SERP Features Beyond Google – What Are The Trends?

May 30, 2024

22

min read

The SEO industry once again finds itself in an increased state of flux. Familiar cries of “SEO is dead” have returned. SEOs and agencies are - quite rightly - questioning what their future may look like.

Maybe that future lies beyond Google? Maybe we need to look beyond what we currently know as SEO. And maybe, just maybe there are opportunities to be seized for those brave enough to look beyond the behemoth which is Google. 

Google dominates the Search Engine space as a global monopoly. Its widespread dominance has made SEO synonymous with ‘Google SEO’, without most of us even realizing.  At the same time, SEO professionals face the daily challenge of adapting to new trends and features that shape the current search experience, seemingly dictated by Google and Google only. A total monopoly taking advantage of its power should not be surprising.

This led me to ask the following questions:

  • Are the current trends just Google trends or rather universal Search Experience trends? 

  • Is there a lesson to be learned from Google competitors? 

  • Are they going in the same direction at the same pace? 

  • Or perhaps there’s more to Search Experience than Google Experience?

This article dives into the SERPs of Google's main western competitors: Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Brave Search - to uncover the current search innovations and approaches related to data, privacy and customization. 

For SEOs, understanding these differences is crucial on two levels:

  1. To gain a wider understanding of the SERPs, SERP features within them, the reality of zero-click searches, and the Search Experience overall beyond what’s dictated by Google. 

  2. Google’s dominant position can be challenged at any time. The Google Antitrust Trial is about to come to its ruling, and at the same time the EU has recently started its equivalent investigation due to unfair competition from the search giant.

I am a firm believer that the Search Engines beyond Google can teach us about the future of SEO.  This wider SERP perspective will allow us to become more strategic and competitive by looking at the bigger picture.

Google SERP Features in 2024

In 2024, Google's Search Engine Results Page (SERP) landscape has evolved to offer a more dynamic and more user-centric experience than ever, with AI Overviews providing quick, relevant insights at a glance. 

The variety of SERP features available in Google’s results aims to reflect the diverse ways people search across devices and regions. 

We know that SERPs vary greatly, so let’s dive into some SERP feature data to better understand the state of Google’s SERPs in 2024. 

Mobile vs. Desktop? Two different stories!

Google’s move to mobile-first indexing was completed back in October 2023. Despite this change to indexing, mobile and desktop results pages still look and feel completely different. This is because search intent is often very different depending on the device being used.

As SEOs, we need to remember just how different SERPs can be on different devices:

Desktop SERPs - On desktop, SERPs have the luxury of space, allowing for a variety of features such as knowledge panels, featured snippets, and more extensive organic results. These are typically B2B and higher consideration queries. 

Mobile SERPs - In contrast, mobile SERPs prioritize a minimalist design, focusing on rich visual results like images and videos, which cater to the on-the-go nature of mobile users and the smaller screen resolution. Local packs and reviews are also more common. The users want to go  places and make decisions quickly – and they want it now, on a SERP level. 

As an example of just how much SERPs vary between different devices, the example below shows that in the US, the ‘People Also Ask’ search feature appeared twice as often on mobile than in desktop searches.

Advanced Web Ranking, People Also Ask’ search feature

Date range: 8th Feb 2023 - 7th Feb 2024. Source: AWR - Google SERP Features Tool

Geographic variation of SERPs

The presence and frequency of SERP features varies significantly between countries, influenced by local search behaviors, language, and Google's regional algorithms. 

For instance, certain SERP features like featured snippets and knowledge panels are more common in English-speaking countries, while other regions may see a different set of prioritized features. 

 These geographical differentiations often go against world trends entirely. For example, Australia has seen a huge uptake in most of the SERP feature appearance, with ‘People also ask’ increasing by a whopping 23 percentage points, while ‘Local pack’ appearance has grown by 11 percentage points, while almost all the other markets have seen a drop in the presence of both these features.

The example below further illustrates just how much Google’s SERPs, and the search features they include, vary around the world.

The table shows the ‘People Also Ask’ search feature incidence rate (i.e. what % of SERPs included the search feature) over the past year for each country, and how much it’s changed:

Advanced Web Ranking, Geographic variation of SERPs

Date range: 8th Feb 2023 - 7th Feb 2024. Source: AWR

For comprehensive Google SERP features data, try using AWR’s ‘Google SERP Features’ tool, which lets you compare between the countries, devices and date ranges.

SERP trends beyond Google: Our investigation

Given the complex nature of the current SERP feature landscape, I started to wonder what the worldwide SERP trend is, beyond Google. Can we predict what the future of the SERPs are by analyzing Google competitors? Are all search engines heading in the same direction? Or have some markets or competitors decided to opt for a unique approach?

Choosing the Search Engines

In this study, I’ve chosen to analyze SERPs from each of the following search engines:

  • Bing - the closest Google competitor.

  • DuckDuckGo - a niche, but well-established Google competitor.

  • Brave - a mission-based indie competitor that’s gaining recent traction. They approach the SERPs in a distinct way to the standard SEs, presenting innovation that could inspire some ideas about the future of SERPs.

The only significant literature I’ve uncovered focusing on SERP features beyond Google is related to the top Google competitor - Bing. It is indeed the top search engine mentioned and analyzed from the SEO perspective, with some steady market share globally - which is 10.53% on desktop, globally, as of April 2023. 

Beyond Bing, though, there are search engine projects that are more purpose and value based. The emerging values among the global internet population relate to privacy and security as the major concerns. This gave space for new search engines to emerge. 

Privacy-first search engines like DuckDuckGo and Brave haven’t however sparked much SEO interest yet, let alone SERP-wise. SERP features for these search engines are rarely talked about. 

The market share of these two Search Engines is far from that of Bing’s. Let’s bear in mind that however small DuckDuckGo and Brave Search might look next to Bing or Google, they are still attracting a significant audience, daily, in their own right. 

  • Google’s latest statistics claim there are 8.5 billion queries searched for daily, on average. 

  • Bing is at 10x less, 900 million queries. 

  • DuckDuckGo recently reported dropping under a 100 million daily queries, which positions it at 99M at the moment. 

  • Brave Search reports four times less than DuckDuckGo, with 25M daily searches. 

Daily Searches per Search Engine

However, I’ve included these four search engines in this study, not because of their audience size, but rather the innovative approaches they have taken, and what we can learn from them.

Teaser of things to come: When speaking about Google competitors, we can’t ignore the Chinese search engine market, and their dominant search engine which is Baidu. To contrast the Chinese leader, also an indie, e-commerce first engine has been analyzed - Shenma. Both SERPs have proven so complex and attention-worthy, we’ve decided to publish them as a second part of the study which we’ll publish separately. Stay tuned for that one!

Market Share Data

Throughout the report I often refer to market share data. And although this can be useful for benchmarking, it’s also important that we acknowledge its flaws. 

Generally speaking, search engine market share data is very flawed, due to lack of truly representative data. To take an example, Statcounter reported Bing’s market share for desktop to be 10.53% as of April 2023. However, Statista reported that Bing accounted for 9.19% of the global desktop search market (with the latest data as of July 2023). Several other sources attribute between 3% and 6.5% of the global market to Bing.

To find out more about this matter, watch the video by Jademond Digital discussing Search Engine Market Shares in China, where the recent controversy with Statcounter data is explained.

For the purpose of this analysis we will cite some search engine market share data as a reference point, but we strongly advise the readers to treat this data with a pinch of salt. 

Choosing the search query

To conduct my investigation, I opted to use a single search query that triggers a variety of SERP features: ‘Barcelona’. 

So, why did I choose this query?

  • High-volume keyword globally, including all the markets I want to compare.

  • Easy to translate to local languages of the search engines I am to compare, to make the search experience as genuine as possible. I will use English spelling for Bing, Brave and DuckDuckGo, while I will translate to Mandarin for Baidu and Shenma.

  • Very ambiguous intent – Barcelona refers to anything travel related: flights, hotels, weather, history. At the same time being relevant to FC Barcelona football club: match results, game schedules and news surrounding the club and the players. Varied intents = plenty of SERP features.

 TL;DR I can’t imagine one single SERP being as complete and varied.

For each search engine, I’ve considered the search experience as served to the user at the time of the analysis, without being logged in or activating any specific settings. 

In each case, I’ve used an incognito browser, and a VPN connection with a ‘New York’ location. 

Analysis of Google competitors

Bing analysis

Bing, owned and operated by Microsoft, offers a broad spectrum of search services, including web, video, image, and map search products. 

Launched in 2009 as a replacement for Microsoft's previous search engine, Live Search. The top market for Bing is the USA, with a stable presence throughout other geographic markets.

Bing had a worldwide market share of 3.43% across all device types, in January 2024, according to Statcounter.

When looking at a breakdown of their market share by device type, we can see that Bing owes much of its presence to desktop devices, with a much smaller presence on mobile: 

The chart below shows the market share of Bing worldwide from January 2015 to April 2023:

Statista, Bing worldwide from January 2015 to April 2023

Chart source: Statista 

The chart shows a fairly turbulent presence with peaks and troughs, but it’s worth noting that their overall market share has remained relatively small, especially on mobile. 

Bing’s ChatGPT integration within the SERP seems to have brought minimal impact to their market share, to the disappointment of many who preached Bing’s comeback.

Bing SERP analysis

Bing's SERPs have evolved over time to include a variety of features designed to enhance the user experience and provide more relevant and comprehensive search results. The outstanding complexity of the Bing SERP is apparent to any user that has returned to Bing after a break, which is my case.

Let’s start analyzing Bing SERPs by ‘binging’ the query ‘Barcelona’ in incognito mode, connected to a New York IP address via VPN, for the purest search experience.

Bin SERP analysis

SERP observations

Related sub-topics - Due to the query being so ambiguous (in this case, on purpose!), the first feature we are presented with is a set of prominent sub-topics relating to Barcelona: Things to do, Weather, Culture, Football etc. This filter-like feature helps the user specify the query and its intent.

Bing SERP observationd

Overall layout - The left-hand side of the SERP is presented fairly similarly to Google, but more complex. The right-hand side is started off with ads and continued as a huge Knowledge Panel with several extensions.

Tripadvisor - The extremely dominant presence of Tripadvisor can’t be missed. 6 site links, 3 related articles with images, and that’s only the first organic result out of 2.  
This is due to the collaboration between Microsoft and Tripadvisor that’s been in place for over a decade.

Results vs features - The difference between SERP features and classic organic results is extremely arbitrary in this SERP. If we can still talk about ‘standard blue links’ there are only 4 of those. Everything else is a SERP feature.

Search Features breakdown

Below we’ve broken down all of the search features on the page, starting from the top:

  • Bing Maps (1), powered by TomTom.


    Bing Maps


  • Knowledge panel (2) An extensive Barcelona Knowledge Graph full of very detailed information. The Knowledge Panel can broken down into a series of unique SERP features, that have their rightful standing on their own and should be listed separately:


    Bing Knowledge Panel


    • Main Knowledge Graph panel (2.1), element related to Barcelona, consisting of a big entity name, a  header image, social links panel and a Wikipedia article excerpt, followed by a link to the official city website.


      Bing Main Knowledge Graph panel


    • Places to visit (2.2), naming 3 top tourist spots.


      Bing Places to visit


    • Compare tool (2.3), showing a short comparison between Barcelona and Alicante, a different popular tourist destination in Spain.


      Bing Compare tool


    • Best time to visit graph (2.4), with links to Bing’s Travel Guide, Flight and Hotel booking, as well as a short paragraph of text on architecture of the city - coming from the Travel guide itself 


      Bing Best time to visit graph


    • Timeline (2.5), representing the city's history, together with a few fun facts like famous people, FC Barcelona Club info, Artists related to Barcelona etc. Once again powered by Wikipedia, however interestingly, some other independent sources are cited for the images.


      Bing Timeline


    • Explore more (2.6), a simple panel with top 5 tourist attraction entities. Interestingly, this could be considered a duplicate of Places to visit.


      Bing Explore more


    • Trending on Bing (2.7), this is unrelated to the ‘Barcelona’ search query.


      Trending on Bing


    • Ask Bing Chat (2.8) with predefined queries related to the search term, and just below, related searches (2.9), with currently trending search terms. The two features are essentially feeding the same intent, but in two different interfaces: Chat and Search. 


      Ask Bing Chat


  • News (3) - On the left-hand side, between the standard results, there is an extensive News About Barcelona panel that occupies a significant part of the SERP.


    Bing News


  • Organic Tab Snippets (4) - Within the organic listing of Wikipedia results for Barcelona, there’s a tab-like feature allowing users to see featured answer snippets for the different sections within the article.


    Bing Organic Tab Snippets


  • Explore further (5) - A unique feature that’s present twice. It features 2 small snippets consisting of Title and domain name only, linking to recommended pages based on what’s popular.


    Bing Explore further


  • Frequently Asked Questions (6) - One of the organic results (by TripAdvisor) is extended with Frequently Asked Questions. These occupy quite a significant space, due to questions being displayed directly with excerpts of the answers. This User Generated Content element has quite a visible prominence, possibly being the most visible SERP feature in the left-hand side area of SERP. 


    Bing Frequently Asked Questions


  • The last element in the SERP are Ads, which are being marked quite discreetly.


The overall SERP experience is loaded with SERP features, full of visuals and curated designs accompanying every distinguishable panel of the SERP. 

The duality brought in by the two column design organizes the SERP with mostly standard results on the left column, and more creative ones on the right. 

While the left-hand side results could be treated as similar to Google SERPs and analyzed in a similar way, the right-hand extensive knowledge panel is much more detailed and expanded then any of Google equivalents.

DuckDuckGo analysis

DuckDuckGo was created in 2008 and is a search engine dedicated to the online privacy of its users. On top of a private search engine, other products include a tracker-blocking browser extension, email protection, and app tracking protection.

As of January 2024, it holds a 0.54% share of the global search engine market across all devices, ranking it the sixth most popular search engine worldwide. 

Here we can see a breakdown of their market share by device type:

The search engine has enjoyed a slow but consistent growth, however we can see some drops in their market share since 2022:

DuckDuckHo Statista

Chart source: Statista

DuckDuckGo’s Privacy & Relationship with Bing

DuckDuckGo does rely on Bing for some of its search results, but it also uses over 400 other sources, including its own web crawler (DuckDuckBot), crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia), and other search engines. 

DuckDuckGo is independent in the sense that it doesn't track user data, and provides the same search results to all users for a given search term. 

From an SEO standpoint, the fact that there is no personalisation or search history impact on the results means that any SEO strategy is more global and wide-spread than in Google or Bing. A manually checked ranking, without incognito mode, can be assumed to be the global position for that keyword. 

Unfortunately, DuckDuckgo has not released any tools for Webmasters and it seems unlikely it ever will. On top of that, there aren’t many SEO tools that would monitor DuckDuckGo’s rankings either. The two tools on the market that do offer the rank tracking feature for DuckDuckGo as of writing this piece are: AWR and Nightwatch. 

Both of these tools report on the classic blue link positions, without tracking any SERP features. This means that in order to understand the full user experience in a DuckDuckGo SERP, a bit of manual checking is necessary. A mix of a VPN connection and highly targeted queries should do the trick. 

I suspect that DuckDuckGo SERP feature tracking might become a functionality in the future, if the search engine starts to get more traction.

AWR Insight

If you're interested in tracking SERP features in Google and Bing, this is available in AWR right now. You can track features such as: Products, Jobs, Filter by, and many more with a FREE 30 day trial.

SERP features reporting will also be added to Duck Duck Go soon.

AWR Insight

If you're interested in tracking SERP features in Google and Bing, this is available in AWR right now. You can track features such as: Products, Jobs, Filter by, and many more with a FREE 30 day trial.

SERP features reporting will also be added to Duck Duck Go soon.

AWR Insight

If you're interested in tracking SERP features in Google and Bing, this is available in AWR right now. You can track features such as: Products, Jobs, Filter by, and many more with a FREE 30 day trial.

SERP features reporting will also be added to Duck Duck Go soon.

DuckDuckGo SERP Analysis

DuckDuckGo offers a variety features such as maps, weather, local business answers, news, images, videos, products and shopping, definitions, Wikipedia references, currency conversions, flight information, calculator, timer, sport scores, and question and answer references – as per this brilliant Search Engine Journal article by Kaitie Frank. 

How does DuckDuckGo compare to other Search Engines when it comes to SERP Features? There’s no better way than finding out through testing our search query “Barcelona” and finding out ourselves. Once again, via incognito mode, connected to a US IP (in New York), for the purest experience.

DuckDuckGo SERP Analysis

Search Features Breakdown

The first thing we notice about this SERP is its simplicity and cleanliness. This contrasts firmly with the more cluttered experience on Bing.

Let's have a look at what the SERP is made up of:

  • Ads (1) - The SERP starts off with 1, simple text ad on top. The ad has a basic snippet plus two sitelinks.


    DuckDuckGo Ads


  • Sitelinks (2) - The ad is followed by a top organic result from TripAdvisor, which has a block of 6 sitelinks. None of the other organic results have sitelinks.


    DuckDuckGo Sitelinks


  • Recent news (3) - Continuing down the left column of the SERP, we are presented with ‘Recent News’ related to Barcelona Football Club.


    DuckDuckGo Recent news


  • Related searches (4) - All the way onwards we have the classic 10 blue links, up until the ‘Related Searches’ feature that’s directly related to our query.


    DuckDuckGo Related searches


  • Knowledge panel (5) - Top right-hand side of this SERP features a Knowledge Panel about Barcelona. It’s pulled from Wikipedia and is fairly modest. It’s worth noting it can be expanded to include more details, but the initial non-click view is fairly limited. 


    DuckDuckGo Knowledge panel


  • Map (6) - Within the Knowledge Panel, the map functionality is integrated in a non-striking way. It’s worth noting that the Maps within DuckDuckGo are powered by Apple Maps.


    DuckDuckGo Map

DuckDuckGo has the simplest SERP of all of all the ones I’ve analyzed. It’s clear why it may be the search engine of choice for users who struggle with overly sensory design, when compared to the likes of Google and Bing. 

One other aspect of this SERP that would stand out for international users, is the fact that you can manually pick the region the SERP is adjusted to, by picking a country from the dropdown list at the top left (just below the search bar).

DuckDuckGo location

This is a very uncommon approach, no other Search Engine lets users pick a region in such a straightforward way. The digital nomads and multilingual users will most certainly appreciate being given the freedom of choice in this case.

Brave Search analysis

Brave Search is a fully independent search engine. It was released in Beta in March 2021, following the acquisition of Tailcat, a privacy-focused search engine from Cliqz. 

It’s part of a much larger ‘Brave’ ecosystem of tools including a browser, crypto wallet (supporting their own crypto coin BAT), VPN and recently, a stack of AI tools. 

Regarding the market share, Brave Search has not been picked up by any of the major statistics sites (yet). However, several innovative features they have introduced to their SERPs are worth our attention and should put this Brave on the radar of any SEO looking to understand the future of Search.

A truly Indie Search Engine

Brave Search uses a proprietary ranking algorithm to organize and present search results. It’s the biggest indie Search Engine with an independent index at the moment – it stands out from a vast majority of indie search engines that are dependent on Bing index (partially or fully). 

Brave Search does not advertise a differentiated user-agent to avoid discrimination from websites that allow only Google to crawl them. Unfortunately, this means that Bravebot is spoofing webmasters by posing as Googlebot, but from a unique IP address. 

Bravebot adheres to robots.txt standard the way Googlebot would. It’s worth noting that the sites that have limited the Googlebot activity to the whitelisted IP addresses only will never get crawled by Brave.

Brave Search’s algorithm is designed to prioritize user privacy and independence from Big Tech companies. Unlike some other search engines, Brave Search does not track users, their queries, or their clicks. Ads in Brave Search are matched to the query rather than user data, and they do not crowd out organic search results. 

SERP innovation, from customized rankings to AI

When a user performs a search on Brave, they land on a results page that looks fairly similar to those of other search engines. Users can navigate through multiple pages of results and filter by images, news, videos, geographical region, and the recency of the result. 

However, Brave Search also offers several innovative features fully unique to this Search Engine.

Brave utilizes proprietary Artificial Intelligence solutions that are integrated into Search to enhance the search experience while maintaining privacy. By proprietary, it’s meant that Brave’s AI is a fully independent LLM model, with no association with ChatGPT or such. 

AI powers several key features in Brave Search:

  • AI Summarizer: Provides concise summary answers at the top of search results pages, based solely on web search results. The summarizer includes references to sources to back up key claims and give credit where it’s due.

  • Featured Snippets: When one source directly answers a query well enough, Brave analyzes the page and extracts the most relevant snippet of text to quickly provide the information needed.

  • AI-powered Descriptions: Brave generates descriptions for search results using a Question Answering model, offering a brief on what the results speak about and what’s the relevance to the query.

It is worth mentioning that on top of the AI-driven features available in Brave Search in any browser, Brave also has a ChatGPT competitor tool integrated in its browser, called Leo.

Brave SERP Analysis

Following this detailed theoretical intro of the Brave Search Results Page Features, time to put this SERP through a practical test. 

The incognito mode and the connection via VPN are in place for this test, in order to maintain the same testing conditions as with the other Search Engines. Once again, the query “Barcelona” will be tested in order to discover the most diverse features.

Brave SERP Analysis

Search Features breakdown

  • Brave Search has a quite minimalistic SERP design, with SERP colors being toned down, in gray scales. Thanks to this approach, all the snippets with any visuals or featured images (1) really stand out.


    Brave image results



  • Ad free - All the results in this SERP are organic, with the top organic result (FC Barcelona) having 4 sitelinks (2). 


    Brave ad free results


  • In the News & Videos - The main SERP features integrated within the left column of organic results are the ‘In the news’ (3) and ‘Videos’ (4), both displaying 3 card-like results per each content category.


    Brave News & Videos


  • Find Elsewhere (5) - An unusual feature can be found further down – Brave Search has ‘Find elsewhere’ option, with direct links to some of the competitors’ results: Google, Bing and Mojeek (another indie, privacy-led SE). The links go directly to the SERPs within all 3 engines, populated by the same query.

    Brave Find Elsewhere


  • Knowledge Panel (6) - The right column is dedicated to a quite visual Knowledge Panel, featuring photos (6.1), a map (6.2) (populated by OpenStreetMap), a Wikipedia snippet (6.3).


    Brave Knowledge Panel


  • Factsheet (6.4) - The Factsheet extension of the Knowledge Panel can be expanded, with details on the population, local government and other useful facts and numbers. 

  • References to top Profiles (6.5), which go beyond Social Media (6.4). There are references to Wikipedia, Reddit, Quora and The Guardian, among others.

The SERP is largely dominated by the standard blue links we’ve come to expect, and all the SERP features are a nice addition without overwhelming users.

Brave Search Goggles Functionality

Goggles (7) is a feature of Brave Search that allows users to customize the ranking of search results using a set of filters. This feature provides an almost limitless number of ranking options, enabling users to counter any intrinsic biases in the search algorithm and create specific search use-cases. Goggles is currently in beta, indicating it's a living project that will evolve with community feedback.

Brave Search Goggles Functionality

To use Goggles, users can visit the Goggles tab, follow existing Goggles, and apply them to their queries. The Goggles followed are added to the user's browser's localStorage, meaning they're privately applied only when used with a query.

Users can also create their own Goggles and host them on platforms like GitHub, Gist, or GitLab. The creator of a Goggle retains sole ownership and rights to update it. Brave does not claim ownership of Goggles and does not require sign-up or identification to create or use a Goggle.

When applying a Goggle, the Goggle URL is passed along with a query. Brave treats Goggle URLs with strict privacy provisions, similar to other data elements that could serve as identifiers. 

In our ‘Barcelona’ SERP, we can see the Goggles feature is available as the last tab of the Search settings, just after the Images, News and Video tabs:

Brave Search Goggles Functionality

Predefined Goggles for this SERP include (in order from left):

  • Tech blogs

  • Hacker News / 1k short

  • News from the Left

  • News from the Right

  • No Pinterest

  • Rust programming

Every single Goggles filter changes the rankings entirely:

Brave Search Goggles filter

And as soon as a Goggles filter is chosen, an ‘i’ icon appears next to the selection, linking to an explanatory page where the details of the filter algorithm are explained in detail:

Brave Search Goggles Functionality

The list of sources goes on, with over 6 thousand sources listed as boosted for this particular Goggle. All public Goggles are open source. Users can generate their own customized Goggle, either in a public or private mode.

This feature brings an unthinkable shift to a search engine experience: users can now have certain power over the rankings. This, paired together with all the Brave’s privacy efforts, puts the user in a position of control and ownership.  

The SEO implications mean that there is almost unlimited ranking personalisation taking place anywhere, anytime. The SEO specialists trying to make sense of the Brave Search ranking data would need to shift their analysis onto analyzing the popular public Goggle lists, to establish if their sites are being included. The Goggles might even become an SEO tool in their own right, with a potential of SEOs infiltrating some of the list choices. 

Summary & Conclusions

The analysis of Google's competitors—Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Brave Search—reveals some distinct strategies and features each search engine employs to stand out in its niche: 

Bing, with its broad spectrum of search services and a significant desktop market share, demonstrates a complex SERP layout full of features like ChatGPT integration, though it has struggled to significantly impact its market share. 

DuckDuckGo, has prioritized user privacy and offers a simpler SERP experience and has seen steady growth, despite its reliance on Bing for some results. 

Brave Search, the newest among them, stands out with its fully independent search engine, privacy-centric approach, and innovative features like AI integration and the Goggles functionality for customizable search results. 

The two privacy-led Search Engines – DuckDuckGo and Brave Search – represent a much more minimalistic approach towards their design and usability. While DuckDuckGo’s simplicity is a backbone of their entire product, Brave Search focuses on going an extra mile with their AI and customizable features, while still making sure the SERP is not in any way cluttered. 

Increase in search feature visibility

It’s apparent that SERP features are reaching a next level of visibility in almost all analyzed search engines. Each of the search engines we analyzed has some unique touch towards what's being displayed as a feature and what is the order of each element in the SERP, but the dominance of SERP features is unquestionable.

Zero click SERPs

In each of the three very different SERPs we can see a one strong trend - Zero click SERPs are a reality, due to the search experience being way more complex than the simple 10 blue links. 

Zero click searches have been a hot topic in the SEO industry for many years and the subject has fuelled many waves of criticism towards Google. 

Recently, I spoke to Dan Taylor from SALT Agency. He’s had his eye on the zero-click situation for some time now - he gave us his thoughts on the current situation, and where he thinks it may be heading:

dan taylor

Partner & Head of Technical SEO @ SALT

Zero-click searches have been around for a while, not only on Google with the advent of Featured Snippets and other "in SERP" elements, such as the flight checker, but across other Search Engines like Bing and Baidu.

AI has seemingly accelerated this, with Bing rolling out tools like Copilot, and including it not only as a SERP feature, but as an "alternative" function to the classic search bar on their homepage, alongside CTAs to get "GPT for Free" and download the Bing app.

For Bing and Google, this feels more like a move to being a search "portal" versus an answer engine. Way back, when the internet first came about we had the Yahoo and Netscape directories. This move to more aggregated information and being a portal result versus a listing result does feel like a natural evolution.

User technologies, information accessibility, and information mediums have evolved greatly over the past decade, so how companies aggregate and serve this information also needs to change.

dan taylor

Partner & Head of Technical SEO @ SALT

Zero-click searches have been around for a while, not only on Google with the advent of Featured Snippets and other "in SERP" elements, such as the flight checker, but across other Search Engines like Bing and Baidu.

AI has seemingly accelerated this, with Bing rolling out tools like Copilot, and including it not only as a SERP feature, but as an "alternative" function to the classic search bar on their homepage, alongside CTAs to get "GPT for Free" and download the Bing app.

For Bing and Google, this feels more like a move to being a search "portal" versus an answer engine. Way back, when the internet first came about we had the Yahoo and Netscape directories. This move to more aggregated information and being a portal result versus a listing result does feel like a natural evolution.

User technologies, information accessibility, and information mediums have evolved greatly over the past decade, so how companies aggregate and serve this information also needs to change.

dan taylor

Partner & Head of Technical SEO @ SALT

Zero-click searches have been around for a while, not only on Google with the advent of Featured Snippets and other "in SERP" elements, such as the flight checker, but across other Search Engines like Bing and Baidu.

AI has seemingly accelerated this, with Bing rolling out tools like Copilot, and including it not only as a SERP feature, but as an "alternative" function to the classic search bar on their homepage, alongside CTAs to get "GPT for Free" and download the Bing app.

For Bing and Google, this feels more like a move to being a search "portal" versus an answer engine. Way back, when the internet first came about we had the Yahoo and Netscape directories. This move to more aggregated information and being a portal result versus a listing result does feel like a natural evolution.

User technologies, information accessibility, and information mediums have evolved greatly over the past decade, so how companies aggregate and serve this information also needs to change.

I’m inclined to agree with Dan that a further increase in zero-click searches is imminent, not just from search features, but wider tools and AI functionality we likely haven’t even seen yet. 

As SEOs, we need to evolve and understand what our value is in this new landscape. In turn, we need to change how we communicate our value to clients and sell our services.

What’s next?

For all of the reasons we’ve explored above, looking at other search engines is key. As much as SEOs like to criticize Google, the answers may lay in simple UX trends related to Search Experience, and not Google’s intent to take traffic away from websites.

Bing, Brave and DuckDuckGo are not the only search engines worth our attention. China, a market famous for its west-independent tech, has a lot of learnings to offer, thanks to their dominant SE Baidu, that’s dominated the Chinese internet for as long as we can remember. 

On the other hand, far east has some unique approach towards search engines tailored for a specific purpose - Shenma - which is a 100% ecommerce-centered mobile search engine. This substantial analysis deserves its own piece, and will be published shortly.

Natalia Witczyk
Natalia Witczyk

Article by

Natalia Witczyk

Natalia is a Barcelona-based International SEO Consultant and founder of Mosquita Digital.

Natalia is an International SEO in the truest sense - taking not only a multilingual approach but embracing alternative search engines to create scalable strategies for global brands.

As a seasoned professional, fluent in 3 languages (and learning a few more as a hobby), she is not just a well-respected International SEO specialist, but also a globally recognized industry author, speaker, and search awards judge.

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