Earlier this month, we wrote an article on the topic of Ecosia. Ecosia paved the way as one of the first nonprofit activism search engines. Using Bing’s algorithm, Ecosia serves ads the same way any other search engine does, however instead of taking in that money as profit, Ecosia uses that money to plant trees. This was a rather new concept that leveraged internet users’ reliance on search engines to passively raise money for a cause. Since then, that relatively new idea has sprouted other nonprofit search engines. Most notably among these is OceanHero.
Similar to how Ecosia is on an environmental mission to plant more trees, OceanHero is also on a mission. OceanHero aims to use its search engine profits to remove plastic from the ocean. Unlike Ecosia, OceanHero comes as an extension to Google Chrome. Making it much more convenient for users to install and use it. Similar to Ecosia, OceanHero has recently launched a large digital marketing campaign to gain more users. 2019 seemed to start this trend of nonprofit activist search engines that make their money from taking a portion of the ads revenue. It is unclear how this will continue in 2020 and into the future.
With new search engines like Ecosia and OceanHero appearing seemingly overnight, many questions where this trend will go. Obviously, too many of these search engines will eventually oversaturate the market. Already users have to choose between using their searches to plant trees or remove plastic respectively. It is also important to note that these new engines are not providing their own algorithms or products. Ecosia and OceanHero use Google and Bing’s search results and ad results instead of providing their own. And like any charity or nonprofit, there are always questions on how much of the money goes to the work.
Luckily for SEO and SEM specialists, these new search engines do not change much as long as you already cover all the bases. From an SEO perspective, make sure your website has listings on Google & Bing through Google My Business and Bing Places. Make sure you are also utilizing Bing Webmasters and Google Search Console. Because these new search engines use Bing or Google’s products, as long as your website is verified with those search engines they will show on these new search engines. PPC, on the other hand, does present some differences. Many companies only serve ads on Google or Bing. It is rare that they use both platforms. However, some of these new search engines utilize Bing Ads for their paid traffic section of their search engines results pages. In theory, signing up with Bing ads means you could be displayed on Bing, Ecosia, OceanHero and other search engines that partner with Microsoft. But, it is still unclear how popular these search engines will be and how long they will continue to be popular.
Almost anyone in SEO/SEM will recommend using Google ads. Google’s current market share of all search engine traffic is massive. However, it is worth sitting down with a paid ad specialist and looking through your traffic. It is never a bad idea to check which search engines are contributing to your traffic and more importantly your conversions. If you already have the traffic coming from these other search engines it could be worth it to either run two campaigns (one Google & one Bing), or shift your budgets towards your core traffic source.
Stay up to date on all the SEO/SEM trends with our daily blog. Learn more about search engines, optimization, updates to Google’s products and more by searching through our topics. Boston Web Marketing is one of the largest, independent digital agencies in the northeast. We work with business across many different industries to help them get found organically, through paid search, and perform optimally across all digital channels. If you have specific questions about your digital presence, feel free to contact us for a free website audit.
Bing is the second largest contributor of organic and paid search traffic for websites. If you are interested in learning about Bing Ads and how they can help you reach more users; please click below.
DuckDuckGo is a 3rd party search engine that exists to tackle issues surrounding data privacy. Unlike Bing & Google, DuckDuckGo limits the user data retained an used when placing Ads on the Search Engine.
Like OceanHero, Ecosia uses money made from ads placed on the search engine to pay for an environmental cause. While OceanHero is designed to clean the ocean, Ecosia is based around planting trees.
Frequently Asked Questions About OceanHero
OceanHero is a free search engine service. Like with Google or Bing, the main source of revenue for OceanHero is the money advertisers pay to display their listings above and below the organic listings. This comes at no cost to the user. OceanHero uses a similar Cost-Per-Click structure as other search engines. This means when a user clicks on an ad, the business that placed the advertisement is charged. Unlike Google or Bing, OceanHero has committed to use that money towards environmental projects for cleaning the ocean. There are other sources of revenue for OceanHero including direct funding and donations.
Currently there is no direct way to display ads on OceanHero. OceanHero is partnered with Microsoft Bing for ad placement. To place ads on the search engine, you simply need to a Bing Ads account and create ads through them. Your ads can then be placed on both Bing searches as well as their affiliate websites like Ecosia or OceanHero.
Google continues to be the largest search engine with the highest search volume. Bing is often in second-place for most websites but contributes less than 10% of organic traffic. By contrast 3rd-party search engines like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, or Oceanhero contribute less than 1% traffic for most businesses. Luckily because most of these third party sites are working with Bing, you don’t need to worry about altering SEO or Paid Search campaigns to rank organically on these engines.
OceanHero uses an SSL to encrypt data like other search engines. It is comparable to Bing or other main search engines in how it uses your data. However, compared to a search engine like DuckDuckGo, OceanHero could potentially be using more of your data to personalize your ad experience. This is because both Bing and Google’s ad placement utilizes user data to determine the best suited ads. DuckDuckGo’s value proposition is that it decreases the personal data it collects and uses to determine ads.
OceanHero uses an SSL to encrypt data like other search engines. It is comparable to Bing or other main search engines in how it uses your data. However, compared to a search engine like DuckDuckGo, OceanHero could potentially be using more of your data to personalize your ad experience. This is because both Bing and Google’s ad placement utilizes user data to determine the best suited ads. DuckDuckGo’s value proposition is that it decreases the personal data it collects and uses to determine ads.
If you are interested in using your search experience to benefit environmental change, both Ecosia and OceanHero are committed to using paid ad revenue towards their environmental missions. Which one you choose may come down to a variety of factors. First, if either mission is more appealing to you, that might help you choose which engine you prefer. Additionally, some users have preferences based on performance & layout.
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