There are so many, like YouTube, Google, Dailymotion, Facebook, TikTok, Baidu, Vimeo, Instagram, Shutterstock, and so on, presenting you with every solution, entertainment, and knowledge in different video formats.
But YouTube stands out by offering every video format known to mankind, so let’s dethrone YouTube for a second and look at other excellent video search engines.
Below, we curated the best video search engines that are perfect for gaining searching on the internet in 2024.
What is a Video Search Engine?
According to Oxford, a search engine is a program that searches or identifies different items that respond to certain keywords and characters used by users in a specific database. Now, a search engine programmed to identify video items corresponding to particular keywords can be considered a video search engine.
It’s more or less a standard search engine, but it can show video solutions, answers, or other specific video items in its SRP (Search Result Page).
Interestingly, if we follow this definition, most social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram offer many video-searching capabilities. They are standout video search engines with a socially intractable community. Other traditional search engines, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo, also show video results in their queries, making them ideal video search engines.
8 Best Video Search Engines to Look Out for Since 1998
| Names | Active Users (As of 2024) | AI-Powered | Specialty |
| YouTube | 2.70 Billion active users | Yes | Full-scale video-sharing platform |
| More than a billion active users | Yes | Web search and rankings | |
| TikTok | 2.05 billion active users | Yes | Vertical mobile videos |
| 3.049 billion active users | Yes | Social networking, community building, and content sharing platform | |
| 1.4 billion active users | Yes | Personalized photo and video sharing | |
| Vimeo | 260 million users | Yes | Video hosting platform |
| Dailymotion | 115.4 million users | Yes | Video Sharing platform |
| Bing | Approximately 1.1 billion users | Yes | Web search with a rewards program |
1. YouTube
– First Established: February 14, 2005
– Founders: Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim
YouTube, the biggest video-sharing platform in 2024, has an active user base of more than 2.50 billion. According to Statista, YouTube is estimated to increase its user base by 232.5 million from 2024 to 2029.
It’s a growing video-sharing platform, with millions of videos daily added to its database. You can find answers to any problem’s solution on YouTube in video format.
YouTube’s perfect video search engine is its great infrastructure, extensive content library, and advanced search algorithms. It can also filter videos based on keywords, hashtags, and video types to present the most accurate data for its users. This is a perfect combination of social media and video search engines! Sometimes, some videos are hidden but may benefit you and you have been searching for a long time. Try to find that on YouTube; you can watch the hidden or unlisted videos.
2. Google
– First Established: September 4, 1998
– Founders: Larry Page, Sergey Brin
Does this search engine need any introduction? Google is the world’s most influential search engine, offering solutions to almost everything. It has millions of websites working and curating information within the platform, making it more rich with information every day.
Google’s search engine has ever-changing algorithms, extensive indexing capabilities, and seamless integration with different services. You can expect cutting-edge technologies from Google, delivering precise and relevant video search results.
For ranking content, Google uses different elements such as keywords, user behavior, context, and metadata to rank web pages, metadata, or video content more efficiently. Google also has a search bar to help you navigate more different types of data from the same keyword.
3. TikTok
– First Established: September 2017 (first name was Douyin, later it got rebranded as TikTok in September 2017)
– Founders: Zhang Yiming
TikTok is one of the first successful leading social media sites for vertical videos and paved the way for a different type of product marketing. It is known for its innovative content discovery algorithms and region-based creator communities worldwide.
Well, TikTok’s success peaked because of its robust and highly advanced recommendation system powered by Artificial Intelligence. This search function can analyze various user interactions, watch time, and users spending time to present a personalized content feed for each user.
The search functionality of TikTok also has some great features, such as keyword recognition, search term history, and related keyword recommendations.
4. Facebook
– First Established: February 4, 2004
– Founders: Eduardo Saverin, Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum
Facebook is the industry giant of social media. It has all the necessary functionalities to open communities, upload content, and start a business. It also offers an extensive array of video content and a great search engine that provides the most precise results as fast as possible.
In 2021, Facebook introduced Reels, a great vertical video feature offering amazing opportunities to express yourself. With all the social media elements combined, Facebook needed a sophisticated search system that could help its users find any content they desire.
With these personalized filters, you can get the most relevant search results, including videos!
5. Instagram
– First Established: October 6, 2010
– Founders: Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger
Instagram works pretty much the same as Facebook reels, but a personalized video uploading for any individual. Initially, Instagram was used to share photos, but after the launch of Instagram reels on March 5th, 2020, the platform prioritized video content creation.
Instagram videos are perfectly integrated into stories, feeds, and reels. Because of its easy-to-navigate interface, finding someone’s account and specific content is easy.
Instagram’s search engine is pretty basic and only prioritizes specific Instagram IDs.
6. Vimeo
– First Established: November 2004
– Founders: Zach Klein, Jake Lodwick
Vimeo is a dedicated platform for professional video creators. It’s a multipurpose platform enables you to edit, upload, host, or record videos anytime. Vimeo also offers a small community for content creators.
In a broader sense, Vimeo is a sharing and hosting platform for professional video creators to produce and distribute high-quality video content. It’s a perfect video search engine for advanced searching capabilities.
With Vimeo, you can filter out thousands of data by specific parameters, like category, upload date, and video duration!
7. Dailymotion
– First Established: March 15, 2005
– Founders: Benjamin Bejbaum, Olivier Poitrey
Dailymotion is the French version of YouTube because it shares many similarities, such as categorizing videos based on topics, keyword recognition for searches, a personalized user feed, and displaying videos based on user preference.
This platform is perfect for content creators and casual viewers, offering a seamless viewing experience.
8. Bing
– First Established: June 3, 2009
– Founders: Developed by Microsoft
The final search engine on our list is Bing, which uses YouTube to showcase videos to its users. Bing’s search engine interface, similar to Google’s, also makes it hard to find any dissimilarities between these two search engines.
Bing is a part of the Microsoft suite, so its users benefit from other Microsoft continuous technological advancements. The platform is also great for showcasing relevant, good-quality video content to users and enhancing their viewing experience.
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FAQ
Why does YouTube count as a search engine?
YouTube works just like traditional search engines like Google by providing users with their corresponding search results. Like conventional search engines, when you put a keyword in the YouTube search bar, its algorithm analyzes your keyphrase. It gives you valid results based on multiple factors like engagements, metadata, and authority. Any other standard search engine works precisely the same.
Does Google have a video search?
Affirmative, Just like phrases and photos, Google also has video searching capabilities, and Google can even show the most relevant videos if your phrase fulfills the necessary requirements.
Depending on the search result, Google can show you results from different sources, such as YouTube, Vimeo, independent videos, or other platform videos.
Which search engine is the smartest?
An intelligent search engine should have these capabilities,
- It should have advanced algorithms.
- Capable of understanding different types of phrases.
- Able to integrate with other multimedia platforms.
- Simple user interface.
- It should be compatible with different platforms.
- AI integrated.
Well, most search engines have these capabilities. Still, Google can suppress most search engines because it can analyze billions of data in a second and deliver personalized and accurate search results.
What is the YouTube search volume?
YouTube search volume is a metric that refers to the number of searches on the platform during a specific period. YouTube has an immense search volume daily; according to Mushroom Network, 100 million searches happen on YouTube every day.
What are some advantages of a search engine?
Search engines have several advantages,
- They can efficiently retrieve information.
- Gives you access to a vast database of knowledge.
- Contains millions of multimedia content.
- Helps in research on various topics.
- Give you precise search results.
- Can continuously improve and perform better.
- Have contextual awareness.
- Can rank other contents based on their information relevance.
Final Verdict
TikTok is the only recently released video platform still in a great position, and it still does a fine job curating millions of videos daily. Although we mentioned many other search engines in this blog, we will say Google and YouTube are the best video search engines because of their massive search volume.
If someone lives in the most distant part of the world and has an internet connection, they will search something on YouTube or Google it, who knows.
However, popularity alone might not suffice. We must also consider TikTok’s vertical video revolution, Facebook’s perfect community search engine, or Vimeo’s professional-level search settings.
Good read
Thanks for this resourceful content.