Google is the dominant search engine in the UK with a market share of 85%. This means that it can sometimes be easy to forget that there are other search engines out there such as Bing, Yahoo!, MSN, Duck Duck Go and Ecosia to name a few.
Some have defining features such as the private, anonymised searching of Duck Duck Go, but Ecosia sets itself apart in a truly unique way by being the search engine that plants trees.
What is Ecosia?
Ecosia is an internet search engine based in Berlin, Germany that launched in December 2009 which uses its profits to plant trees. The search engine promises to donate at least 80% of its surplus income to non-profit organisations that plant trees. The search engine is also committed to standing for a better internet by protecting the privacy of its users, being completely financially transparent and being more than carbon neutral, with its servers running on 100% renewable energy.
The search engines’ home page features a rolling number which shows how many trees have been planted as a direct result of using Ecosia. As of the 27th February 2019 Ecosia has planted over 51 million trees and this number is constantly increasing thanks to people using the search engine.
Why use Ecosia?
The main draw of using Ecosia is the environmental credentials. The company uses profit from advertising revenue to fund conservation and forestation projects that protect and plant trees. This means that by using Ecosia and clicking on ads you will be directly contributing to the search engines advertising revenue and then 80% of this revenue is donated to planting new trees.
The search engine even tracks how many searches you have made on the search engine, stating that on average you need around 45 searches to plant a tree, to incentivise you to search more!
What does the future hold for Ecosia?
You may think that Ecosia sounds like a bit of gimmick, but it’s a fully functioning and effective search engine with a unique proposition.
In October 2018 Ecosia revealed that it had 7 million active monthly users and with awareness growing around data privacy and the environmental issues facing our planet, it will be interesting to see how Ecosia increases in popularity in the years to come.
Ecosia even provides a Chrome extension that can be added to your Chrome browser to make searching on Ecosia even easier.
Why not try Ecosia
If you would like to try out the Ecosia search engine, then why not give it a go. You may even contribute that additional revenue for Ecosia to plant another tree!
With Ecosia predicted to grow in popularity, speak to our team if you would like to find out more about ensuring that your website is ranking in this search engine.
