makes this the best option for a private, child-friendly search engine.

Brave Search

The secure, open source browser, Brave, has recently released its own search engine. Brave Search uses its own crawler or search index, which is unlike most other search engines. It therefore produces its own search results. Although Brave Search is in its beta phase, as a new product, the browser has proven its effectiveness in maintaining privacy through preventing trackers and ads. It is an exciting extension of the product which creates a complete private browsing experience.

DuckDuckGo

This is one of the more familiar metasearch engines, having been among the first to be introduced into the online environment, in 2008. It is well-known as a popular private search engine. That being acknowledged, there are a number of features that users should be aware of. Although DuckDuckGo claims it does not censor results, it has recently done otherwise, due to political influences. The company also has very close ties to Yahoo, which is now a part of Verizon. DuckDuckGo also generates income through advertising, and partners with Amazon and eBay. So it is not entirely free and independent of big tech.

In terms of privacy, DuckDuckGo does collect your search data, but does not attach it to your personal details, such as IP address.

YaCy

YaCy is an open source, decentralized search engine with no jurisdiction. The program uses a peer-to-peer crawler network, instead of one central server. This means that the information cannot be accessed by governments or other entities. Personal detail can likewise not be saved or logged by the program, and results cannot be censored. The model works because all users are treated as equal, and are used to index pages for everyone.

This is a different model to that of the other search engines, which all have their own centralized servers. This kind of search engine represents a truly private option, and can be a powerful tool, with enough buy-in from users.

When deciding on a search engine, you may rightly believe that it’s not a life and death matter, and so any one will do. This is the attitude of many less informed people. But in this era of data as the new currency, it is unwise to give away your personal data to big corporations. It is more important now than ever before to protect your information, and keep it private.