Updated
Updated · MUO - MakeUseOf · Jun 21
Author Tests 6 Search Engines to Find Web Pages Google Misses
Updated
Updated · MUO - MakeUseOf · Jun 21

Author Tests 6 Search Engines to Find Web Pages Google Misses

2 articles · Updated · MUO - MakeUseOf · Jun 21

Summary

  • Six lesser-known search engines led the author to personal blogs, hobby pages and niche projects that rarely surface in Google’s mainstream results.
  • Google still handled fast factual lookups best, but the test found weaker support for open-ended discovery and older, non-commercial parts of the web.
  • Marginalia, Wiby and Search My Site stood out for human-written pages, old-school websites and personal writing, while Million Short exposed smaller sites by filtering out top-ranked domains.
  • Mwmbl and Mojeek added a different angle: one uses community-guided ranking, the other runs its own index and offers Focus Templates to narrow searches.
  • The takeaway was not to replace Google, but to bookmark specialized tools when the goal is exploration rather than the quickest answer.

Insights

With AI search now dominating, how can small creators ensure their passions remain discoverable on the future web?
As AI answers replace website links, is the internet's era of serendipitous discovery and human connection ending?