Ecosia is an up and coming search engine with over 15 million active users. It was first launched in 2009.
Like DuckDuckGo, Ecosia touts itself at being a privacy-friendly search engine. Additionally, Ecosia is a green search engine in a very unique way.
Ecosia Searches are encrypted, not stored permanently, data is not sold to third-party advertisers, personal profiles based on search history are not created, and finally external tracking tools like Google Analytics are not used.
All of the above is just fine and dandy but it’s the unique business model that sets Ecosia apart from every other search engine.
Ecosia shows advertisements and is paid by partners every time a user is directed to an advertiser via a sponsored link. This also suggests that there may be affiliate marketing potential in Ecosia. Perhaps something similiar to Google Adsense will be Ecosia’s next big development.
Ecosia uses 80% of its profits to support tree planting projects. How many trees get planted in real time from using Ecosia are displayed on Ecosia’s homepage.
SEO For Ecosia
So how would one go about ranking a web page in Ecosia? According to the it’s website, “Ecosia’s search results and search ads are powered by Microsoft Bing.” and further “enhanced with Ecosia’s own algorithms.”
As far as what these proprietary algorithms are that Ecosia, the signals are a mystery.
A Search Engine With A Good Cause
Planting trees is a good activity for the Earth and it is what motivates Ecosia to continue to grow as a search engine.
At only 15 million plus in user volume Ecosia has a ways to go before it can stand along side some of it’s larger peers in search market share and maybe, in time, even take on the big G.