Google might rule the search industry, but there are still examples out there of search engines ruling their specific niches, and doing quite well at it. Take a look below for a few examples of successful niche search engines.
1. Freelance Gigs
Donanza is a great search engine if you are looking to work from home with your freelance skills. It is organized very well in terms of searching by your skill set or project. As a freelancer you can opt in for alerts or “fresh leads,” so you can always be notified and jump right to the gigs you are looking for.
2. Travel
Kayak is definitely the best search for travel booking. You can name your location, price, timing and your results will come up in a very organized matter. For flight booking the only thing it is missing is South West airlines, which in many cases can be the cheapest flights in that particular area of the U.S. For hotel booking some might argue Priceline is a great resource, but Kayak aggregates that into its system as well. It really is the most “all-in-one” travel search out there.
3. App Search
Quixey is a great resource for searching for applications based on their function. Yes we understand that itunes has a search, but the problem is the search is based off of 5 keywords the developer enters, the title and it is questionable how much of the description. Quixey on the other hand asks what you want the app to do, so if it is “find a restaurant in Los Angeles” it will bring up different and usually more relevant search results than the itunes search.
4. Real Estate
Trulia is a great resource for searching for any type of real estate. It pulls in listings from local MLS’s that agents pay for at not cost to you. The only downsides are: not a great resource for commercial real estate and you get the listings updated a few days after they actually hit the MLS (it is what keeps the agents paying). With trulia you have great filters and your search results can easily be mapped out or listed in the fashion you would like. Also once you receive your specified search results there are very useful tools such as its crime map, schools and on-market/sales comps, all very crucial when looking to make a decision on what to buy and where to live.
5. Internet Marketing
This is a relatively new search engine. The internet marketing industry has become plagued with scams and get rich quick schemes. Peel Search limits your internet marketing inquiries to only 75 of the most trusted and legitimate internet marketing websites out there. Peel Search simply uses Google for its search but If you type in something like “list builder” into Google vs. Peel Search you get less crummy sites trying to sell you something and more resources to help you with your internet marketing goals.
6. Jobs
Indeed speaks for itself. It has an obvious runner-up craigslist, but besides that it aggregates all the jobs from sites like careerbuilder along with individual company listings. You can search by date posted, salary, industry etc. The layout is clean and looks like Google’s and it truly is “One Search. All Jobs.”
7. Recipes
If you are looking for a recipe look no further. This newly released recipe search is a semantic search engine showing great results. If you search for a particular recipe you will get dozens of results from the best websites showing reviews, a quick look at the recipe, a picture, chef, link the original website and a bunch of related recipes in case you change your mind or just want to keep your mouth watering.
8. Royalty Free Photos & Icons
If you are looking for quality photos or icons both free and paid then istockphoto is your search. It seems to have the highest quality database as well as one of the largest. If you are looking for icons or photos to use for free try iconfinder.com.
9. Restaurants
Yelp doesn’t need to be described in length, everyone knows it is a great resource for finding restaurants. Some people overlook Yelp though as a search engine and instead think of it as a reviews website, but Yelp truly is the best way to find a place to eat.
10. Shopping
Nextag is a great search aggregator for shopping. Gives you great results from all types of ecommerce platforms: Amazon, eBay etc. Google.com/shopping would be its runner up, but Nextag’s layout is a lot more user friendly. There is also a useful radar feature which lets you track certain products for deals, inventory and price drops.
